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“Can I bring my toys down from my room?”

“Yeah! Of course! I’ll tell you what. Come with me while I get out the candles.”

Lexi’s little head bobbed up and down in agreement so Sarah scooped down and picked her up, hugging her tight, knowing the gesture was more to give herself comfort than Lexi, who seemed to have accepted their predicament with aplomb.

Perhaps a hangover from having grown up in a trailer in one of the most cyclone-sieged areas of the country, Sarah was always well-stocked for disasters. She pulled out two boxes of unopened candles and began to stuff them into jars, six or seven apiece, so that when they were lit, each one emitted a decent glow. Paired with a couple of upright torch lights and the lounge was almost cosy.

“See how fun this is?” She asked, smiling brightly, all the while inwardly fuming over how the hell this had happened.

“Yeah.” Lexi shrugged. “Can we go get my stuff.”

Sarah nodded. “Why don’t you have a bath and I’ll set up down here.”

“Oh. No.” She shook her head. “You’ll stay with me, won’t you?” The fear was obvious in the little girl’s question.

“Of course.” Sarah’s smile hid a tumult of emotions. “I have a call to make anyway.”

She scooped up two of the make-shift candle-lights, one each hand. “Grab a torch, honey.”

She kept her fingers crossed that there’d be enough hot water in the tank to run at least a shallow bath for Lexi. Tears sparkled in her eyes and she was glad beyond bearing that Lexi couldn’t see her properly. Similarly, the relief on her features when the relief of warm water burst from the taps. Thank heavens for small mercies.

She turned her back from the bath as Lexi climbed in, sitting on top of the closed toilet and scrolling through her dialled numbers.

There was the electric company. She’d spoken to them only days earlier to arrange deferred payment. They’d told her it would be fine. She pressed the number and sat, waiting for it to connect. She was put immediately on hold and all the while, she watched the battery of her phone slowly dying.

“Damn it,” she muttered, after twenty minutes of waiting, and Lexi’s patience was obviously wearing thin with floating in the tub.

“Don’t swear, mama!” She said again, as though Sarah had let fly the string of satisfying curses that were slamming through her mind.

“Sorry.” Her phone buzzed against her ear and she pulled it away a little to see the screen.

It was a message from an unknown number. Curiously, she pressed into it.

You should still be here.

Her heart hammered as though he’d walked into the room. And though none of this was his fault, she felt a strong burst of anger for the hardships she was trying to navigate. The cheque she’d torn up sat accusingly at the front of her mind. Why had she been so damned proud? That money could have fixed everything.

But she would always have known he’d bought her.

And that would have killed her.

More than this? More than bathing her daughter by candlelight, with no idea of when she’d be able to get the power re-connected? Oh, Lord, and what kind of fees there’d be?

Panic swirled in her gut and it took every ounce of Sarah’s inner-strength not to give in to the tears that were moist on her lashes.

“I’m cold.”

Sarah startled, focussing her gaze on Lexi. She reached forward and dangled her hand in the wat

er. It was tepid. “Okay, honey. Wash your bod and pull the plug. You’re done.”

“Thank goodness. I am so ready to get out.”

Sarah smothered a smile at the sweet turn of phrase.

The hold music cut off abruptly and Sarah held her breath, expecting to be put through to an operator. But instead, her phone made an empty dial tone. She’d been cut off? What the hell? And spending half an hour on hold had drained a heap of her battery.

It doesn’t feel like this is over.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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