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‘Sallie and I split up in May.’
‘Really?’ Annabelle wasn’t sure she believed him – he’d not mentioned it before. Uncharitably she wondered who had ended it, and she hoped it was Sallie, to give Troy a taste of his own medicine.
‘Bella, I admit it – I made a mistake. A big one.’
‘With Sallie?’
‘With you, you daftie. I should never have let you go.’
‘You didn’tlet me go– you went to live with someone else.’ Her laugh was scornful.
‘I was a wally.’
‘You’ve got that right.’
‘Please come back. If not to me, then come back to Australia.’
Annabelle snorted. ‘And where are we supposed to live? The house has been repossessed, thanks to you.’
‘It was a blip,’ Troy protested.
‘Some blip! Anyway, if you really miss the kids as much as you say you do, you would have made some effort to contact them before now. They deserve an explanation.’
‘I didn’t want to speak to them until I knew what was happening. Everything was a mess for a while.’
‘And it’s not now? It bloody well looks it from where I’m standing.’
‘Look, Bella, I made a mistake, but I’m sorting it. Give a fella a chance, eh?’
‘You had your chance. The kids are settled. I’m not uprooting them again.’
You’ve only been there a couple of months. Just tell them it was an extended holiday.’
‘No. Absolutely not. We’re not going back to Australia and that’s final.’
‘Mum? Are you talking to Dad?’ Jake’s voice made her jump and she looked around to find the front door wide open and her son standing a few feet away from her.
Dam! Without saying goodbye to Troy, she ended the call and stuffed the phone into her pocket. ‘Er, yes, but he’s got to go, he’s busy. He’ll call you another time.’
‘I want to speak to himnow.’ Jake looked mutinous. His chin was jutting out and his eyes brimmed with tears.
When the phone rang, Annabelle didn’t need to look at the screen to know it was Troy trying to call her back. With Jake glaring at her, she dumped the call.
‘That was Dad again, wasn’t it?’ he demanded. ‘You said he wasbusy.’ He spat the last word out.
‘It… er…’ She wanted to deny that the call had been from Troy, but she couldn’t lie to her son.
‘I hate you!’ Jake shouted. ‘You don’t care about me and Izzie – all you care about is yourself! I want to go home. I hate it here. And I want to live with Dad, not you!’ And with that, he spun on his heel and stormed back inside.
Annabelle felt sick. Her stomach churned and her pulse raced, and when she tried to follow her son she discovered that her legs were shaking.
Leaning against the nearest car for support, she began to cry. What had she done? She should have let Jake speak to his father, but she hadn’t felt able to deal with the fallout once Jake knew that his dad wanted them to go back to Australia.
Instead of containing the situation, she’d gone and made things worse.
She had known as soon as she’d read the letter which had blown her life apart, that it would be one step forward and two steps back when it came to the children and their feelings, but she hadn’t expected it to be so hard. She certainly hadn’t expected her previously easy-going and sunny son to tell her he hated her.
Jake and Izzie needed to speak with their father, but she didn’t want Troy filling their heads with nonsense about going back. How could they return to Australia? She didn’t trust her ex-husband as far as she could throw him, and she noticed that he managed to dodge the question when she’d asked him where they were supposed to live. Anyway, even if she did take the children back, she had nothing to live on and no job, so she could hardly pick up the threads of her old life as though nothing had happened.
They were better off staying here, even if Jake didn’t think so. She was the adult and she could see the bigger picture, so it was up to her to decide what was best for them. And if it wasn’t what Troy wanted, then tough luck. He’d made his bed and now he had to lie on it, however thorny he found it.
Unfortunately, she was also forced to lie on a bed he’d made for her, and those damned thorns were sharp enough to pierce her aching heart.
