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None.
And if she didn’t at least try to tell Ilyas, she would be all her son had.
Maggie had always wanted to know about her father.
At night, in various care homes, she would fall asleep dreaming of aunts and uncles and cousins that were surely out there somewhere...
Ilyas was so remote, so unreadable that she could not gauge how he would take it.
That morning, she had lain there, feeling her baby fluttering in her tummy and, needing advice, Maggie had texted Flo.
Can you stop by the café on your way to work? I have something to ask you.
* * *
Maggie smiled as her friend came into the café. Flo’s blonde hair was tied up and Maggie knew she was on her way to a late shift at the hospital. She didn’t need to take her friend’s order since it was carved in stone—hot chocolate and apain au chocolat.
‘Take your lunch when you’re ready,’ Paul called.
‘Thanks,’ Maggie replied, and decided to just take the next customer’s order since she had been patiently waiting.
‘Can I have a mint hot chocolate, please?’ the lady said. ‘To go.’
‘Sure.’ Maggie nodded.
‘What’s the cake of the day?’
‘Dark chocolate and ginger,’ Maggie said. ‘And I can vouch that it is amazing!’
Yes, her love of chocolate had returned!
She took the lady’s order and handed over the change, and it was only then, when the lady held out her hand, that Maggie noticed the white stick that she held in the other and that she was, in fact, blind.
‘Enjoy,’ Maggie said, placing the money in her palm and then, once she had put it away, handing her the cake and the cup.
Paul had already made up her and Flo’s lunches and they soon sat down to their delights as the lady made her way out.
‘I didn’t realise she was blind when I served her,’ Maggie admitted as she watched her skilfully negotiate the glass door.
Flo looked up from adding sugar to her already sweet hot chocolate and watched the lady leave.
How Flo got away with it, Maggie would never know. She was tiny, even though she ate like a horse and had never set foot in a gym. As well as that she was blonde and gorgeous.
And an utter dating disaster!
Flo attracted bastards more than anyone Maggie had ever met.
Her china-blue eyes seemed to draw them in like moths to a flame.
‘She wasn’t born blind,’ Flo declared.
‘Sorry?’ Maggie checked.
‘If someone is born blind they don’t know to know to turn their head towards voices or lift their face to the sun,’ Flo explained, ‘because they’ve never seen light or colour. Whereas, if someone loses their sight later on, they’ve already got the responses.’
‘Oh!’ Maggie said, as she poured some cream onto her cake. ‘You know the most amazing things!’
‘Oh, I do. I see that you’ve got your appetite back!’
