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Arching my brow, I say, “I thought you didn’t like driving cars?”
“I don’t,” he grumbles. “Couldn’t pick you up on my bike, could I?”
Opening the passenger door, I slid in and shut out the rain. Fine British weather at its best.
“We’re picking up Tommy from school then Evie from work. And are you not gonna say hello to your niece?”
Checking over my shoulder, little Rosie Mitchell, seven months old and cute as a button, is sleeping in her car seat.
“I can’t wait for cuddles.” Glancing to my brother, I say, “I’m surprised you’re letting Evie work, and not keeping her barefoot and pregnant at home.”
He snorts. “I would if she wasn’t so stubborn. We compromised and she works two days a week. She doesn’t want to be completely dependent on me. Personally, I think she gets off on making me lose my fucking mind.”
My laughter fills the car until he shushes me, not wanting to wake the baby.
“Are you sure it’s okay for me to stay with you?”
He takes his eyes off the road for a brief second, but that’s all it takes to see his glare.
“Of course, it is, why wouldn’t it be okay?”
Shrugging, I get his full attention when we stop at a red light. “You’re married now, you have kids, you’ve got the whole family thing going for you. I don’t want to be in the way.”
“Fucking hell, Lex. You’re my sister, you’re never in the fucking way. Keep talking shit like that and I’ll take you straight back to prison.”
The light turns green, and he pulls away. I roll down my window and close my eyes, enjoying the wind on my face. The rain has slowed to a drizzle and when we park up at Tommy’s school, Louis asks, “Can you wait here with Rosie, I won’t be long.”
“Sort me out a smoke and I will.”
“Not in the car.”
Rolling my eyes, he tosses me his pack of cigarettes and his lighter. Climbing out of the car, I quietly close the door so as not to wake the baby and light up my first cigarette as a free woman.
“I won’t be long,” Louis says and walks through the school gates just as the bell rings.
He seems completely out of place with his leather and patches, but I don’t think it’s his kutte most of the mums are staring at. My brother is a good-looking man, and I grew sick of hearing about it from old friends a long time ago.
Inhaling long and hard on the cigarette, I exhale a long stream of grey smoke up into the air and receive glares from a couple of uppity mothers walking by. Partaking in the breathing exercises a police officer once taught me as a child to calm me down. I practise inhaling for four seconds and exhaling for six seconds so as not to lose my shit and by the time I’m on round two they’ve passed and disappeared into the playground. I remind myself these mothers are not the same as the women I’m used to being surrounded by.
A second bell rings and all hell descends, doors slam open and crowds of kids run outside. Life rewinds twenty-five years and the one thing I hated more than ever was going home after school. Louis always waited for me and walked me back to the house of fucked up horrors, but the school itself, I loved. It was warm in the winter and lunch was hot every day no matter the season. And no one raised a hand to me when I got something wrong. School was my safe place and I hate that’s a fact in my life. It was the same for Louis. But he went on to find his version of safety in the club and then again when he met Evie.
“Aunt Lexi!”
Taking one last pull on my cigarette, I grind it out under my boot and turn to face Tommy, throwing my arms open as he runs toward me.
“Hey, look how much you’ve grown! I only saw you last month.”
He runs into me, nearly knocking me over, and wraps his arms around me. I hold him back and remember the first time we met.
Louis and Evie had been married a week when they brought him into the prison to meet me and once I called him Tommy and not Thomas, that’s been his name ever since and he’s called me Auntie. Louis is the dad and the kid has a family. He doesn’t see that he and his mum were exactly what Louis and I needed. A family.
“Dad said you’re coming to live with us. Is it true?”
His mousy brown hair is longer than the last time I saw him, but his eyes are still brimming with innocence and joy. The trait of someone who only knows love and contentment.
“It sure is, but first we’ve got to go pick your mum up from work.”
He’s full of questions during the drive across town and I climb out once again to hug Evie when she comes out of the salon. When Louis first asked me to get to know her, it was just something to do to entertain myself and do a favour for my family. In prison, the days are painfully long, and the smallest of changes can become something huge. She’s become a good friend to me over the last couple of years. She became a sister.
