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Confused, his forehead scrunched up. He’d been sure the issue was him dating. “This is about your mum?” he asked.
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“If you’re too upset to go to school, I’m afraid you’re going to have to talk about it.” He took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “If you’re upset about the baby, it’s okay.”
“I’m not upset about the baby. That’s not why I don’t want to go to school.”
“Why then?”
“Because …” She folded her arms across her chest and slammed her head back against the couch as tears spilled down her cheeks. “Because Eva and Sophie and Charlotte are always talking about stuff I don’t know about and they send messages with jokes I don’t understand and it’s not fair and I don’t want to go to school.”
Anger tightened every muscle in Hugh’s body. He knew girls her age had a reputation for being mean, but he’d been confident that Emmy’s little clique was a good group.
“I don’t understand what this has got to do with your mum,” he said, trying to get everything straight.
“It doesn’t matter.” She wiped furiously at her cheeks. “I don’t want to talk about it. Just don’t make me go to school please.”
“If the girls are being mean we need to sort that out. I’ll come into school with you and we can talk to your teachers.” His blood felt as though it pulsed hotter. “I’ll speak to their parents as well. If they’re upsetting you, we need to figure this out.”
“They’re not upsetting me,” she sobbed. “It’s not them.”
“Em.” He shook his head. “I don’t understand what’s going on.”
“They do stuff together in the school holidays,” she said tearfully. “They have sleepovers and do cool stuff. Last week they went to a Ghost Moon concert. All three of them together with their mums. And they asked if I wanted to go, but I can’t because I have to visit Mum in the holidays. Now they’re talking about everything they did in the holidays and laughing at stuff that happened, and it’s not fair because I don’t even want to visit Mum every holidays, but now Mum wants me to visit her more and stay for longer so I can spend time with the baby. But I don’t want to.” Finally, she stopped talking and flung herself into Hugh’s arms.
While she sobbed and repeatedly declared that it wasn’t fair, Hugh held her tight and felt a rush of relief. Because this problem felt much easier to deal with than what he thought was going on. This he could fix.
“You can’t tell Mum,” she said, when she began to calm down.
Hugh pulled back to look at her. “Your mum won’t mind if you don’t want to visit every holidays.”
“She will mind. She’ll make a big deal of it like she made a big deal of me getting the plane on my own.”
“How do you mean?” Hugh asked, narrowing his eyes.
Emmy tugged her sleeve over her hand to wipe at her cheeks while more tears came. “I hate flying alone,” she said. “But Mum really wanted me to and then she was saying how great it is that I’m so independent and how much easier it makes everything.”
“I asked you so many times,” Hugh grumbled. “You always told me you’re happy going on your own.”
“Because otherwise you have to take me and pick me up. Mum hardly ever did it and it’s not fair to you.”
“But if you’re not comfortable flying alone, I’d rather come with you.”
“It’s really annoying for you. And you have to pay for the flight.”
His stomach clenched at the thought that she’d been pretending she was fine travelling alone because she was worried about inconveniencing him.
“It’s not annoying,” he told her seriously. “It’s actually less stress for me to take you because then I don’t need to spend that time worrying about you. Also, I can drink a beer on the flight and feel as though I’m on holiday.”
That drew a sliver of a smile. “Sorry,” she whispered.
“You don’t have anything to be sorry for.” He put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her to his chest. “I’ll talk to your mum about you not going over there every school holiday.”
“She’ll be annoyed. She wants me to go more, not less.”
He shook his head. “She’ll understand that you want to spend time with your friends. And the main reason she wants you to go over more is because she’s worried about you feeling left out when the baby arrives.”
“So it’s not because she loves me and wants to spend more time with me?”
