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‘We haven’t really gotten to know her, have we?’
‘She’s not a great socialiser.’
‘Love, you can stop the ride now and get off. Every day you leave it, it will be harder to—’
‘No, Mum. Please. I can’t and that’s that.’ His voice was hard, adamant, so she left it, though she didn’t want to.
‘Are you having Jamie as your best man?’ she asked, taking the heat out of her voice.
Sunny and Jamie had been best pals from primary school, close as brothers all the way through their lives. Close as she and Denny Smith had once been.
‘Of course.’
‘Do you still see him? At rugby?’
‘Yeah, but not much outside that. He’s busy, I’m busy.’
Shay leaned forward, reached for her son’s hand; his long fingers felt cold and his knuckles were cracked and dry. Stress was telling on him right to the ends of his extremities. She remembered when his hands were small, soft and always warm and often spotted with some paint he’d missed when washing them. She’d loved holding her children’s hands as they walked to school, skipping, happy little souls. If only she’d known when it was the last time, because she would have savoured it like a treasure.
‘Sunny, if you have anything you need to tell me, you can. Whatever it is. However difficult a scrape you’re in. God knows your sister’s never been frightened of holding back.’ She paused, wet her lips with her tongue. ‘I never told you this but I had a friend when I was young who killed himself. He wouldn’t open up to me and—’
Sunny’s response was immediate. ‘There’s nothing, Mum. Honestly. I’m okay, just a bit overworked. I’m fine, really.’ He looked at her square in the eye, to convince her that what he was saying was the truth. The same way she had looked into her mother’s eyes outside the church on the day of her wedding.
Chapter 24
The phone woke Shay the next morning at nine-thirty. It wasn’t exactly a lie-in because she and sleep were presently enemies. She’d been watching crap TV until three, wondering what her son wasn’t telling her and what her husband was doing. She didn’t know whether to be upset more than angry, angry more than worried and so her mood rebounded between all three. Mental exhaustion was the only method of getting to sleep at the moment.
‘Hello, Auntie Shay, I didn’t get you up did I?’ Little Mort’s deep bass voice.
‘Not at all, love,’ she lied. ‘Everything all right?’
A beat. A telling beat.
‘Can Dad come and see you? I’m so sorry about your mum and I know the timing is well off, but he needs to talk to you.’
Shay sat up in bed. ‘Is he okay?’ Stupid question; Morton would be a wreck and his son was obviously worried about him.
‘Not really.’ The answer she expected. ‘I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important, Auntie Shay, but… Please.’ There wassomething in his voice that she didn’t want to refuse, but she had nothing of herself to give at the moment.
‘I don’t know what I can tell him though, Mort. I haven’t heard from your mum. She’s not returning my calls or my texts or—’
‘Auntie Shay, please let my dad come to see you.’ That note of pleading had segued to urgency. ‘He’ll tell you about Mum.’
Her breath caught in her throat. ‘Oh God, nothing’s happened to her has it?’ She knew she was wired to think worst-case scenarios; a legacy of the past.
‘No, not like that. But he wants to talk to you face to face.’
Shay’s nerves backed off from the ledge.
‘What time does he finish work?’
‘About half-five.’
‘Tell him to come over then. We can talk over something to eat.’
Relief in his voice. ‘Thank you.’
‘Mort, are you okay, you don’t sound it?’
