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Dani opens her eyes so wide I’m pretty sure they will pop out of her face on cartoonish stalks. Silence hangs in the hallway as she thinks of something to say.
She can’t.
“Mum, the Bolognese?” Isaac gives me the disparaging look he’s perfected over the last couple of months. He’s also started doing this ‘Ugh, ugh’ thing, where he throws about his arms and gets all agitated with me. I was worried he was suffering from seizures but the third doctor I harassed trying to get answers regarding my son’s mysterious illness assured me it’s all perfectly normal and down to hormones which kick in at nine.
Nine? I think he’s been suffering from hormone changes since he was six and learnt how to have an opinion different to my own.
“Bolognese!” I shout, and dash to the kitchen. Dani walks in behind me, unscrewing the cap off the wine.
A glance at the clock on the wall tells me it’s early, but hey, it’s been a big day.
“You have a son?”
“Yeah, and you?”
“You had a child and didn’t tell me?” Her arms instantly fold into a shield. Her nose pinches as her eyes narrow.
I try to distract her from what seems like an achingly familiar battle stance. “Did you? Have a child I mean.”
A cloud passes across her face. “Not yet.” There’s a little stab in my stomach that’s guilt inducing and heart harpooning. Not every woman shucks out a baby before she’s nineteen like she’s shelling a pea. I won’t allow myself to think of a life other than the one I’ve walked.
“I’m sorry.” I detract all the attention from myself and throw her a cheeky grin that sits a little foreign on my lips. “There’s still plenty of time. But Grant? Really, Grant?”
“He won me over!”
“How bloody long did that take?”
Dani laughs. “Seven years, thereabouts.”
“I would have made it seven more! I thought he was going travelling again, you know, after . . .” I trail off. I’m not really ready to drag up the past yet. Not willing to talk about Freddy, the accident which nearly killed him, nor the six months I spent waiting for him to get better, or the fact he dumped me as soon as he got his legs back.
“Things changed pretty quickly after you left, Amber.” Her lips purse so I’m sure she’s holding herself back. I’m more than happy with holding back from the recriminations that could fly between us. My cheeks burn and my hands rise automatically, my fingers pressed against the warmth.
“Yeah?” I can’t meet her eyes. “Things changed quickly for me too.” I’m not proud of the person I was after I left home. It’s taken me a long time to move on from it. Isaac was the one who made me move on.
“Amber?” Dani slams cupboard doors as she searches for wine glasses. There aren’t any in my mother’s teetotal house. I just take the bottle from her hand and swig out of it before offering it back to her. Once she’s had a sip, she continues. “Why the hell did you leave?”
Taking the bottle firmly back in my grasp I gulp down some more. “We were all leaving anyway, weren’t we?”
“Yeah, but not like that. We didn’t know where you were. We didn’t even know if you were dead. Just nothing.” She balls her hands into fists and adopts a pose Superman would be proud of. “Jesus, I can’t believe you have a child.”
I don’t know what to say. I should say sorry, but I had my reasons for leaving, no matter how pathetic they were. I try and spin them into an explanation that won’t sound too feeble.
“I guess, I just thought my life was going to be a happy one here, and when that was taken away, I figured it better to split then be unhappy.”
“And were you happy where you were?” Dani relaxes her stance and reaches over, placing her hand on mine.
I think for a long moment. I think of the hours I spent with Isaac, just staring at him, revelling in him, but then I remember the loneliness and the eventual disappointment that I couldn’t make anything work in the long run. “No.”
“So are you back for good now?”
She’s asked the question I can’t answer. I dodge the inquiry with a clumsy distraction. “Come on, let’s go outside.” I motion to the back door.
“Amber, are you back for good now?” she insists again, walking after me into the overgrown, jungle-inspired garden.
