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Freddy and Isaacboth push their food around their plate. I’m rinsing a pan under a tap before sitting down myself to join them. Mum’s already tucked up; it’s part of the new routine we started months back after she was diagnosed with Sundowners Syndrome, an illness that sits side by side with Alzheimer’s. She now gets put to bed early before she can become overstimulated or the dark takes her to that frightening place like it did back in September. It’s helped make things more manageable, but every day I lose a little bit more of the mother that I’ve never really known. I’m working out it’s one of the bittersweet ironies of life: to lose something you never had.
There’s a lot of sniggering coming from the table, but every time I turn my head to catch what’s going on they both duck down and concentrate on their food.
Hmm.
I’m starving when I finally get to sit down in front of my plate of food. Freddy gives an outright snort of laughter and Isaac’s shoulders shake. “Okay, what’s going on, guys?” I quiz, painting a frown on my face for good effect. The kitchen is no longer as dismal as it used to be. Freddy replaced the various tones of beige with a whitewash weeks ago, and the room is no longer as bleak as it once was.
Neither of them meets my eyes so I set about organising the perfect forkful. Freddy laughs harder before cracking and just putting his head on the table, his plate pushed out of the way. He hasn’t eaten anything. Strange.
“Come on, Freddy. Eat up, it’s going to get cold.”
In response, Freddy practically wails with laughter before pulling himself under control and lifting himself off the table. “Honestly, Isaac, I just don’t understand how you’ve survived.” He looks at Isaac with sympathy.
“What?” Putting down my knife and fork, I fold my arms and look at the two of them jigging up and down with giggles. “Isaac?”
“Seriously, Amber,” Freddy continues. “How’s it possible for you to be such a terrible cook? The fish fingers are still frozen, but the chips are burnt. I don’t even understand how you managed that.”
I inspect my plate, poking my fish finger. They’re right. The fish is still hard and cold in the middle. “Shit.”
“Can we have pizza?” Isaac implores me with a hopeful look. Pizza is probably a good idea, but I’m low on funds, what with my current inability to work on a new novel or market any of my current ones due to spending most of my time staring at Freddy. It’s time well spent as far as I’m concerned, but it doesn’t pay the bills.
“Sure, go and get the menu,” Freddy answers for me.
Isaac dashes out of the room and I can hear him sliding the drawers of the bureau in the hall. “You can’t keep bribing him with pizza,” I hiss at Freddy as soon as he’s out of earshot.
It’s not just pizza. It’s the treehouse now standing proud in the garden, and the tinkering with expensive cars that goes on at the weekend, wellmyweekends anyway. I’m still sharing my son with Elliot, but in my soul, I can feel the tide changing. Having Freddy here, doing boys stuff, is making Isaac want to spend more time at home.
“Just one more pizza and then we will eat your frozen fish fingers forever more.” Freddy grins at me and gets up to relieve the fridge of two more cold beers. As he pops the lids, I know I’ve lost yet another evening of work.
Moving fast, he manages to swoop in, plant a kiss on my lips, and be back sitting in his seat by the time Isaac returns to the kitchen with the takeaway menu in his hand.
Freddy is a ‘friend’. It’s been a slow process, but I’m so determined not to repeat my previous mistakes that it couldn’t have been any other process apart from a slow one. The day we came home from Freddy’s garage/apartment we put on a united front. Later the same day, Elliot knocked on the door, his face primed with smugness, only to be replaced with surprise when we opened the door together. Once Isaac was safely home, Freddy left. He comes back every evening for dinner, strolling in after work, like we’ve always lived together. But he always leaves before the morning.
Isaac stopped crawling into my bed at night just after starting his new school. A combination of getting older, hanging with Bailey, and going out like a light after a full day. Another reminder that every day my ‘baby’ grows up.
Freddy and Isaac are building a fragile relationship of trust and respect, and every time I see them together it makes my heart swell to the point of bursting. Isaac loves that Freddy doesn’t talk to him like a child. He explains everything to him as he would an adult, even when it comes to the internal mechanics of an engine. Mr Bale Senior has even been around with tools for Isaac; all Freddy’s old ones which he’d kept.
We are being treated like family. I just need to explain to Isaac how things now stand with Freddy. Hopefully then he won’t have to sneak off in the dark of night. We will be able to tell Isaac the truth, and then, just maybe—and it’s a far-reaching dream that I can barely allow myself to hope for—but then maybe our lives will be the way they alwaysshouldhave been.
The time is nearly right. The anger that Isaac was walking around with before has dissipated. He finally told me that Elliot has been exaggerating the truth, telling him that I’d uprooted him and moved us here so I could be with Freddy.
I explained that it was a lie, that I came here to look after Crazy Nanny Barb and that anything else happening was just fate.
Fate and timing. I can’t help but think the two things are irrevocably connected. Ten years ago, fate stepped in and made the timing not right, but this time it’s playing us a different hand. A better hand.
Once the pizza’sbeen scoffed, I start the process of clearing up—again. I must say, the pizza was much better than fish fingers and chips. One of these days I need to learn to cook because it’s becoming embarrassing on my days in the kitchen that Freddy is far superior than me. Even Isaac groans now when he knows it’s a Mum night and not a Freddy night.
“Bath,” I instruct Isaac. He dutifully ignores me and picks up his iPad. “Bath,” I say again.
“Later.” Isaac doesn’t take his eyes off his game, or whatever he’s looking at.
‘Now,” I warn him again with my elbows deep in washing up bubbles.
“In a bit.” His tone is offhand.
