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“No.” I cup his face with my hands, my own tears falling freely at the sight of his. “That’s not wrong. They are wrong. They are losing, not you.”
“Why doesn’t she love me, Gwen?” His voice is barely audible and I choke back a sob. He buries his face in my neck and with trembling arms he holds me to him so tightly I find it hard to breathe. “Why would she let them do that to me?”
I don’t know what to say so I don’t say anything. I just hold him as he cries, something I know that he has likely never done.
“I’m so sorry,” I sob, holding him just as tight as he holds me.
Frantic lips find mine and I let him kiss me. It’s painful, it’s rough but we both need it. He lifts me onto the counter and knocks the saucepan full of pasta onto the ground. My arms wrap around his neck as our mouths tangle as well as our tears. A strong hand grips the back of my head, disallowing me to move away, making it hard to breathe, but I don’t care. I let him. I absorb him. All of him. All of his pain. If I could take it into myself I would, but for now this will do.
“Uh-oh,” Dillan cries from the doorway and we both separate and look at where he’s pointing a chubby little finger. “Mess.”
“Naughty Daddy.” I playfully smack Nathan’s shoulder and wipe my cheeks on my sleeve. “Shall we get the brush?”
“Yeah.” Dillan goes straight for the cupboard under the stairs where we store the dustpan and brush.
Nathan grabs my wrist before I leave the room and yanks me sharply back to him. “Thank you for loving me, Gwen.”
With the back of my fingers, I stroke his still moist cheek and whisper, “I don’t know how anybody can do anything but love you, Nathan. You don’t know what you’re worth.”
He kisses me again, sweetly this time, and quickly turns away, his eyes glistening once more. I chase after Dillan, giving my fiancé the escape and privacy he needs.
“Let’s clean up this mess,” I tell Dillan, who is sweeping the hallway already despite it being sparkling clean. “In the kitchen, baby.” Emily toddles along after us with a feather duster.
Nathan stands at the back door with a glass in hand. It’s clear and I can’t tell if it’s vodka or water. When he downs the glass and his profile grimaces, I decide it must be vodka. As the kids are pushing the mess around the floor, I sneak up behind him and wrap my arms around his middle. He places a hand over my locked ones and sighs gravely.
“You go have a bath,” I tell him, my cheek pressed between his shoulder blades. “Relax.”
He nods, turns, kisses me and then stalks upstairs.
“Right,” I tell my beautiful babies. “Let’s clean this up and go.”
“Daddy gone,” Emily says, looking at the doorway.
“He’s gone to have a bath,” I assure her, though this doesn’t appease her. She can tell something’s wrong. Our daughter is a lot like her dad, brooding yet observant. “Come on.” I lift her into my arms and she rests her head against my shoulder. “What shall we eat?”
“Hey,” I say to Mum quietly through the phone as I step into the hall and close Dillan’s bedroom door quietly.
“Everything okay?” She asks. “You sound sad.”
“I only said ‘hey’. How can you tell I sound sad?”
“I’m your mum.”
“Good point.” I blow out a breath and silently creep to my bedroom. Peeking through the crack in the door, I spy Nathan sitting on the side of the bed, his shoulders slumped. Leaving him, I pad downstairs and fight back tears as I say, “I need you to have the kids for two nights.”
Her tone changes to one of serious concern. “What’s wrong?”
“I…” My voice cracks. “It’s Nathan.”
“Christ, what’s happened? Is he okay?”
“Physically he’s fine, but mentally… I’m worried. I need to… I just need to get him away for a little while.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
I exit the house and stand in the garden. The breeze blows my hair across my face so I turn to face it.
“I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“At the beginning.”
“Mum… Nathan was… I shouldn’t even… I…” Fuck. “I found DVDs of him being abused by his grandfather as a child and that’s why his dad burned the house down, because one of the DVDs showed that his dad knew and didn’t care because he needed money to keep his business afloat and Nathan’s grandfather paid for that. But you know his mum has come back into our lives? Well it was to double check that we didn’t have any more copies of these DVDs. Well we did. We had one and she took it and Nathan… Nathan is broken. Not because of the DVD but because she’s a lying sack of mouldy shit and I hate her. I HATE her for what she’s done.”
