Even though she’d just been thinking the same thing, hearing him admit they’d had a team, and that she wasn’t on it, really stung. “You had a team, did you? That’s nice. I wish I’d had a mother. I would have loved one, actually.”
“You had one,” Dan said. “You just didn’t give a shit about her.”
“Dan!”
“Just a fact.”
“I was there for her small operation, her big operation, the hospital…”
“What about the other thirty years you were both alive at the same time?”
“I suppose there were the eleven years I lived in her various houses as a child? I was left behind after that. Raised by a school instead.”
“You loved your school, you were obsessed by school, you couldn’t wait to get back there every holiday, crossing the days off your calendar and ignoring us. You had no idea what life was like for Mum and me as Dad grew more and more powerful, and we only got more scared. You turned your eyes away. Then you got away for real.”
Coralie’s breathing was fast, her vision blurred. “I don’t think I got away. It’s followed me around—everywhere!”
Dan looked around at her cozy kitchen. “You got away.”
“I don’t think I did, but I agree I wasn’t there. Not in the way you were. And I’m really sorry about it. Youwerethere. You were there for Mum. You were a hero with her—an absolute hero.”
“Cor, I wasn’t a hero,” Dan said. “I was a mess. You had no idea—I had a breakdown when I was eighteen. And another one around the time of her big second op. That’s why I stayed home, and then why I moved home again. Not to look after her—so she could look after me. So, stop, please. Stop being nice to me. I don’t actually deserve it.”
What was this feeling inside her? Whatever it was, she hated it. Dan’s big eyes and long lashes—so like Max’s. She saw his perfect, smooth face, his poreless skin. She wanted to claw and scratch at it. Envy, that’s what it was. She was sick with it. Mum had accepted love from Dan and had given him her love back. Why not Coralie?
“Cor,” Dan said. “What’s going on in your mind? I was trying to make you feel better.”
On the kitchen counter, her phone lit up with an alert—she’d missed a call from Adam. She rang back. When the call connected, she could hear Max screaming in the background.
“Max is okay,” Adam said. “We were on Broadway Market, and I had to take a call. I was gone forten minutes. Roger said he was buying some wine.”
“What happened? Adam!” A car accident. Deliveroo guys on their bikes. “Is he hurt? Is Max hurt?”
But Adam had hung up.
•••
She could hearthe crying from down the street. Roger was pushing the empty buggy. Maxi was sobbing in Adam’s arms. Coralie couldn’t see what was wrong. His legs were kicking, both his arms were around Adam’s neck. There didn’t seem to be any blood.
“Oh shit,” Daniel said.
“See!” Roger gestured at his children. “Real men have short hair! Even Uncle Danny!”
Coralie started jogging. “I’m so sorry,” Adam said. “I’m so sorry.”
She took her son into her arms. His beautiful hair was gone. It was shorter than Daniel’s. The sides and back had been shaved. He looked like a ketamine dealer, like he should be riding a stolen Lime bike or wearing a St. George’s flag around his shoulders and a shirt readingConvicted of Journalism.
“For God’s sake,” her father said. “Adam was off doing God knows what. The barber was right there. I washelping.”
Maxi was staring at her, wondering how to feel. She pressed him into her chest, gathering the strength she needed to be calm. He’dstopped crying but was breathing raggedly, periodically racked with sobs. “That was a bad surprise, wasn’t it,” she murmured. “You didn’t know Grandad was going to get your hair cut.”
Maxi whimpered.
“You’re very, very beautiful,” Coralie said. His eyes were a startling blue, and his thick lashes curled up like a Rimmel ad. “I’ve got you now. I’ve got you.”
But that’s what she always said, that’s what she’d made her mission—looking after her children and protecting them from harm. She had failed.
“What the fuck were you doing?” she hissed at Adam inside.
