Beckett’s heart dropped to the kitchen floor.
‘Say bye to Marvin for me. I don’t want to disturb him.’ Tanya’s voice cracked on the last few words, and Beckett knew she was serious.
‘Please.’ He had to try, anyway. ‘Can we talk about it properly, when we aren’t both exhausted? Give me one more chance. Please.’
‘I gave you one more chance the last time.’
‘Last time I had that seventeen-year-old, passed out drunk on the back seat. If I’d not stepped in, the guy would have?—’
‘I know, Beckett! You had to help. You always have to help. That’s the problem. You aren’t going to change, so this isn’t going to work.’
‘What will we do without you?’
She let out a noisy huff. However livid she was with Beckett, Tanya loved his grandpa. ‘You’re going to go online and find another care agency, and this time you’ll stick to the contract and not treat them like their own family or plans aren’t as important as yours.’
Swiping angrily at a tear, she pushed her trainers on. ‘It was my wedding anniversary last night, Beckett. Ian was waiting up for me. Instead I was here, on another man’s sofa.’
Tanya stalked over to the kitchen door. ‘Good luck. I wish you both the best.’
So now, here he was, facing the nightmare of trying to find another care assistant prepared to spend ten hours a day looking after an eighty-two-year-old man with multiple health issues and a foul temper. He’d taken the day off to take care of Gramps himself, and although Gramps struggled to keep track of which day it was, on some level the disruption to his schedule had caused anxiety, which displayed itself in rudeness, exhausting demands and generally being a grouch. The main reason Beckett drove a taxi was the flexible hours, because all too often a care assistant would call in sick at the last minute, quit with no notice or simply fail to show up, and, quite frankly, he couldn’t blame them. However, from her first day, Tanya had been a godsend. She’d taken Gramps’ difficulties in her stride and seemed instinctively to know how best to handle them. Beckett tried not to dwell on the irony that, this time, it was his unreliability that ended up being the problem.
He did call Sonali, who sometimes stood in when Tanya was on holiday or otherwise unavailable, but Sonali was in high demand and uninterested in working regular long shifts.
‘I’m available this afternoon, if you’re desperate. The fellow I was meant to be with died, so I’ve got a few spare shifts this week if you want to pencil something in. No ten-hour marathons, though. As much as I respect your grandfather’s unbreakable will and Houdini-like ability to place himself in life-threatening situations, it’s a lot easier to admire in small doses.’
They agreed that she’d come in at four, in time for a game of cards and a meal before Beckett came back at eight to start the evening routine.
Beckett didn’t mention that he wouldn’t be spending those four hours earning much-needed income.
After making a sandwich, then coaxing Gramps into eating three bites of it while surreptitiously trying to look up home-care agencies on his phone, he settled him in his armchair, turned on one of the quiz shows Gramps enjoyed shouting at and, for reasons he couldn’t admit to himself yet, quickly showered and pulled on a clean sweatshirt and jeans. He even tried putting his hair in a ponytail, but that made him feel like an oversized member of a nineties’ boyband, so he ditched that idea.
He opened the door for Sonali, and she did her usual playing with fire, scurrying in and planting a kiss on the top of his grandfather’s bald head.
‘It’s the witch!’ Marvin shrieked, and Sonali gave Beckett a triumphant thumbs up at being immediately recognised. He ignored how his guts twisted in response to the person his dignified grandfather had become.
‘Feeling well today, are we, Marvin? As full of your indomitable spirit as ever?’
‘I was until you turned up and assaulted me. Where’s the other one?’
‘Tanya is unable to come today. She’s very disappointed to miss out on whatever fabulously creative insults you come up with, but I’ve promised to record them for her, so don’t hold back just because I’m your favourite.’
‘Shut up and die.’
‘How about I put the kettle on, instead?’
Beckett left Gramps in Sonali’s capable hands, feeling guilty that he got to benefit from someone else passing away, but he couldn’t in all good conscience leave Mary and Bob to fend for themselves out there in the forest, with next to nothing.
He did have a last-minute wobble as he pulled into the driveway almost an hour later, loaded up with food, more baby stuff and a supermarket bouquet, because surely every woman giving birth should get flowers. What if he’d misread things last night, and right now Mary was being taken care of by a best friend, or even a partner? He’d not seen her notify anyone about Bob’s arrival, but she could have done it while he was talking with Pastor Moses. Maybe she had a whole gang of help who had simply happened to be too far away last night, or working. Looking after an elderly, sick relative.
But she’d told him she had no one to call, and the type of friends who might turn up to help the day after a baby was born would have made sure she had a cot, or at the very least a pack of nappies, before reaching this point.
Resolve strengthened, Beckett grabbed the bags of food and went to find out.
He almost left the shopping in the porch, concluding that Mary was either out or sleeping after she failed to answer his knocks, but then he heard a faint wail and decided she probably hadn’t heard him.
He walked around the side of the house and peered through glass doors leading into the back of the living room, where the cries were a lot louder. Seeing the shadow of Mary cut across the dim glow of a lamp, doing the unmistakable carrying-a-baby-bounce-up-and-down, he rapped on the glass without thinking about it.
She spun around, Bob clutched to her chest, her squeal blending with the baby’s, and Beckett realised a moment too late how stupid he’d been to bang on the patio door in the pitch-black darkness.
