He could still head home and arrive well before midnight. He’d no doubt have some fun activity planned with Shay for tomorrow, the Saturday before Christmas.
But it was Kieran. Bob’s uncle. The concerned crease below his white-blond fringe had triggered a response similar to stepping out of a storm into a warm house.
Beckett had slipped away, so I made two coffees, automatically adding loads of frothy milk and sugar, how Kieran liked it. After chopping two thick slices of a leftover yule log that Rina had brought, I took a seat at the table opposite Kieran. As always, I waited for my friend to take the lead.
‘What’s his name?’ Kieran nodded at Bob, still asleep in his car seat.
‘Robin Timothy, after my great-grandfather. I call him Bob.’
‘And is he… Are you… Has it been okay?’
‘What, giving birth and then figuring out how to look after a baby, by myself?’ I shook off another boulder of hurt. ‘It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever been through, by a mile.’
Kieran started to reply, his face creased in sympathy, but I hadn’t finished.
‘But also the best. For the first time, as an adult at least, I’ve had to deal with it alone. Make my own decisions. Decide what to do and how to do it. Discover whether I could actually function without you two – or Leo – propping me up. And I’m doing it, Kieran. Or starting to. Some days, at least. I’ve bought a cot, learnt the mystery of how to fold a pram down one-handed. How to do almost anything while breastfeeding. He’s put four pounds on, all down to nutrients from this slightly saggier body. I gave birth in a church. Made new friends who threw me a baby shower. This evening, I was at a dress rehearsal for a carol concert, which I created all the costumes for. It’s been full of the challenges and heartbreaks that go with any adventure. The sleepless nights alone almost broke me. But they didn’t. I feel like it might be the making of me. I’m a mum now. And even as some days I want to bury my head under the duvet until someone else handles my problems, mostly, I love it. I’m slowly, two millimetres forwards, one back, building a life here for myself, and for maybe the first time ever, I’m proud of who I am. Or, at least, who I’m becoming.’
‘That’s amazing.’ Kieran wiped his eyes. ‘I’m so made up that you’re proud of yourself. I’m proud of you. Leo would be, too. Although this house is grim. You should let Shay work her magic, sort it for you.’
‘Okay, firstly, we are nowhere near ready to be mentioning Leo. Secondly, Shay made her feelings on sorting anything out for me again quite clear.’
Kieran took a sip of coffee. ‘We will have to talk about him at some point.’
‘I know. I’ll decide when that is.’
‘And Shay would do anything to make things right with you. She’s devastated.’
‘Yeah, right. She looked positively bereft on that red-carpet thing she did a few weeks ago.’
‘Well, she’s hardly going to reveal her feelings in public, is she? She drove out to Chatsworth on your birthday and ordered a cream tea, in the vain hope you’d show up.’
It had become an annual tradition, a fancy cream tea in the stately home restaurant.
It was my turn to blink back tears.
‘I ate a cheap supermarket scone here, followed by a prepacked sandwich and a dry fairy cake. Wearing my pyjamas.’
‘Watching Hamilton?’
I nodded. We could sing every word off by heart.
‘Did you tell her you were coming to see me?’
Kieran shook his head. ‘She’d have been crushed if you turned me away.’
‘And she’d never have let you come without her. You were worried that her tell-it-how-Shay-sees-it approach could have ruined any chance of me letting you meet your nephew. How did you know where I was, anyway?’
‘You had to give your forwarding address to HR. I sneaked onto Naomi’s computer when she was flirting with the DPS guy.’
‘What, weird sideburns man?’ I screwed up my face in disgust. Not because of the sideburns. The DPS guy gave every woman in the building the ick.
Kieran laughed. ‘He was replaced months ago. The new one apparently looks like that actor from The Bear.’
‘Fair enough.’
There was a brief silence – not awkward, exactly. Kieran and I went far too deep for that. Maybe, a charged silence? We were teetering out onto a frozen lake, the hidden depths of which included my marriage to his half-brother, and everything that came after. It could crack at any moment.
‘I missed you, Mary.’
