“Why?”
Beth and Archie blushed and shifting in their seats, they no longer looked directly at their screen.
“Is everything all right?” Worried, Hannah refused to let worst-case scenarios take hold of her mind. “Has something happened?”
“Everything’s fine,” Beth said.
She and Archie didn’t look fine.
Beth fidgeted some more. “Apart from us needing to say sorry.”
“It’s why we rang,” Archie said.
Hannah narrowed her eyes. “Sorry about what?”
“For the other day,” Beth said.
Archie played with his hands. “We shouldn’t have laughed at you over the sponsored run.”
Hannah told herself she must have stepped into the twilight zone. Her children weren’t in the habit of apologising for anything, and watching them squirm, she silently questioned where their need to start stemmed from.
As if reading Hannah’s mind, Beth rolled her eyes in typical teenager fashion. “Monica had a word. And not just with us. She told Dad off for his behaviour too.”
Hannah pictured Carl getting a scolding and knowing he’d have hated every second of it, tried not to smirk. No wonder he was staying out of the way. He probably didn’t think he’d done anything to apologise for.
“She said Dad was lucky to have an ex-wife like you. If she were in your shoes, no way wouldshebe so understanding,” Archie said.
“Monica thinks we should have all been more supportive. Instead of being disrespectful,” Beth said.
As a mum, Hannah felt uncomfortable at someone else admonishing her children. At the same time, the more she heard about Carl’s girlfriend, the more Hannah liked her.
“And what do you two you think?” The impression Beth and Archie had given thus far, suggested they were saying sorry purely because they’d been instructed to.
“That she’s right,” Beth said. “We were wrong to react the way we did.”
“And when we said you don’t do anything, we didn’t mean anything at all,” Archie added. “We know you work hard. For us and at your job.”
“We were just surprised.”
“Because you pretty much only ever do stuff that involves us.”
Hannah sighed, irritated to hear her children echo the sentiments made clear by Mel, Liv, and Hannah’s mum. They were all correct in their assertions, of course. The fact that Hannah was bereft when Beth and Archie had left for France proved that. As did the spotless house she sat in and Dorothy’s batch cooking thanks to Hannah’s excessive supermarket spree. Hannah just wished people would stop mentioning it.
“Anyway, we’ve decided we want to sponsor you,” Beth said.
“A month’s spending money. From each of us,” Archie said.
“Dad’s gonna throw a big wad in too.”
“And we all want you to know how proud we are of you for doing it.”
“It’s only a charity run,” Hannah said. Yes, she’d previously hoped for some encouragement over the race, but with talk of pride and large sums of cash it seemed they were taking things to the extreme. Seeing their earnestness, Hannah felt embarrassed. She didn’t have a clue how to tell them she’d pulled out of the event altogether.
“Beth! Archie!” Carl called out, thankfully saving Hannah from having to explain. “Two minutes and we’re leaving, with or without you.”
Hannah frowned at Carl’s tone. He sounded weary. “Your dad is okay, isn’t he?”
“Apart from nagging us not to get sand in the house,” Beth said.
