“What did you do today?”
“Dunno. Can’t remember.” He got this gleam in his eyes—one that usually prefaced something naughty he’d done, yet couldn’t help admitting to. “Susie doesn’t like worms.”
Susie was one of his classmates at Ebdon, a private school that catered to children who needed a greater level of attention and help to give them the best start in life. I’d used my contacts to get him a place, and he was thriving under their tutelage. Kate never could have afforded the term fees, but I could. For the rest of this kid’s life, I’d make sure he and his grandmother never wanted for anything. It didn’t quell my guilt—I owned that shit—but helping Arthur made me hate myself a fraction less.
“What did you do?”
He tried for the innocent look, but it lasted less than two seconds before he dissolved into a fit of giggles. “Put one in her lunch box.”
“Arthur David Bevan. That was not a nice thing to do.”
There wasn’t an ounce of regret on his face. “She called Peter fat.”
Peter was Arthur’s best friend. “Well, that wasn’t nice of Susie, either.”
Triumphant, he said, “That’s why I put the worm in her lunch box.”
This kid. He always could wrap me round his little finger. “She deserved being told that wasn’t a nice thing to say to Peter, but putting a worm in her lunch box was not the way to do that. You must use your words.”
“Oh.” His bottom lip wobbled.
I distracted him by picking him up and swinging him upside down until he started giggling again. I hated upsetting this kid, and it was tempting not to reprimand him, but even though he had Down Syndrome, he knew right from wrong, and not calling him out for misbehaving wouldn’t help him. Still hated doing it, though.
Kate poked her head around the living room door. “You staying for tea?”
“Do you have enough?”
She laughed. “I know you eat like a horse, Joz, but, yes, I have enough. As long as you’re okay eating at five o’clock.”
Arthur had a need for routine, and Kate worked hard to make sure she stuck to that. One of those routines was eating his evening meal at five o’clock. A bath would follow, then thirty minutes of playtime and in bed no later than seven o’clock.
“I’d love to.”
After dinner, to give Kate a break, I offered to give Arthur his bath and play with him until bedtime. It was a small thing, but the grateful smile she gave me signaled how much it meant. As hard as I found it to be here, I needed to make the effort to drop in more. Raising any child was hard enough, but a disabled childbrought extra challenges, and Kate was fifty years old. She must get tired, but despite the offer I’d made several times over the last few years to hire someone to help her, she’d always refused. Kate was a proud woman, and like most proud women, she’d suffer rather than accept help. Therefore, the best way to help her was to find the time to call in more often.
It took a while for me to settle Arthur, and by the time I came downstairs, it was almost seven-thirty. I flopped onto the sofa next to Kate and pinched the bridge of my nose.
“You look exhausted.”
“Had a flying visit to New York. Got back yesterday but couldn’t sleep.”
“Want to stay the night?”
I shook my head. “Thanks, but I need to get back. I’ve still got to finish tweaking a couple of songs, and I’m due in the studio to record the album in a few weeks.”
“How is it going with the new label?”
Aspen’s face popped into my mind. I knew I’d hurt her with my “let’s keep it professional” bullshit speech, especially after I’d relentlessly pursued her for weeks. With time and space, I could see I’d overreacted to an innocent remark, but in the moment it’d hurtled me back to that night, to Caroline’s threats of self-harm, and to my benign response, too busy chasing my next fix to hear the desperation in her voice. If I’d never broken things off with her, she’d still be here. But at the same time, staying with someone I didn’t love—and hadn’t ever loved—wasn’t fair on either of us.
If it’d saved her life, though, maybe I’d have chosen differently. Got her the help she so desperately needed. If only I hadn’t been high…
“Joz?”
I blinked, Kate’s question pulling me back to the present. “It’s going well. They’re a very different outfit from the biggerlabels I’ve spent my career dealing with. I think this will be good for me.”
“That’s great.” She briefly touched my arm. “You deserve good things to happen to you.”
“Do I?”
