He felt a little bit blindsided that he hadn’t even realised Beau was struggling, let alone that he’d contacted his mother with a plea for help. It made sense; she was the one you went to for maths homework, but still.
‘You’re here now.’ He wished things were less tense, more civil, but it was hard when she showed up like this.
‘You’re always complaining that I let you down so don’t moan when I show up.’
This so wasn’t the same thing as cancelling last minute or forgetting a commitment. She dropped the ball often enough that he’d become a professional at picking it up again. And if she’d been better at timekeeping with her kids, she might have foreseen this, spoken with Beau about his schoolwork when they were away, avoided this evening’s visit.
Beau appeared at the top of the stairs.
‘Bring down the crockery, would you… I left it on the windows?—’
Beau already had it in his hands.
‘You couldn’t have timed it any worse, you two,’ Hudson grumbled, watching Carys already beginning to transition from nicely calm and tired towards agitated and most likely difficult to settle a second time.
Lucinda fought Beau’s corner while their son took his crockery to the kitchen. ‘You know what homework is like: sometimes you think you’re on top of it, then you panic and need help. We’ve all been there.’
He wondered how much of his mood was due to her presence and how much of it was due to the way things had finished with Nadia last night and the fact his head was still preoccupied with the latter.
‘I’ll get my books.’ Beau stomped past from the direction of the kitchen and back up the stairs to avoid the confrontation and Hudson would’ve yelled after him to tread lightly if he didn’t think it would make the atmosphere ten times worse.
Lucinda still had hold of Carys, who had tucked her little head beneath her mum’s chin.
‘Here, I’ll take her,’ he said, his voice devoid of much friendliness.
‘A slightly later than usual bedtime isn’t going to ruin her, Hudson.’
Beau came back down and headed for the dining room.
Lucinda’s dark hair concealed her face as she rubbed noses with Carys. ‘Your brother needs me now; time for you to go to bed, little one.’
‘This is confusing for her, you know that.’ Hudson prised Carys’s arms from around her mother’s neck.
‘It might be irritating but it’s not confusing. I’m their mother.’ She winced as Carys’s hand caught in her hair again as Hudson took their daughter.
‘And you don’t live here. Not any more. We need some boundaries. I need the keys back for a start.’
‘Fine. But we are both their parents, I won’t be told that I can’t ever stop by.’
He didn’t have the energy to argue about this now.
‘Mind if I make myself a cup of tea before we get started?’ Her voice followed him up the stairs.
‘Knock yourself out.’
He heard her harrumph as he put distance between them.
Hudson had expected his daughter to make a fuss at being taken away from her mother again, but perhaps she wasn’t as attached to Lucinda as she had once been. Surprisingly, the thought made him sad rather than feel as though he had the upper hand.
Hudson settled Carys back into bed. He read her another story, but she wasn’t too bad considering the interruption. Her little eyelids grew heavy as she succumbed to sleep quickly.
Back downstairs, he was more than ready to wind down. He’d slept okay last night at the hotel but not as well as he’d hoped given the drama with Nadia, and now, after getting the kids sorted, doing the washing and the dinner, and now a late-evening visitor, he was knackered. But he couldn’t switch off, not with Lucinda in the dining room.
He didn’t want a beer after the partying last night so he made a cup of tea and stood in the kitchen to drink it, leaning against the counter, gazing out of the window at the side of the house and the ivy that needed cutting back when he had a chance.
By the time Lucinda came into the kitchen an hour or so later, Hudson had calmed down a bit. He’d used his laptop, donesome banking, paid a few bills and managed to reply to a handful of emails.
‘Beau upstairs?’ he asked.
