But Phoebe has never forgotten the times before he found the help he needed, back when his depression was just an unnamed darkness that would descend at random on their lives. It started happening when she was around six years old. One day, her dad just stopped getting out of bed and going to work.
‘Your daddy smells funny,’ a friend of hers said when she came over to play after school. Her father was sitting on the sofa in his dressing gown as he had been for several days. Phoebe wasn’t sure of the last time he had showered and she quickly learnt not to invite her friends over.
She and Seth started referring to their dad as Normal Dad and Sad Dad. Normal Dad made pancakes at the weekend that he’d make a show of flipping extra high. Normal Dad took them to the beach and told them the different names of all the seabirds. Sad Dad would stare at the telly with a glazed expression on his face, barely noticing if they spoke or changed the channel.
One day, on one of the Sad Dad days, Phoebe came home from school to find a woman in a uniform sitting in the kitchen with her father. They were drinking tea together andtalking. Nurse Lois became a regular fixture in their lives for a while and Phoebe wasn’t sure how, but gradually her father grew brighter. He started shaving, returned to work part-time, started making pancakes again.
When Phoebe and Seth were a little older, her parents opened up about their dad’s illness. They told them about the medication he now took, the therapy he’d received and the mental health nurses who had helped him get back on his feet.
‘They saved my life,’ her father said once, his eyes growing misty. And Phoebe never forgot it. She knew right then and there, at age eleven, what she wanted to do with her life. If someone could do that for her dad, then she wanted to do that for someone else. It would be her way of thanking the universe for the fact that the world still had her dad in it.
‘Recently, when I’ve been coming down here, I’ve been thinking a lot about you,’ her father continues. ‘I’ve been worried about you, Phoebe. It’s made me beyond proud the way you’ve chosen to spend your life and all that you do to help other people – people like me.’ His voice wavers slightly, but he regains control. ‘But you need a balance.’
‘My boss said something similar yesterday.’
‘Maybe she knows what she’s talking about. And maybe so does your dad. You need places and moments where you can let go and unwind – preferably among good people. That’s something that has helped me over the years.’
When Phoebe was a teenager her father decided to switch permanently to part-time hours, thanks to her mum getting a big promotion at work. At first, Phoebe could sense her dad was apprehensive about not being the breadwinner anymore,but her mum had talked him around. She loved her job and had always been able to compartmentalise, work not following her home the way it did for him. In his new-found free time, Phoebe’s dad took on more of the household chores, always being the one to pick Phoebe and Seth up from their various clubs and cooking dinner for the family each night – an activity he seemed to find soothing.
And he took up a whole range of hobbies. At the time, she and Seth used to tease him about it, laughing at his new golfing gear and fishing waders. But, looking back, she can see that he was doing everything she advises her patients to do when they’re struggling. He built networks for himself, finding friends he could chat to while playing golf, or sit in companionable silence with while they fished without ever really expecting to catch anything.
‘I’ve actually started swimming at my local river,’ she says. Just saying it brings to mind the peaceful green water and the people she has met there. A sense of calm immediately wraps around her.
Her dad’s face spreads into a smile.
‘You loved swimming so much when you were little.’
‘Turns out I still love it.’
‘Well, that’s a relief …’ He leans back and fishes around in one of the bags, throwing a swimming costume at her and grabbing a pair of trunks for himself. ‘That one’s your mum’s – hopefully it will fit. Come on, we’re going in.’
‘So that’s what you had planned.’
‘When I saw you at the hospital, you looked like you could do with a swim.’
Phoebe smiles to herself, remembering Sandra saying that to her the first time they met.
They get changed quickly and then race each other down to the water. Her dad reaches out for her hand and they run like that into the waves.
CHAPTER 36
‘Do you have time for a coffee before your train?’
After the dress fitting, they all went for brunch at a nearby restaurant. The food was amazing and Rosie only cried alittlebit, and Kate only flashed her nipple once at a passing waiter by mistake while doing a feed. All in all, it had been a success.
The group had disbanded then, Kate saying goodbye to Emma’s friends and family and Rosie being passed around for final cuddles. Emma and Leonie insisted on accompanying Kate and Rosie back to the train station and helped her navigate the pram on and off the Tube. Now it’s just the three of them plus Rosie, who is snoring in the pram after the excitement of the day.
Kate glances at the clock. ‘I’ve got time.’
‘Good. Because we’re not ready to say goodbye to you just yet,’ says Leonie.
‘Let me push!’ says Emma, taking the pram from Kate andstriding off towards Pret. Leonie links arms with her and squeezes her elbow. For a moment, it’s as though nothing has changed.
Once they’ve got their coffees and are crowded around a little table with space for the pram, Kate takes a sip of her coffee. ‘Sorry again about vomit-gate. I’m still mortified.’
Emma tosses her hair back and laughs. ‘Vomit-gate! Seriously, don’t worry about it. It’s all good.’
‘And I’m sorry I reacted so badly when you told me about the trip. I guess I just hate the thought of not being included in things. For ages, it’s been the three of us. I don’t want to get left behind.’
