And Marge just hoped that her daughter would forgive her.
3
AMBER COLLINS
Amber yawned as she stretched one arm out from under the Spiderman duvet and sent up a silent prayer of hope to the gods of sleep deprivation.Just five more minutes.That’s all.Now that the boys were four and five, they were so much better at sleeping through the night, but last night had been an exception.Alfie had woken up twice for absolutely no reason other than he wanted to check his dinosaurs were still where he’d left them and Sid had come into her room at 5a.m.to ask if it was time to get up.She’d assured him that it wasn’t and ushered him back to bed, but he’d insisted she stay with him until he fell asleep.No doubt the correct parenting strategy in a choice between saying no or giving in to his demand would have been to calmly and gently extricate herself so that his early-morning rises didn’t become a habit.But hey… spending the rest of the night in a single bed with Sid and Spiderman, then waking with a dead arm because a child’s head had been pressed into her elbow for the last two hours, was a small price to pay to avoid 5a.m.tears and conflict.Besides, she could stare at that little face beside her, with the long dark eyelashes and his dad’s dimple on his chin, all day.She could just use her good arm for all required tasks this morning until the feeling in the dead one came back.
After a few moments of peaceful bliss, the pull of a cup of coffee overruled her futile wish for more sleep, and, using ninja-like skills of balance and the gravity-defying bendiness of a limbo dancer, she managed to extricate herself from under Sid’s head without waking him, then make it to a standing position before tiptoeing out of the room.
First stop was back into her own bedroom, planning a shower that was long enough to shave her legs before the boys woke up.As her head cleared, she reminded herself that it was Saturday.And not just any Saturday.Ewan, the boys’ dad, was collecting them this morning for a sleepover and then she would… ‘Bzzzzzzzz.’
She was just walking past her bedside table when the phone on top of it buzzed, cutting off her train of thought.
Second choice of the day.Ignore it or pick it up.
It wasn’t really a choice.She’d left her second in command, Millie, in charge of her shop, Amber Bouquets, today and much as she was the most calm, organised and creative florist that Amber had ever worked with, something out of her control might have happened.There could have been a leak.A burst pipe.A national overnight flower shortage.A car could have ramraided their shop window and destroyed their entire stock of hydrangeas.She really needed to stop watching true crime shows on Netflix because her imagination lived permanently on the dark side these days.
The iPhone buzzed again as she disconnected it from the charger and lifted it up with her good arm to see… Oh, no.Bugger.Damn.Crap.This was worse than a crime against hydrangeas.There were a dozen messages.At least five missed calls.And now, two things were happening at once.Her doorbell downstairs was ringing and her befuddled brain was taking in the time at the top of the screen – 9.15a.m.Noooooooooo!She hadn’t slept past 7a.m.since 2019!And why today of all blooming days?
Her groan was just another thing to add to the myriad of noises that were suddenly emanating from all over the house, roused by the doorbell.Sid was shouting, ‘Muuuuuuuuum.’Alfie had apparently woken up and rejoined his dinosaurs, because there were Jurassic Park-esque sounds coming from his room.And the bloody phone was ringing again with a name flashing on the screen.Ewan.Her husband.Ex-husband.Crap.
‘Downstairs for breakfast, boys!’she hollered, as she began galloping downstairs in stunt woman fashion, taking them two at a time.Each thud accompanied with a wail of ‘Bugger.’‘Bugger.’Bugger.’‘I’m coming!’
She finally reached the bottom, snatched open the door, very aware that last night’s make-up was still on her face, her hair resembled a leylandii, she was wearing pyjamas and… her one good arm crept across her chest as she realised that she was swinging low because she hadn’t got to the ‘putting on a bra’ part of the day yet.
‘You didn’t need to dress up for me,’ were the first words out of Ewan’s mouth, which might have been mildly amusing if he wasn’t leaning against the door frame, phone to his ear, sporting a grin that bordered on mocking.
‘Is there a moratorium on being irritated by everything your ex-husband says and does?’she fired back, but her heart wasn’t in it.Besides, she’d always had a soft spot for him in a beanie and a puffa jacket.It reminded her of all the ski trips they took when they were young, madly in love, before children and prior to him deciding to break every last shred of trust between them.
‘No, I believe you can carry that on until the end of time,’ he answered, wiping his boots on the mat.
Amber suddenly felt the effects of the cold draught from the door on her braless boobs.Dammit.They could now double as somewhere to hang his puffa jacket.She folded her arms and hoped he hadn’t noticed.‘Excellent, that’s what I thought.But I’ll lay off the barbs this morning if you overlook the fact that I’ve slept in and the boys aren’t ready.Sorry.They kept me up half the night.I’ll also give you extra points if you help me get them dressed and stop Alfie from feeding his breakfast to a Tyrannosaurus Rex.’
Ewan’s chin dimple stretched as he grinned.‘If I’d known that was all it took to make you hate me less, I’d have bribed the boys to make you sleep in before now.’
He came in, hung his Carhartt jacket on the rack at the door, kicked his boots off and removed his beanie as he walked towards the kitchen, pausing to collect Sid, who was halfway down the stairs, in his SpongeBob pyjamas, hair going in seventeen directions.
‘Good morning, buddy,’ he said, kissing his son’s head as he scooped him up.
Sid rubbed his eyes, probably unsure if he was still dreaming.‘Daddy!’
That set off a stampede as Alfie heard the greeting and tore down the stairs, climbing right on board his brother’s excitement bus.
Amber felt a pang of something in her chest, but she didn’t have the energy to try to name it.
When they’d first split up, all she’d felt was anger.Fury.Betrayal.Disgust.But somewhere in the two years since then, she’d come to accept that she couldn’t live that way forever, not when they had so many years of history and two boys to parent for the rest of their lives.And not when he was the only family she had in the city, so her entire support system was now striding towards her kitchen.She’d thought about moving back to her native Inverness to be nearer her parents, but that was a whole other gift wrapped box of disfunction that she didn’t want to open.Her mother was on her third marriage.Her dad on his fourth.Her entire childhood had been spent shuttling around from place to place, never quite knowing who the step-parent of the month was going to be, or how they would treat her, or how long they would last.Much as she loved them, the truth was that the only reliable thing about either of her parents was their relentless self-absorption, so not exactly the type of folks who would swoop in and be stable, consistent, involved grandparents to Sid and Alfie.And other than step-siblings that came and went with her parents’ divorces, she’d grown up as an only child, so there was no-one else to depend on.That’s why, despite going through relentless stages of rage, resentment, disappointment, grief, and devastation when their marriage broke down, she couldn’t bring herself to take the boys away from Ewan.Because much as he’d broken her trust, he adored their boys and he was a great dad to them.It hadn’t been easy, but eventually she’d let go of the hurt and the fury and somehow, they’d found their way back to friendship.Although, it came with a fairly healthy amount of sarcasm and a determined effort to ignore the fact that seeing him here with the boys, back in the kitchen that he’d built from scratch, standing on the floor he’d spent a whole weekend laying so that he could surprise her when she got back from her hen trip, caused a tightness in her throat that was hard to ignore.That was who he was then.It wasn’t who he became after eight years of marriage and two children.No.That guy was the one who could take her heart and crush it.Friendship was all that he deserved now.But that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy this moment and be grateful for the extra pair of hands to help with the morning chaos.
In ten minutes, Ewan had whipped up scrambled eggs, while she’d nipped back upstairs to remedy the braless situation, then returned to make toast and chop the boys’ fruit, before serving it up to them, as they sat happily at the breakfast bar – Alfie chatting to two of his prehistoric creatures, while Sid drew a picture of an unidentifiable object.No doubt he’d announce what it was at some point, and they could nod knowingly.
Nutrition delivered, Amber rustled up a couple of coffees on the Tassimo machine Ewan had bought her on their last anniversary before they split up.No, not split up.That was two simplistic.Too sanitised.Before he broke them.Yep, that was closer to the truth.
Amber handed his mug of milky cappuccino over and they both leaned against the kitchen counter, within reaching distance of the breakfast bar in case of spillages or disasters.
Ewan nodded appreciatively.‘So, any plans for today then?God, when did I start sounding like your hairdresser making small talk?’
Amber felt herself flush.There was no way she was sharing her itinerary for the day with him.Conversations about romantic entanglements on either side were strictly off limits.She didn’t want to know what he did in his spare time.And she had no intention of sharing what she’d be doing today either.
‘My hairdresser never makes small talk.I tell her so much about my life, she knows when I’m due a smear test.Oh, and she’s not your biggest fan.’
