“Which was the right thing to do, Mia. Your mummy won’t be cross with you, she’ll just be glad that you’re safe.” I had no idea what Cara was thinking, just leaving her like that, even if she did leave the key only for someone else to take. Why she hadn’t asked me to have her for the weekend, I couldn’t understand. She had done that before, although she’d always come back before.
I moved Mia onto my knee, pulling Heidi closer to us so she wasn’t left out. I was hyper aware of how my attention was now split away from Heidi, worried that she might feel pushed out at some point. I needed to make sure that didn’t happen and at the moment that was hard.
Mia’s sobs subsided, her breathing becoming more regular. I was due to go out with Cas tonight for a meal and hopefullya sleepover of the grown-up variety. Three evenings of quietly fooling around for half an hour wasn’t quite cutting it. However, with Mia so upset, I wasn’t sure this was a great idea. Maybe we needed to stay home together tonight, although Roe had wanted the girls away for the night and Heidi was desperate to stay at Grandma’s because Grandma had, for some insane reason, gotten a puppy.
“Do you feel better for having a cry?” Her eyes were red and her face tear strewn. It was the first time she’d properly sobbed, which had been worrying me. “I feel better sometimes when I cry.”
“What do you cry over?” Heidi frowned at me.
“Sad stories and videos of pets with three legs who’ve been rescued. Sometimes I cry when I have to wash your hair.” Heidi hated having her hair washed with a passion. I categorically did not want her to grow up, I did not want to have to deal with a teenage version of her, but the idea of her washing her hair herself was manna.
“I cry when you wash my hair. You always get suds in my eyes.” She sent me an evil look that she’d picked up off Liv.
“Because you wriggle so much. Mia, do you still want to go to Grandma’s tonight?” Heidi could go, Mia could stay here with me, and my date could be postponed.
Mia looked at Heidi. “Do we get to choose the puppy’s name?”
I frowned. “Grandma said you could choose his name?” What on earth was Deryn thinking?
“She’s giving us a list and we pick. I wanted to call him Swiftie.” Heidi had her most pleading look on her face, the one rarely brought out unless she was absolutely desperate. “Can you ask Grandma to add it to her list?”
“No. I’m not adding Swiftie to the list.” I shook my head. “You can talk to Grandma about it.”
Mia looked up at me, playing with my hair that was lose from my ponytail. “Can I stay with Grandma so I can choose the name too?”
“Of course. Do you still want to go swimming in the morning too?”
Mia nodded. “I want to swim without armbands like Heidi.”
That was something Cara hadn’t done – take Mia swimming. She was now going with school once a week, but I knew from what Heidi had told me that she’d been scared at first. For a kid growing up next to the sea, swimming was essential and fun. I wasn’t sure why Cara hadn’t taken Mia, but given that Grandma had been a swimming instructor there was no way she wouldn’t be swimming without aids by the end of summer.
“Then you shall go to Grandma’s with Heidi and choose a name for the dog. I think you should pick the silliest one on the list.” I had a feeling that would come back to bite me when I was calling it at some point.
“Mummy, are you going out with Mr Caddick tonight?” The little voice next to me had a lilt of curiosity to it.
“I am. We’re going to Beaumaris. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow when Gran drops you off at home.” The child friendly version.
“Why can’t we come with you to Beaumaris and go tomorrow?” Heidi looked up at me with big eyes, the one feature that was all her father’s.
“Because Grandma wanted to take you to Al’s Burger Place tonight and have you stay over so she could take you swimming early tomorrow.” Which was all true. “And we went for dinner with Mr Caddick yesterday.” Which had been impromptu when we’d realised the fridge really was bare. Heidi had spent the meal chewing his ear off, full of details about the school trip she’d been on to Penryn Castle which Cas had listened to, casting me a few amused glances while he asked her all the right questions.
“Leesa at school says Mr Caddick is your boyfriend. Is she right?”
I shifted us round on the sofa so I had both girls kind of on my knee. I’d talked about Cas to them both this morning, saying he was my friend but a little bit more, telling them about our run and how we’d spent the day. He’d given me a kiss on the cheek on Thursday when we’d left the inn, which had made Heidi hold my hand tighter.
“He might be. We’re just getting to know each other.” I kissed the top of her head. “If he does become my boyfriend, it doesn’t change how I feel about you both. I will still love you more than anything ever, even when you leave your stinky socks all over the house.”
Heidi giggled and Mia smiled her hands clasping onto me.
“I think it’d be nice if you had a boyfriend, and Mr Caddick is handsome.” Heidi pronounced ithangsomewhich made it sound all the cuter.
“My socks aren’t stinky.” Mia wrinkled her nose, but she was right. She was fastidiously clean, unlike Heidi.
“Let’s see what happens. We might just be friends, and that’s okay too.” I gave her hair a good sniff. My daughter needed a bath and a hair wash, something Grannie could have the pleasure of. “Have you been rolling in fox poo?”
She screwed her nose up at me. “No. We only rolled down the hill in the fields at dinner-time.”
Which meant it was probably fox poo. The joys of being a parent.
