There was an obvious assessment being done as she regarded me. “This can’t go anywhere, Grant.”
I felt my heart break.
“Okay.”
I left the bathroom first, heading over to one of the Callaghan lawyers to talk about sport. Marie followed a few minutes later, not catching my eye or looking in my direction.
I just had to find the gold she’d painted and remember that. I looked at her, smiling and laughing, champagne flute in hand. She was stunning and clever and everything.
I still love you.
CHAPTER 7
MAX
Technically, I’d finished work an hour and a half ago but technicalities didn’t matter when you were the solicitor. I had a two-day trial in a week’s time so it was all systems go – a suited version of Batman was how I liked to think of myself at these times. Vic disagreed on the Batman part after I’d declined her suggestion of role play with my underwear on the outside, but she was only too aware of what a big court case involved on the run up to it.
I hated these times when I was away from Vic, Lucy and the boys. I missed them, which made me wonder exactly how my own father had spent so much time away from us when we were little.
Before Marie.
That was a period in our lives – mine, Jackson’s, Claire’s and Callum’s – that we didn’t really talk about anymore. I knew it’d affected us all in different ways; I knew all of us had gone to therapy at one time or another because the impact of having neither parent present when we were so young was profound, especially in terms of our adult relationships.
I’d been reticent to turn what Vic and I had initially into something more, a whole wardrobe of hang-ups about whether I’d become my father – who’d been a terrible husband to our mother, although she’d not been a saint either, and an absent father.
I couldn’t let Vic go though. It wasn’t possible for me to do that, and now she was stuck with me.
I kept decent hours at work, I was home for dinner which I often cooked, picking the kids up from school on certain days, never missing anything they wanted me to attend, including godforsaken birthday parties in soft play centres, although we were a bit past that now, thank fuck.
But the days running up to court were frantic and I couldn’t always get home when I wanted. Vic understood. So did the kids. And it happened rarely now. It was only the big cases I was part of, the smaller ones were delegated, but this was three years in the making and someone had a lot of money at stake.
I was buried in revisiting notes when my office door opened and a man who looked like me in twenty years time stood in the doorway, looking smartly casual.
My pen went down and I looked up, slightly dazed from being so absorbed. “Dad?”
“Vic said you were still here. Everything okay?”
I nodded. “It’s the Marsden case. Court starts a week on Monday.”
“Anything else in your diary next week?”
I shook my head. “I’ve cleared it so I can focus on this. Will has a cricket match on Tuesday and I don’t want to miss it so I’m just trying to get ahead.”
“How ahead are you?”
“You realise this is like the pot calling the kettle black, don’t you?” I got out of my chair and straightened the paper files I’d been working through. It was time to call it a day. In another halfan hour, my concentration would be shot and I could already feel hunger starting to tear at my stomach.
My father eyed me. “To an extent. You’re not as bad as I ever was. But it’s a Friday, son, and your boys need some coaching on their bowling.”
“You’ve been to mine?”
He nodded. “We dropped our luggage off at the apartment – Marie doesn’t want to stay at the house again. In her head, she’s moved out now. Then we came to yours.”
“I wasn’t expecting you back for another week.” They’d only been gone five nights.
My dad nodded and shrugged. “She’s made her mind up that we’re selling and the agent’s been in touch every day with questions from the buyer, so she decided she wanted to come home and get everything sorted. It was bothering her not being able to do anything, so it was more peaceful for both of us just to come back. We can go back out to Portugal when it’s completed.”
“Bad timing.” I’d hoped they wouldn’t let it disrupt their holiday, but I wasn’t surprised. I knew exactly what Marie was like when she got an idea in her head, which was how she ended up here with all of us nearly four decades ago.
