“Thanks, Mum.” I pull away from her with a heavy heart. “Just for a few weeks, until I can sort everything out.”
“Stay as long as you need.”
“I don’t want to take advantage of you.”
“Don’t be silly. This is your house, too. Both of yours.”
“I didn’t know where else to go. I’m so exhausted.”
“Come on, let’s go inside. Dinner’s almost ready, and your dad will have run out of jokes by now.”
I follow her inside, and the smell of burning wood wafts immediately into my nostrils, catapulting me back in time. I used to breathe in this smell every evening before I went to bed.
“Have you already got the fire on?” I ask, realising that autumn has only just begun, and that in the city, no one has turned on the heating yet.
“Have you forgotten how cold it gets here at night?”
She leads me into the living room, which is empty, apart from the crackling fire and the flickering TV.
“Where the hell are they?”
My mother shrugs, heading into the kitchen. She wanders around the island and steps towards the back door; as her gaze lands outside, she throws the door open suddenly.
“What do you think you’re doing?!” she yells into the garden.
I quickly catch up with her and freeze in the doorway at the sight of Skylar and my father smoking on the porch.
“Have you lost your mind?!” my mother screams at him.
“What?” he asks, innocently.
“Skylar, honey,” my mother says, trying unsuccessfully to soften her tone. “That stuff isn’t good for you.”
“He gave it to me.” She points to my father.
“Fionn.” My mother glares at him interrogatively, her arms crossed tightly.
“She asked me if I had any smokes and I said I only had cigars,” my father says naively.
“So you thought it would be a good idea to give a cigar to a little girl?”
My dad shrugs. I decide to intervene before my mother gets even more pissed off with him.
“Give me that thing.” I turn to Skylar.
“But I’m not finished,” she protests.
“Give it to me, right now, or I swear I’ll make you eat it.”
“Oh, yeah?” she asks, challenge etched onto her face. “How can I do that when it’s still lit? Or did you plan to put it out, first?”
“Don’t be cheeky with me,” I warn her.
“And you can fu—”
“Okay!” my mum jumps in. She snatches up the ashtray from the table and holds it under Skylar’s nose. She scoffs, but stubs out the cigar, muttering something we all pretend not to hear from between gritted teeth.
“You, too.” My mother moves the ashtray in my father’s direction.
