He seemed to calm a little and she was thankful.
‘I could fucking kill him,’ he spat through gritted teeth.
‘He’s my son,’ she reminded him. ‘Jonathan’s son.’
‘I know, I know. And that’s why we trusted him, whyItrusted him. She can’t sit up, can’t speak. She’s like a rag doll, limp, and her eyes are closed, and she’s, she can hardly breathe.’ He let his chin fall to his chest.
‘I don’t know what to say.’ She spoke the truth, understanding his sentiment but first and foremost wanting to advocate for her only child. ‘I’m as shocked as you are. I’m trying to remember that they are young and things happen, and I know it’s hard but it’s far better they go through this now and not when they are forty or fifty,when life will already be kicking them in the face. I don’t think he meant for any of this to happen. Aiden’s not a bad man, you know this. He’s never played the field or treated Holly badly. It sounds like he just met someone and fell for her and that’s that.’
Phil lifted his head and stared at her. ‘What do you mean, he met someone? He’smetsomeone? He said he’d changed his mind, just like that,’ he clicked his fingers, ‘after all those years, just changed his bloody mind!’
‘I... I’m not sure, I...’ It hadn’t occurred to her that Aiden might not have told Holly the full story; she had assumed he would probably have given Holly the stark facts in the way he had her.
He raised his index finger and pointed it at her chest. ‘You better tell him to keep out of my way, this is not over! This isnotover!’
Closing the front door behind him, she walked back to the kitchen and half sat, half fell on to a bar stool, the sense of rising panic almost overwhelming.
Her phone rang. It was Aiden.
‘Hello, love, where are you?’
‘Just, just driving around, Mum.’ He barely managed to get the words out, as distress made his speech stutter down the line. ‘I told her, I told, told her that it was...’ He broke away to cry some more.
‘It’s okay,’ she lied, ‘it’s okay, love, let it all out.’
‘I can’t . . . she was so . . . I feel terrible.’
‘I know, I know.’ She closed her eyes and spoke softly. ‘Come home. Come home and we can sit and chat. I’ll make you a cup of tea.’
‘I will, I’m, I’m just going to take a minute and . . . and . . .’
His tears, though hard to hear, were also strangely reassuring. Proof, as if it were needed, that he was aware of the hurt he had caused, acknowledging the betrayal of a wonderful girl like Holly.His distress indicating that he had indeed been blindsided and not acted with ill intent. Confirmation that they hadn’t raised a cold, indifferent rotter who could hurt a girl and feel nothing. He was kind and knew that the human heart was a fragile thing and that to discard one meant breaking it as surely as if he had thrown out glass.
‘Just breathe, darling. It will all feel better in the morning. I promise.’
Not that she’d ever admit it, she felt ashamed, almost, that as her panic subsided, a soft glow of warmth replaced it at how much, in that instant, her boy needed her.
‘I’ll see you later. I need to tell you about Phil, he came over and I might have let slip that you’ve met someone.’
‘I see.’ His croaked response was hard to hear.
Enya went in the sitting room and sank down on to the sofa. Here she would await her son’s return, while trying to order her own maelstrom of thoughts, and with one ear cocked for the sound of someone walking up the path. She prayed Jenny might come and see her so they could start the slow walk back to peace, to find a way forward. Conversely, she prayed that Phil would stay away, his behaviour had unnerved her. It was horrid to feel this vulnerable, this on edge. Jenny was an important part of her life, her routine; just the thought of not having her at the end of a phone was like a knife in her gut.
‘God, Jonathan, what a terrible evening. I can’t stand to think of Holly so upset, and Aiden sounded, don’t know how to describe it, he sounded...’
I.N.C.O.N.S.O.L.A.B.L.E . . .ah, yes, of course he did.
Chapter Eleven
Enya had spent half the night agitated, awake and wishing she could talk to Jenny. With things unsettled between them, it was akin to pulling a loose thread on her life that allowed everything to unravel.
She held her phone and pondered the blank text, wondering what to send to her best friend that could possibly convey the overwhelming sense of panic and loss that whirled in her thoughts at the prospect of their friendship being damaged. The wordsorryfelt a little contrived and smacked of guilt that she was unsure she wanted to convey.Missing you, too trite, they’d only spoken yesterday when everything was fine, and any suggestion to meet up might imply that Enya saw her own need as greater than Holly’s. She settled on a single red heart, instantly regretting that too – what did it even mean?
The read notification appeared, showing that Jenny had seen the message, but there was no reply. It felt like a punch in the throat.
She stared at her bedroom ceiling, worrying about Holly and picturing Phil, who had been so angry he’d looked quite different to the man she and Jonathan knew and loved. She dreaded seeing him again, knowing it was inevitable.
Aiden had arrived home last night as darkness cloaked the street, no doubt with the intention of slipping under Phil’s radar.
