He was so close to getting it I was practically furious. “Right. So why would Jaz be any different?”
“Because she’s a child.”
“She’s aperson. And she needs the same thing I need, the same thingyouneed, if you’d just fucking admit it. She needs to know we care about her no matter what, that we’re here for her no matter what. That we’re on her side, even if she really did murder an evil racist.”
Oliver might have been with me up until that last one. “Murder a what?”
“Sorry. Book thing. Very out of character for me, I know.”
“Are you talking aboutTo Kill a Mockingbird?”
“We did it at school. Leave me alone. The point is that she needs to know we’ve got her back. Even if she wrecked the bathroom. Even if she put meat in your lentils. Even if she smashed next door’s greenhouse, which by the way shedefinitelydidn’t. That doesn’t mean we can’t do boundaries and whatever. It means”—I was running out of words and feels at about the same time—“it means we just have to love her, Oliver. You can do it for me. Do it for her.”
For a moment, Oliver just sat there, processing. And then in a small, quiet voice, he said, “What if I can’t?”
“You can.”
“I don’t think that’s an answer.”
Crossing my legs, I swivelled around on the sofa to face him. “If you can’t, you keep trying.”
Oliver’s breathing was getting slower and more deliberate again. He moistened his lips and said, still quiet and still small, “It’s not that simple.”
“William Morris, Oliver. Remember William fucking Morris.”
“I’m not sure he’s an authority.”
Reaching out, I took hold of both his hands. “This is as simple as we make it. It’s as complicated as we make it. Just try, Oliver. Basic, primary-school-level, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other try.”
Oliver was blinking back tears. “I’ll—saying you’ll try to try seems facile, but it might be the best I can do in the moment.”
“You know what?” I said. “I’ll fucking take it.”
“Ruff,” agreed Spud, who had scampered back into the living room at some point while me and Oliver were spattering our hearts all over the floor. Maybe he thought they were dog treats.
I scooped him up onto my lap. “Hello, boy.Youknow Daddy Luc is right about this, don’t you?”
“Ruff,” he replied. But he was squirmier than he normally was when he got lap time, and he jumped back onto the floor. “Ruff. Ruff.”
This was my fault. I’d messed up his cirwhateverian rhythms, and now he thought it was walkies time, which was why he was dashing back and forth between the sofa and the front door like little Timmy had fallen down the well. Only the well was in our front drive and Timmy was, like, his need to wee or something.
“Should I take him out?” I asked Oliver.
With what I suspected was a conscious effort to respect my skills as a dog owner, Oliver replied, “If you think he needs it.”
Rising with the grace of a man who had slept on a sofa, I did the dog-summoning thigh pat. “C’mon, boy, let’s go into the garden.”
Normally that would have worked. But instead of bounding over to be rewarded for a bowel movement, Spud plonked his arse in front of the front door and said, “Ruff,” and then, “Mruff?” and then, “Aroou?”
“Sorry,” I called through to Oliver. “He seems a bit…off rhythm? I might need to take him to the park or something.”
“I’m sure he’ll calm down,” Oliver called back. “But it really is up to you.”
Partly from guilt, partly because sometimes a late-night walk could be nice, especially if your head needed clearing, I hooked Spud up to his lead and took him out into the street, hoping he’d stop acting weird after he’d been able to run around for a bit.
He kept acting weird. He yanked the lead taut running to the end of the drive, then sat down. Then ran back. Then did it all over again, yapping as he went.
Still pyjamaed and weary, Oliver appeared on the front porch. “Is everything okay?”
