For a while Oliver let that hang. Then, “But you didn’t ask the police to call her? You had a right to.”
He was playing this cagey, but I knew from experience that Jaz had a healthy mistrust of authority figures—and an unhealthy mistrust of everybody else, which made trying to get information out of her risky. “She’s got a lot on her plate,” she muttered.
“A lot in what way?” asked Oliver.
And once again there was silence, and once again Jaz finally broke the silence with half an answer. “She has bad days.”
Oliver just echoed her. “Bad days?”
“Got nobody to look after her. Not now.”
“And who…” I tried very carefully, hoping I wasn’t about to crack something fragile, “who used to look after her?”
“Me,” said Jaz, matter-of-factly. “My nan until a few years ago, but it got worse after she went.”
I did the maths in my head. Obviouslya fewwasn’t a specific number, but it was usually more than two. Which tallied with what we’d been told in the pre-fostering briefings. But the problem withbriefings was that they were clean and impersonal. Even when they had details, they were about times and dates and exactly when a particular woman had tried to kill herself. They weren’t about what it all looked like from the viewpoint of her then-twelve-year-old daughter.
Oliver kept driving. He was taking us in circles now and seemed to be sticking to quiet streets.
“She didn’t want me to call the ambulance,” Jaz continued, after another, longer silence. “When I found her. Said they’d take me away.”
“You did the right thing,” Oliver replied exactly the right amount of immediately. No hesitation, but not so fast it sounded rushed or like he was protesting too much. And that’s how it was with him. He was so fucking rigid and ethical and forthright that when he said you’d done the right thing, you knew for an absolute fact that he meant it.
Even Jaz knew. “Still took me away, though, didn’t they?”
I froze in the front seat, knowing I needed to say something likeWell, at least she’s not dead. Only much, much less crap. Except I didn’t know how and I was too scared to try.
But one of the things that made me and Oliver work, and keep working, was that his too-scared-to-try and my too-scared-to-try were in very different places. “They did. Which doesn’t change the fact that you probably saved her life.”
When we got home, Jaz went straight to Spud’s pen, picked him up, and took him to her room. And, while it probably wasn’t best dog practice or best parent practice, I didn’t say anything, and neither did Oliver. We just flopped straight into bed. Well, I flopped straight into bed. Oliver, even post-crisis, took a moment to put his pyjamas back on.
“Fuck,” I said, rolling into his arms. “Fuck.”
“It’s okay.” He drew me closer. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
I breathed in the scent of fabric softener and Oliver. “You were, like, so cool today.”
“If you recall, I was deeply uncool for most of it.”
“I’m shallow, though. I get my head turned easily.”
“Well, as long as it keeps turning towards me.”
“Always,” I said embarrassingly. “Seriously, though, I don’t know what I’d have done without you.”
“Without me, Jasmine—Jaz—wouldn’t have run off in the first place.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. I’m getting the impression we both have our distinct ways of fucking up parenting.”
I heard Oliver swallow hard in the dark. “I don’t want to be like my father.”
“You’re not. David Blackwood wouldn’t have done anything you did tonight.”
“No,” Oliver agreed. “He wouldn’t.” He sighed, his fingers drifting lazily down my spine. “I keep wanting to find something…good…positive…meaningful in the way I was raised. To think that maybe it taught me discipline or built character or, in some unhelpfully nebulous way, made me the man I am today. But I think—” He broke off, self-consciously. “I’m sorry, I should probably be saving this for my therapist.”
What I wanted to say wasYou can tell me anything and I’ll never judge you or let you down or reject you because I love you more than anything in the world. But I’m an emotionally cowardly arsehole, so what I said was, “Call it a dress rehearsal.”
And, hearing what I really meant, Oliver kissed me deeply for a long, long moment that became long, long moments. Finally, we broke apart, a little breathless, staring at each other through the grey light of what was now definitely Sunday morning.
