‘So this is really it?’ His voice was rough.
‘It has to be. This doesn’t affect you seeing your baby. I’d never stop you doing that. We can come up with an arrangement so we can co-parent, joint custody if youwant it. But I totally understand if you’d prefer not to be a part of the baby’s life.’
His face hardened again. ‘If that’s what you think about me, then you don’t know me at all.’
With that he walked out the flat and, as the door closed behind him, she burst into tears.
Xander walked back across the road to the shop where Etta was watching out of the window.
‘Is Immy going back home?’ Etta asked as he walked back into the shop.
Max looked up from where he was restocking the shelves, clearly confused by what was going on too. Xander hadn’t had much chance to talk to him about what had happened the night before.
‘Yes, honey,’ Xander said to Etta.
‘Why?’
He let out a heavy breath. He was so angry and hurt right now with Immy’s decision and he needed to be careful not to let that anger out around Etta. This wasn’t her fault. It was Brook’s. She’d been dead for eighteen months and her actions were still having repercussions.
He knew he had to answer this really delicately. ‘Immy knows you were sad last night and she is worried that you might be sad because of her staying with us and the new baby. She thinks you might be happier if she went back home.’
Etta looked back out the window. ‘I don’t want her to go back home. I like Immy.’
He wiped his hand across his face so she wouldn’t see his frustration but she was still busily looking wistfully out of the window. He loved his daughter so much but there were rare occasions he wanted to bang his head against the wall.
‘How can I play with my baby brother or sister if they are over there and we are over here?’ Etta said.
He had no words at all.
‘Does this mean we’re not going to move to a big house with a treehouse anymore?’ Etta asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Xander said, because in the last ten minutes all his plans for his future had gone right out the window and he had no idea if there was any coming back from this. Immy was supposedly doing all this for Etta but Etta didn’t want this either.
He was tempted to take Etta straight over to see Immy and get his daughter to tell her what she’d just said but he would never use his daughter in that way or put her in the middle. Also he knew that this was largely to do with Immy’s issues from her past when she’d been made to feel like a burden. Etta’s meltdown was the catalyst but it wasn’t the reason, not really. Until Immy trusted him they couldn’t move forward.
‘I miss her,’ Etta said, sadly.
He refrained himself from rolling his eyes. He knew the night before had been distressing and traumatic for Etta and she’d been feeling overwhelmed and confused and had lashed out at Immy, indirectly, because of it.But this all felt so needless and Immy had felt unwelcome because of it.
He turned round to Max. ‘Can you just watch her for another five minutes?’
‘Of course.’
He went upstairs to the flat and closed the door and, leaning his head against it, he let out a groan of frustration and pain.
Immy watched Quinn play with Zara in the garden of their new house. She’d just told Alex everything that had happened the night before when Etta had run away and her heartbreaking decision this morning. She’d also told her what had happened with Brook eighteen months before, as Alex needed to know this was more than just a little girl upset about her dad moving on. Etta had scars and Immy wasn’t sure if they would ever heal.
Alex was sitting silently, clearly taking it all in. Finally she spoke. ‘So just to be really clear, you’ve broken up with the man you love because his little girl got upset and ran away?’
Immy felt exasperated. She’d been sure Alex would understand, she had a daughter she adored and would do anything for. Surely she would understand this more than anyone. ‘I’m doing this for Etta. She needs him more than I do.’
‘But you’re in love with Xander. You’ve never been in love before so this isn’t something you should throwaway so readily. I literally have never seen you so happy as when you’re with him and you’ve walked away from that?’
‘I did it for Etta. She’s upset because now her dad has me in his life when before she had him all to herself. There’s a baby on the way, one that is really Xander’s. Of course she will be worried that he will love the baby more than her.’
‘Look, I don’t want to belittle what Etta went through, what she’s still going through. No child should ever hear that she is hated by her own mum. And then to be told Xander isn’t her dad was just extra cruel, especially when Brook was leaving Xander to raise her kid on his own – why make things extra hard for them? But OK, Etta ran away, you don’t have to change your whole life because of that. You ran away when you were her age because I’d stolen one of your dolls and dyed her hair green.’
Immy smirked at that. As she remembered, she’d come back after five minutes. ‘OK, what would you do if Zara didn’t like Quinn, begged you not to be with him?’
