I did say so and I had to do so too. Nothing had changed really. And if I kept telling myself that, I may actually believe it.
Maisie
the present
I watched Frankie closely as he ate his dinner and sighed. He looked a lot like me. He even had the same pattern of freckles across his nose but with Sam’s dark hair and brown eyes, and the way he held himself and his cocky little attitude, he was all his father and it worried me. How long before people started to realise and talk, and maybe let it slip to Frankie?
It had been easy to keep it all a big secret when Frankie was small, but now that he was growing, he was becoming more and more like bloody Samuel Cooper every day. No one had ever suspected before, because we’d only had one night together, after Alex Drake’s party, and even though he’d promise he’d call me, he never did. I got one apologetic text telling me he was sorry but he was too caught up in helping his brother get through his wife leaving him to be able to have a relationship. The next time I’d seen him had been when I’d told him about Frankie, to say he looked horrified was an understatement. I knew straight away that a child was not what Sam wanted, so I gave him the easy way out and told him I’d do it on my own. He did say he’d support me at appointments and with money, but I knew for my own sanity that unless I wanted my own heart smashed to smithereens, he’d have to be all in and no way was that going to happen, something that became blatantly obvious on the day Frankie was born. That was the day I told him to go and never come near us again.
For the first four years of Frankie’s life, I regularly received money from him, but after about a year of being with Josh he said we didn’t want or need Sam’s money, so my solicitor wrote to Sam and told him. Personally, I’d have taken it and put it in an account for Frankie, but Josh was adamant and proud. That ended up being the next time I saw him, when he asked to meet me and discuss the money. Can’t say it wasn’t weird being next to him again, looking at the larger version of my son, but we meant nothing to each other, so while he argued about the money, that was all it had been – a quick twenty minute meeting in his car arguing about money.
I couldn’t believe I’d been lucky enough to avoid Sam in over eight years. Apart from that onetime, I’d seen him at a distance from time to time, but never as close as we’d been earlier at the leisure centre. Our town was fairly big and I rarely went out at night to pubs or clubs, and if I went shopping it wasn’t locally. I knew it had been a subconscious avoidance tactic, but to be honest, it hadn’t been that difficult. The first few months of Frankie’s life I dreaded bumping into Sam or any of his family, but once life got busy and I moved out of mum and dad’s house into my own place, I kind of forgot about him. Yes, I’d liked him and we’d had two rounds of great sex, but he hadn’t been the love of my life, but he had given me Frankie and I’d be eternally grateful to Sam for that.
When I heard Josh’s car on the drive, my stomach clenched. He wasn’t a local, so he didn’t know Sam personally, but had a hatred for him that was almost to the point of being poisonous. Sam wasn’t the only person Josh hated and it had to be said it would be easier to say who he didn’t hate, and there were some days I wasn’t sure whether I was even on that list.
“Hey,” I said as Josh breezed in through the kitchen door.
“Hi. How come he’s only just eating his dinner?” he asked, nodding at Frankie.
“Swimming lessons,” I replied around a swallow and glanced warily at Frankie. Thankfully, he was listening to music and too interested in his spaghetti hoops to feel the need to comment on his new swimming teacher. If Josh found out Sam was running the lessons, he’d be sure to put a stop to them. I’d told him a couple of years ago Sam had been a talented swimmer, so when Frankie started to show an interest and appeared to have the same ability, Josh hated it, always stating it was a waste of money. Frankie loved it though, so I put my foot down and insisted that he continue going. If Frankie mentioned the name Sam, it wouldn’t take Josh much to put two and two together and I was sure my hiding it from him even for a few hours would create another row and I just didn’t have the energy – I also didn’t want my son to have to give up the thing he loved.
Josh let out a sigh. “Huh, you know what I think of that.” He then reached across the table to rip Frankie’s earphones out. “What have I told you about listening to music at the table?”
Frankie looked up at him from beneath his long dark lashes and blinked a couple of times.
“Not to do it during dinner as it’s family time, but I’m the only one eating so I thought it would be okay.”
“Frankie,” I warned in a low tone.
“But that’s what Josh said.”
“Don’t split hairs,” Josh snapped. “It’s probably crap anyway.”
Frankie picked up his iPod and turned it off and without looking up at Josh said. “Out on the Floor is one of the best Northern Soul songs ever.”
I was sure I heard Josh mutter ‘weird bloody kid’, but before I could say anything, he disappeared out of the kitchen into the hall. I had no idea what was wrong with him these days, when we first met, he had so much more time for Frankie. He’d spend long periods playing with him, even building a wooden garage for Frankie’s toy cars, but after about a year he started to be too busy and had better things to do, and then in the last year or so Josh had made no secret of the fact that he found Frankie irritating.
“Frankie,” I sighed. “Why can’t you just think about what you say to him?”
He looked up at me and while there was some defiance behind his eyes, I could still see he was simply a little boy who didn’t understand why he couldn’t say what he thought. It had been just the two of us for just over four years and I’d believed in letting him speak his mind and talk things through with him if what he’d said wasn’t appropriate – my own parents had brought me and my sister up that way, and I thought we’d turned out okay. To be fair, Frankie had always been a good boy, well behaved and polite but with a strong personality, and it made me feel awful that Josh was starting to chip away at my son’s confidence, trying to turn him into some meek and mild child who never spoke. I’d tried to make Josh see what a lovely nature Frankie had, but when I said anything he wouldn’t listen, insisting that I let Frankie get away with too much. It caused lots of rows and I was pretty sure that was why Frankie listened to his music so much, so he couldn’t hear us arguing. I knew in my heart that it was only going to get worse, because the older Frankie got the more he looked like Sam and from what I remembered of him from all those years ago, his son had the same damn cocky attitude at times too.
“I’m supposed to tell the truth,” Frankie said with a pout. “And that’s the truth. No one else was at the table, so why can’t I listen to my music?”
“It’s not good manners,” I explained, kind of seeing it from his point of view. “Just like Josh or I don’t bring our phones to the table, we don’t want you listening to music.”
“But you talk about grown up stuff.”
“Hey,” I warned as Frankie rolled his eyes. “I’ve warned you before about rolling your eyes at me. Don’t do it.”
“Sorry Mummy.”
He looked at me sheepishly, before going back to scoop up a forkful of spaghetti hoops.
As I washed the pan that I’d warmed Frankie’s dinner in, I heard Josh moving around upstairs. He’d be having a shower and changing out of his suit into track suit bottoms, a t-shirt, and his slippers as he did every night. Josh was nothing if not predictable, it had to be said.
“Mum.”
Frankie’s voice drew me away from the sink, to turn around and face him.
