I didn’t know whether to reply or throw my phone away and pretend I had no idea who Maisie was and why she was texting me.
“What’s wrong?” Hazel, my boss, asked. “You’ve gone a pale shade of green.”
My head shot up and as our eyes met, I swallowed the huge fucking lump in my throat.
“Nothing,” I replied, putting my phone to the back of my desk. “Just something I forgot to do.”
Hazel eyed me warily, one eyebrow raised.
“You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, positive.”
I cleared my throat and went back to checking the CV that was on my computer screen.
“You can go now, Sam, if you need to. You’re here until seven most nights, so I really don’t mind you taking the afternoon. Eve can check these CVs when she gets back from lunch – she needs to have a little more responsibility.”
My eyes darted to my phone. I wasn’t planning on being at the hospital, or even seeing the kid, but I knew I’d be restless and agitated all afternoon waiting for Maisie’s next text – I wanted it to go well for her. Just because it wasn’t for me, didn’t mean that I didn’t want it all to be okay.
“You wouldn’t mind?” I asked, already closing down my PC.
“No Sam, now get off and do what you need to do,” Hazel replied with a smile. “We won’t crumble without you for the afternoon.”
When she laughed, I rolled my eyes and pushed up from my desk. “Thanks, Hazel. See you in the morning and try not to ruin the place.”
It was no secret that I thought the business would go to shit without me, and to be fair Hazel often agreed.
* * *
A half hour later and I was changed into grey sweatpants and a t-shirt, pacing the apartment waiting and wondering. Elijah had called me and I’d ignored his call, letting it go to voicemail. I knew it wouldn’t be urgent – he was just starting up a gardening business and I’d put him in touch with a few contacts, so it would probably be about that or the fact he wouldn’t be home for dinner again. I just knew I couldn’t speak to him, or anyone else for that matter – I was too wound up, even the gentle hum of the central heating was annoying me.
To keep myself occupied, I put in a load of laundry, washed and dried mine and Elijah’s breakfast dishes and even cleaned two pairs of shoes – it was fucking stressful just waiting.
Finally, at almost nine pm the text came.
Maisie: Frankie James born at 745 weighing 7lb 3oz.
That was it, nothing else. I had no idea how she was feeling, whether it had all gone well. The one thing that did strike me was that he had my dad’s name as his middle name – how was that for a coincidence?
I looked down at my phone again and reread Maisie’s text. Seeing the words made my skin itch and my fingers twitch. I curled them into my palms and then stretched them out again and edged my index finger toward the screen. I pulled it back, and ran my hand through my hair, trying to use it as an act of distraction.
I could almost hear my heart beating, it was thumping so hard. My lungs felt tight and I was confused by the feeling of excitement – or was it trepidation – which was swilling around in my stomach.
Looking over at the clock on the cooker, I knew what I had to do – what I wanted to do. I swiped up my keys and rushed out of the apartment with only one destination in mind.
Maisie
the present
It had been two days since I’d heard or seen Sam and even though I knew it was totally a bad idea that he be involved in our lives, I was kind of hoping he’d call around or even text me. I did think he might have checked up on us, but I couldn’t blame him, I’d been adamant I’d be the one to call him if I needed anything. Sam had also made me promise to call the Police if Josh turned up again, but thankfully there’d been no sign.
Thinking of Josh I shuddered inwardly, thinking about his behaviour and how he’d scared both me and Frankie. Hopefully he’d realise what an idiot he’d been and that would be the last we’d see of him. I knew my mum and dad would be worried, when I finally decided to tell them what had happened, but they’d also be glad I’d finally dumped him; neither were his biggest fan in the past few years. They were picking up Frankie from school for me, but I’d made him promise not to mention anything until I got there – I just hope he remembered, because I didn’t want to be hit with a barrage of questions as soon as I walked through their front door.
I was making my way to the estate agents where I worked part-time doing the administration; not the greatest job in the world, but when I’d gotten pregnant with Frankie I couldn’t keep up with the hours acting as PA for the very demanding Finance Director of an Investment Company. When Frankie was just over a year old I began my job with Angela. She’d just started up her own estate agency and while the pay wasn’t brilliant, she was good to me, letting me do additional hours if I needed some extra money – something that I was probably going to be asking for quite a bit in the future, seeing as Josh was gone. I wished that he’d never persuaded me to tell Sam we didn’t want his money, but hindsight was an amazing thing.
Walking into the office, I was surprised to see Angela sitting at one of the desks talking on the phone. I waved a hand and frowned. Angela rolled her eyes in response and carried on her conversation.
I expected to find Denny, the other girl that worked in the office with me, in the kitchen but there was no sign of her. When I went back into the office with two mugs of coffee, Angela was finally off the phone.
