‘Libby!’
I raised the torch beam until it hit the blinking, squinting face in front of me.
‘Toby?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And Hazel?’
He nodded, lifting up the car seat he was holding as confirmation.
‘What are you doing here?’ After the conversation I’d earwigged in the salon, I could have a good guess why Toby wasn’t at home. Why he was standing at my front door with a rucksack on his back was another matter.
‘Courtney came home stinking of weed and Mum went ballistic. She’d left this list of stuff we needed to do, but Hazel’s teething again so it was impossible to get done by myself. I asked the others to help and they grassed me up, so she was already mad about that.’
‘Courtney didn’t help?’ I stood back to let him in. Whatever the situation, I wasn’t about to leave a tiny baby on my doorstep.
‘She’d been out since yesterday morning. I tried to message but she’s blocked me again.’ He followed me into the living room. ‘To be honest, Libby, I don’t think it would have made any difference. She only came home to pack a bag.’
‘She’s moved out?’
‘Moved before she was pushed.’
‘Where’s she gone?’
He collapsed onto my sofa, his large frame causing the cushions to sag so low the mess I’d stuffed underneath was probably jabbing into his backside. ‘I dunno. Someone sent me a Snap of her with some bloke. I don’t think it’s in Bigley, though. She’s been getting the train up to Sheffield to hang with her cousin and their mates.’
Sheffield was nearly an hour’s drive away.
‘What did she say about Hazel?’
Toby ran a weary hand over his face. ‘She said she couldn’t deal with it right now. Why should she get landed with her, just because she’s the woman?’
‘Oh, Toby. I’m so sorry.’
Hazel began to grizzle, so I gently lifted her out of the car seat and cradled her against my shoulder, adopting the universal bounce-and-sway motion to settle her again.
‘Don’t be. I wouldn’t have let her take Hazel if she’d tried.’
‘Well, I’m sorry that she didn’t want to stick with you both and work something out. I’m sorry she found being a mum so hard, and you’ve been left to figure parenting out on your own.’
He sat up. ‘Yeah, but I’m not on my own, am I? I’ve got my sleeping bag so will be fine on the sofa, and Hazel can go in the travel cot from the cabin. We’ll be no trouble.’
‘You want to stay here?’
He wanted to stay here?
‘You said if I needed any help to just come over.’
I wracked my brain, trying to dig out the conversation we’d had earlier in the week. I’d said I’d help, but couldn’t remember saying anything about my sofa. Everything in me wanted to call them another taxi, or at least ask his mum to take them back for one more night so we could find an alternative option tomorrow. I couldn’t manage my own family’s problems, let alone take on this one.
Then I caught a glimpse behind Toby’s determined expression – the raw fear of finding himself homeless with a baby when in so many ways still a child himself. I felt the warmth of Hazel’s head as she nestled into my neck.
‘You can stay here tonight,’ I conceded. ‘The key to the cabin is hanging on a hook by the noticeboard in the kitchen. I’ll fetch some bedding.’
It wasn’t much later before we had the travel cot set up beside the sofa, Hazel gently snoring inside it, and Toby huddled under a duvet sipping a hot chocolate in between stuffing down slices of toast.
‘Have you let your mum know where you are?’ I asked.
He dropped his head. ‘She’s blocked me, too.’
Wow.
I was almost as worried about Hazel, acting so callously towards her son and granddaughter, as I was about them. I decided to wait and message her myself at a more reasonable hour. If she wanted to know whether Toby was safe in the meantime, she could unblock him.
He talked for a while longer about Courtney, the building tension in the house, how his college grades had suffered as a result. I handed him a tissue when he eventually crumpled into tears, and then tossed propriety aside and gave him what he really needed – a proper hug.
It was nearly three by the time I gently insisted he tried to get some sleep. An hour later Hazel started wailing for another feed.
Thank goodness it’s Sunday, was my last comprehensible thought before I finally drifted off to the dawn chorus starting up in the trees outside my window. I can sleep in a little.
It was eight minutes past six precisely when Isla ran squealing into my bedroom, having discovered a strange man peeing in the bathroom.
‘I’m so sorry, Libby!’ Toby gabbled, his cheeks scarlet. ‘The lock on the bathroom door’s broken. I didn’t think anyone was up yet, so it wouldn’t matter.’
Tucking Isla in bed with me, I snatched a desperate few more minutes of sleep before Hazel demonstrated just how loud a teething baby can be.
* * *
I was whipping up pancake batter, thanks to Toby demolishing the rest of the bread before we’d got up, nursing my headache with a super-strong coffee and keeping one eye on Finn and Isla, happily amusing Hazel with funny faces, when my phone beeped with a text.
After glancing at it, I immediately put down the whisk and took another gulp of coffee.
Jonah.
I did some mental calculations then messaged Dad:
We were sitting at the table, Finn squirting the last of the syrup on his fifth pancake, when Toby sauntered in.
‘Right, the lock on the bathroom’s sorted. I noticed the showerhead holder was loose, can’t figure out how you shower without having to hold it in position.’
Yep, that sounded about right.
‘Anyway, I’ve tightened it up so it should be steady for now.’
‘Would you like a pancake?’ I asked, blinking in a blend of shock and gratitude. The thought of standing in a shower with two free hands to shampoo my hair felt too good to be true.
‘Just the one?’ Toby winked, going over to pick up Hazel and plant a kiss on her wispy head.
‘Mum said there’s only enough batter left for one more,’ Finn announced, smearing at the chocolate spread on his face with the back of his hand.
I handed him a paper towel. ‘There was only one more for boys who’ve already eaten a plateful. Toby can have as many as he likes.’
* * *
I’d just flipped the final pancake when Dad replied:
Ugh. It hurt when Dad said no, because this confirmed all my fears about depending on him too much, although it did mean I could delay telling him why I’d asked. I usually only asked for extra help when I had a meeting or important appointment.
For a second I debated asking Brayden. But I was still processing how I felt about Brayden and Silva wanting to involve the children more in their lives, and, alongside feeling anxious about where this was heading, I still didn’t trust him not to cancel at the last minute.
Nicky was at the surgery until six-thirty on a Thursday.
But, oh, the thought of having a proper conversation with Jonah, having some of my questions answered.
Those words, shining at me from my phone screen:
It was hard to contain how much I’d love it, too.
Could I bring the kids to dinner? Glancing up to see Finn brandishing the metal balloon whisk an inch from his sister’s face, declaring he was a mad scientist about to scoop her eye out, Isla already hitching her little lungs in distress, I ditched that idea.
Toby, pacing up and down the kitchen with his daughter on his hip, picked up a pancake and stuffed it in his mouth, grabbed the whisk and tossed it over to the sink, where it landed perfectly in the washing-up bowl, and then plonked Hazel in Isla’s lap, showing Isla how to hold her safely and instantly distracting her from the fear of losing an eye.
‘The shower curtain needs more fittings, but the hardware store should have the right ones.’ He glanced up at me, keeping a steady hand on Hazel. ‘I’ll grab some of the mould killer Mum uses when I’m there, too. Best to sort it before it gets into the plaster. An hour or two scrubbing should do the trick. I’m in college tomorrow, but could sort it once I’m back?’
I stood for a moment and tried to catch my breath. Here was this man-child, his baby and countless associated problems in my house, inserting himself into my life. My life, like my house, had more than enough problems already. I couldn’t take this on. I simply couldn’t.
But then I thought about the shower I’d had that morning, dropping the giant shampoo bottle Shanice had given me onto my toe because I was trying to open it one-handed while holding the stupid shower head upright. When I’d bent to pick it up, water had squirted all over the bathroom. Isla had slipped in it when she’d rushed in five minutes later desperate for a wee, yanking the shower curtain off the wall as she’d fallen, and then in the ensuing drama she’d wet herself.
I knew how impossible it would be to find somewhere for a teenage dad and his baby to live. The refuges I worked with only took women. There was no way I was about to send Toby and his daughter to a homeless hostel or the kind of temporary housing the council might scrabble to find at urgent notice.
I liked Toby. I loved Hazel. It wasn’t her fault her gums were sore.
When I’d decided I needed some new people in my life, this wasn’t quite what I’d had in mind, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t the right thing to do.
Actually, it felt like one of the foolhardiest things I’d ever done, but I did it anyway. Perhaps there was an optimist still lurking inside me after all.
‘Toby, how would you feel about staying a bit longer? I mean, just until we found somewhere more suitable?’
Toby winked at me, six feet three of eighteen-year-old charm. ‘I thought you’d never ask.’
‘I don’t suppose you happen to be free on Thursday…’
* * *
Nicky messaged me mid morning. Probably in between swimming a few miles down the river Trent and cycling back home, drying off in the slipstream.
I could have objected to the assumption we were free, but I didn’t have the energy for comedy that morning. I took a nosy at Nicky’s social media to confirm she’d been out with Theo’s family on another adventure – sunrise kayaking, this time – which meant that they’d be at the barbecue, usually an automatic no for me.
I had a decent excuse to say no, for once. I had to buy more food – an extraordinary amount, if Toby carried on like this – and sort a more suitable spare bed than my woeful sofa.
On the other hand, Finn and Isla would love to see their auntie and uncle, and mass of extended family. They might even stop squabbling. If Isla got upset, we could always come home…
I sent a message back.
Nicky replied with a string of shocked and happy emojis.
* * *
Toby was fine with us taking baby Hazel off his hands for a few hours. I spoke to his mum, and she agreed that if he walked round to pack up the rest of his and Hazel’s things, then she’d drop them back in her car. There was still nothing from Courtney, and when Toby tried her friends, they ignored him.
‘Probably all still asleep,’ he said, trying not to sound as disheartened as he must have felt. ‘I mean, she can’t ignore me forever.’ He tugged at his curls. ‘Well. She can. But she can’t ignore her daughter. Can she?’
I patted his shoulder. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d seen a teenage mother run away, leaving her baby behind. Far more often, they took the baby with them, but Courtney had been dissociating herself for a while.
‘I’ll speak to her social worker tomorrow. They’ll do what they can to find her.’
‘They won’t try to take Hazel off me, will they?’ Toby asked, his face turning ashen.
‘Are you on the birth certificate?’
‘Of course!’ he said, sticking out his chest.
‘Then you have parental responsibility. Hazel’s social worker will want to make sure she’s safe, and being cared for, but that should be obvious.’
‘I’m living with a parenting teacher. They can’t ask for more than that.’ He let out a nervous laugh.
‘Have you thought about childcare for Hazel when you’re at college?’ I asked.
‘They’ve got a nursery. I could see if they have space. We break up in two weeks, anyway.’
‘Perfect.’ I nearly added something about how I could look after her for the next two Fridays. A week ago I’d have offered without even thinking about it. But a week ago I’d not been making plans with my new housemate while prepping a salad to take to a busy family gathering, wondering whether the playsuit I’d found in a forgotten heap at the back of the wardrobe would work for my dinner with Jonah – Jonah! – in a few days’ time. So, I kept quiet for now. If there was no space at the nursery, then maybe I’d think about offering. The key being the thinking part. I was done with knee-jerk reactions. Time for some proactive positive choices. Small yet significant.
* * *
The barbecue was okay. More than okay. Maybe even nice. I spent most of it too tense to eat, nervous that no one would speak to me, equally anxious that they would and I’d have to think of a reply that didn’t make me sound as much of a lost, lonely loser as I felt.
It made my throat clench to see Finn and Isla running about with Theo’s younger brother, chattering to his mum and playing peekaboo with his sister’s toddler. Isla cried, once, when a fly landed on her sausage, but, before I could swoop in, the people nearest to her gently laughed it off in a way that defused the situation perfectly.
Nicky was gobsmacked when I told her that Toby and Hazel were staying at the cottage.
‘How long for?’ she demanded to know, along with a heap of other questions like where would they sleep, would I charge them any keep, did I trust Toby and what if he also did a runner and left me with Hazel?
I smiled, shrugged, said not to worry, I was a grown woman and we’d figure it out.
‘Who are you and what have you done with my baby sister?’ She laughed, eyes round with amazement.
The only stumble in the afternoon was when I noticed the postcard, tucked under a pile of letters on the hall table. I wouldn’t have thought much of it, except that I’d had that same postcard a couple of weeks ago. I resisted the urge to flip it over, instead going to find Nicky, Hazel on her lap.
‘You got a postcard?’
She stopped, her grimace confirming who it was from before she answered. ‘She’s having a fabulous time in wherever she is now, but even the longest roads must come to an end. Home and hearth calls, or some BS like that.’
‘Do you think she’s serious?’ Despite the June sunshine, my bare arms had broken out in goosebumps. ‘And what does she mean by home? Is she expecting Dad to welcome her back?’
Nicky shrugged. ‘It’s a horrible stunt to pull if she doesn’t turn up. But then, since when did our feelings come into it?’
She screwed up her eyes, cuddling Hazel closer. ‘Part of me really wants her not to come, to just be making throwaway comments that never become a reality. But if she is, then what? We never see her again? Never get to explain how awful it was for Dad to have no proper closure? How hard it can be waiting for her to contact us, or how we created a stupid Facebook account just so she’d know we were still alive?’
‘And then we get a call one day to say she’s sunk in the middle of the ocean?’ I shook my head. ‘I hate myself for feeling so angry about how she controlled all contact, even if I can sort of understand why. The only way to deal with her not being around is to get on without her. But she owes us the chance to forgive her. Or at least to ask why she needed to leave us as well as Dad.’
‘You’ve always been so much kinder than me, Libby. I want the chance to shout in her face. To show her what she’s missing and then decide whether she gets to not miss it any more.’
I wrapped my arm around her, grateful to be able to share this pain with someone else who understood. ‘Either way, then, we’re sort of hoping she shows up at some point.’
‘Ugh. It would seem so.’ She buried her nose in Hazel’s fluff of hair. ‘Would be nice if she had the courtesy to let us know when.’
‘Another couple of postcards, first?’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘My guess is three.’
My sister always was the smart one.