The Honeymoon Sisters (5 page)

Luckily his phone pinged at that moment. Kristen had sent him a text to tell him she was running late and that we should go ahead and start brunch without her.

Maybe she won’t come at all
, I thought. Though the weird thing was that I couldn’t work out whether that would be more of a relief or a disappointment.

Half an hour later Dad and I were eating bacon buns and I was doing my best to be polite and not take my bad mood out on him. I was about to tell him he’d got a spot of tomato ketchup on his chin when an attractive young woman came up behind him and put her hand on his shoulder. She was slim and pretty with shoulder-length blonde hair and very striking green eyes.
No prizes for guessing who this is,
I thought
.

‘Kristen!’ Dad immediately shoved his chair back and leapt to his feet to kiss her on both cheeks. ‘I wasn’t expecting you yet.’

She smiled. Luckily the smear of ketchup on his chin hadn’t transferred to her face. ‘I finished earlier than I expected.’ She had a faint lilting accent I couldn’t quite place. Irish, maybe? Scottish?

Ever the gentleman, Dad pulled out a chair for her,
inadvertently bumping it into the table leg and making his coffee spill. It struck me that I’d never seen him this clumsy before.

‘Oops …’ He deftly cleaned up the spillage with a paper napkin. ‘Kristen, what can I get you?’ he asked.

‘Don’t worry, Peter. I’ll go and get something in a minute – you go back to your bacon butty.’ She was smiling at me now. ‘So … you must be Poppy?’

At that point Dad suddenly remembered he was supposed to be introducing the two of us. ‘Oh, excuse me … Kristen, this is of course my daughter, Poppy … Poppy, this is Kristen …’

Unfortunately I had just taken a large bite of bacon bun and now my throat seemed to close over as I tried to swallow it and speak at the same time. I started to choke. I picked up one of the paper napkins and held it over my mouth as Kristen came behind me and thumped my back. I spat out the food rather spectacularly in my napkin before lifting my head and giving them a sheepish look. ‘Sorry.’

Dad was giving me an exasperated glare.

‘That’s
OK
,’ Kristen said. ‘Better that than have you choke on it!’ She smiled at Dad. ‘I think I’ll just go and order something. I’ll be back in a minute.’

As soon as she was gone I saw that Dad’s face had gone really pink. ‘Really, Poppy!’ he admonished me.

‘I
said
sorry.’ I went over to deposit the napkin and its contents in the bin. On my way back to our table I picked up another one to give to Dad. ‘
You’ve
got a big blob of ketchup on your chin, by the way,’ I told him. ‘Hold still. I’ll get it.’

Kristen must have been watching us from the counter because as she arrived back a few minutes later she smiled and said, ‘Giving your dad a spit bath, eh, Poppy?’

I looked at her in surprise as she grinned mischievously. She was nothing like Penelope, I realised with relief.

Kristen began to ask me questions while she waited for her bacon roll to be brought to our table. I tried to work out if she was just pretending to be this interested in me to please Dad, but it didn’t seem that way. It seemed like she genuinely wanted to get to know me. She also complimented my jacket and when I told her where Mum had bought it she didn’t bat an eyelid. In fact, she asked me exactly where that particular charity shop was and said that she’d have to pop in sometime.

‘It’s good you like charity shops too,’ I said, giving Dad a pointed look. ‘A lot of people really don’t get the whole “pre-loved” thing.’

*

As the three of us were walking out of the cafe together my phone rang. ‘It’s Mum,’ I told them.

Dad nodded. Mum usually phones at least a couple of times to check up on me while I’m with him. ‘Kristen and I will be over there feeding the ducks.’

‘Feeding the – ?’ I watched them walk over to the duck pond as Kristen took a bag of bread out of her bag.
This is different
, I thought, because Dad’s never exactly been a duck-feeding, swing-pushing kind of father.

‘Poppy, darling … are you
OK
?’ Mum’s voice sounded a bit strained at the other end of the phone.

‘Yes, Mum. I’ve just met Kristen.’

‘Oh … Is she like we thought?’

‘Well … sort of …’ I didn’t want to lie, but I didn’t want to tell Mum the truth either. I knew I’d hurt her feelings if I told her that although she
looked
just how we’d imagined her, this was the first one of Dad’s girlfriends who I
hadn’t
hated as soon as she’d opened her mouth. ‘Mum, I can’t really talk about it now,’ I said quickly.

‘Of course, darling. Now then … the reason I’m phoning is … well … is there any chance you can get Dad to bring you back in an hour or so?’

‘Why? Has something happened?’ I asked anxiously.

‘No … well … nothing to worry about … just something I need to discuss with you rather urgently and not over the phone. Can you ask him, please?’

‘Sure, Mum. I’ll text you back,
OK
?’

I came off the phone trying to guess what it was Mum needed to discuss with me. Could it be something to do with Amy? None of our foster-kids had ever come back to us after going to live with their adoptive parents, but I guess there’s always a first time. Though if it was that, then why couldn’t she just tell me on the phone? The more I thought about it, the more I thought it must be something bad. After all, why else would she want to actually be there with me in person when she told me? That set me off worrying and I knew I had to get home as soon as possible to find out what was going on. I hurried over to the pond, where Dad was teasing Kristen about her bread, telling her it was too good for the ducks.

‘Poppy, does he
really
make you eat bread this stale?’ Kristen asked as I joined them.

‘He only ever chucks it if there’s actual mould on it,’ I joked. ‘Listen, Dad … Mum really needs me to go home now.’

‘
Now?
Why?’

‘She says she needs to discuss something urgently.’

‘So why can’t she discuss it on the phone?’

‘I think something’s happened that she thinks will upset me. Please, Dad, I want to go now.’

I knew he’d take me because right from when I was little we’ve had an agreement that if I ever want to go home to Mum while I’m with him, then he has to let me. (That’s how he got me to agree to stay the night with him in the first place, back when I was much younger and really clingy to Mum.)

He gave an exasperated sigh and hurled his chunk of bread at the nearest duck with a bit more force than was necessary. ‘Come on, then,’ he said impatiently, raising his eyes heavenwards at Kristen when he thought I wasn’t looking. ‘Let’s go and get your stuff.’

Chapter Seven

When I got home an hour later, Mum seemed very relieved to see me. I couldn’t help thinking how much older and more weary she looked compared with Kristen. After Dad had driven off she closed the front door and let out a sigh. ‘Poppy … something’s happened …’

I knew at once that it must be important because she didn’t even ask me about Kristen.

She told me that social services had contacted her this morning asking her to take in another foster-kid – one who needed to be moved today.

‘Oh.’ I tried to hide my disappointment that Amy clearly wasn’t coming back to us.

‘Only this time it won’t be an official fostering arrangement,’ she continued. ‘The girl they want me to look after isn’t in the care system yet and they’re trying to
avoid going down that route by placing her with a family member.’ She paused. ‘It’s Sadie.’

‘
Sadie?
’ I felt like someone just punched me.

‘Her father hasn’t been able to look after her for several weeks so she’d been living with a friend of his. That’s why she changed schools. But that placement has just broken down. That’s why they’ve come to me …’ She frowned. ‘Poppy, I can’t just let her go into care.’

‘I thought you said you wanted to
discuss
it – not that you’ve already decided!’ I snapped.

‘I meant I wanted time to
explain
it to you before Sadie just turns up. Her social worker is bringing her later this afternoon.’

‘
What?
’ My throat suddenly had a hard lump in it.
No, no, no … this could not be happening.
‘But
why
?’ I demanded. ‘I don’t understand. Where’s her dad?’

‘He got sent to prison two months ago.’

‘Prison?’ I gaped at her in disbelief.

‘For fraud,’ Mum added swiftly. ‘I didn’t know about it until today.’

Apparently Sadie’s father – who Mum had told me before was an accountant – had been caught stealing large sums of money from his employers. He had been sent to prison for five years. ‘Hopefully he’ll get paroled
before then, but in the meantime someone has to take care of Sadie,’ Mum explained. ‘Her father’s friend kicked her out after an incident at her house last night and Sadie’s dad asked social services to contact me.’

‘But you haven’t seen Sadie since she was tiny,’ I protested. ‘You don’t even
know
her any more!’

‘I know – and that is something I deeply regret. This is my chance to finally put that right.’

‘Mum, there’s nothing to
put
right! It’s not
your
fault her mum ran away and her dad wouldn’t let you stay in touch with her afterwards!’

Mum sighed. ‘If I had dealt with things better ten years ago it might not have happened like that. I’ve always blamed myself for not handling things differently with Sadie’s father.’

‘But like you said, that was ten years ago, Mum. Why do you have to get involved
now
? It’s got nothing to do with us any more!’

‘Poppy, how can you say that?’ Mum said sharply. ‘It has everything to do with us. The poor child has no other relatives.’

‘I
DON
’T
CARE
!’ I shouted. ‘And she’s
NOT
a poor child!’

Mum looked shocked as I stomped out of the room.

Up in my bedroom I flung myself on my bed, aware of my heart racing.
How could she do this to me?

Of course Mum followed me straight up the stairs. She always does that whenever we have a row and I’ve gone storming off. She never seems to think I need a cooling-off period and sometimes – like today – I really badly
do
.

As soon as she stepped in my room I yelled, ‘You’re so gullible, Mum! Can’t you see he’s just using you?’

‘So what if he is? If it helps Sadie I don’t mind.’

‘Well,
I
mind! Mum, you don’t even know what she’s like!’

Mum frowned. ‘What if I was the one in prison and Dad wasn’t here to look after you? What if
you
had no one to turn to? How would you feel?’

I just snorted because that would never happen and she knew it.

‘Poppy, she’s my niece. Do you really expect me to just turn my back on her?’

I had no reply to that. I was eight when I found out about my cousin. Mum told me after I’d come across some photos of Mum with me as a baby, sitting next to a younger woman (who looked a bit like Mum) also holding a baby. A young man was standing behind them smiling.
Mum had told me the woman was her younger sister, Kim, the man was Kim’s husband, Kevin, and that their baby daughter, Sadie, had been born two months after me. Of course I had been instantly full of questions, and Mum had explained it all patiently.

When Sadie was only two years old, Kim had met another man and had left Sadie and her dad to go away with him. The family hadn’t even been able to find out where she’d gone. She’d eventually written to Mum saying she’d started a new life abroad and that she wasn’t coming back. Mum had tried to help out with Sadie as much as she could, but since she and Kevin had never got on it hadn’t been easy. Eventually they’d had a massive row and after that Kevin refused to have anything to do with us, even though he and Sadie still lived in the same town. Mum hadn’t seen her since.

‘You know, I always thought Kevin was a dodgy character,’ Mum continued now, ‘just not on this sort of scale. Your dad never liked him.
He
always said he understood why Kim left him, just not why she didn’t take Sadie with her. Mind you, Kim was as selfish and irresponsible as they come. She caused my parents so much stress before they died. In fact, after your poor grandma had her nervous breakdown, Kim more or less did as she liked.
She ran away a lot as a teenager. She’d reappear when she ran out of money or fell out with her friends. It broke their hearts. And then leaving little Sadie – I don’t know how she could do it. It’s as if she didn’t want to grow up.’

‘It sounds as if Sadie’s just like her!’ I said as tears welled in my eyes. ‘Don’t try to make me feel sorry for her. You don’t know her like I do, Mum! It’s bad enough having her in my class at school …’

Mum looked a bit contrite. ‘Darling, she’s only going to stay with us on a temporary basis to start with. Social services will need to approve the placement in any case.’ She paused. ‘But for the moment we’re her only relatives, and if she comes to us she can continue at the same school … Poppy, she’s already lost her home and the only parent she’s known. All I’m asking is for you to give her a chance.’

She didn’t have to say anything else. I knew that nothing I could say or do would make her change her mind. Plus I suppose a part of me had started to feel just a tiny bit sorry for Sadie.

And after all, it wasn’t like this was going to be a forever placement.

Chapter Eight

Later that afternoon when the doorbell rang I stayed in my room. ‘Poppy, please try and be welcoming,’ Mum had said. ‘I know the two of you haven’t hit it off at school, but she really needs our help.’

I had promised to do my best, but I was still dreading it.

After a while I heard the social worker who had brought her leave. Then the house seemed very quiet. I imagined Mum stuck in the kitchen not knowing what to do, while Sadie sat silently glaring daggers at her. Mum is brilliant with all stroppy, needy little kids, but this was different. I doubted she’d have the first clue how to handle a moody Sadie.