Sophie's Encore (5 page)

“What would I do without you?” I sniffled into his shoulder.

“You would be fine,” Dan assured me, a little gruffly. “Come on, in you hop.”

“Do you want to stay?” I suggested in a small voice, thinking only of sleep.

Dan’s face crumpled. “I can’t stay, sweetheart.”

I opened my mouth to object, to plead, to explain that I didn’t want to be left alone again. I simply couldn’t face it. I was tired of being alone. I wanted company. I needed a friend. I wanted to be held and comforted.

Dan read the emotion on my face and touched two fingers to my lips before I could speak. “I’ve got to go, Sophie.”

Swatting away his fingers, I felt a surge of anger and hot despair.

“Yeah, I bet you’ve got a hot date,” I retorted, even though I knew perfectly well that he didn’t. “You’d better hurry.”

The light seemed to extinguish in Dan’s eyes. He squared his shoulders and rolled his head. “I’d better go,” he concurred. “I’ll let myself out.”

He was gone before I could respond, and I heard the front door click shut.
Damn
.

I wanted to run after him, but I was too proud, too confused, and too angry with myself. The memory of the look in his eyes was killing me. I couldn’t work out what it meant. I thought I knew my rock star, but there was a shadow of sadness there that I couldn’t explain.

Crawling under the duvet at last and pulling it high over my head, reeling with emotions for people living and dead, I fell into an uneasy sleep before I could reflect any further.

Chapter Seven

Damn and double damn. I groaned as I saw the time on my alarm clock. Only five a.m. My head was sore and throbbing, and I had a big lump of sadness in my tummy. Today, of all days, I had to wake up feeling like a limp dishcloth. It was Josh’s first day at school. I wanted to enjoy it, and, most importantly, I wanted
him
to enjoy it. He had been counting down the days, and he didn’t need his mummy’s emotional turmoil clouding the day.

I rolled on my side and pulled the duvet over me again. It was too early to get up, although I doubted I would go back to sleep. Summoning every happy thought, every cheerful memory I could muster, I spent the next hour reprogramming myself until I was ready to face the day. I rose at six, got dressed, and had a sweet cup of tea with two painkillers.

By the time Josh bounded down the stairs fully dressed in his brand new school uniform, I felt almost human. My breath caught in my throat as I watched my four-year-old buzzing about the kitchen in his gray trousers and red jumper with the white collar of his polo shirt poking out untidily. Points for trying, though!

I straightened the collar and ran my fingers through his short hair in lieu of retrieving the hated hair brush from upstairs. He looked adorable, vaguely rakish, and very cute. How had this day arrived so quickly?

The doorbell interrupted my nostalgic mummy moment, and Josh nearly exploded with anticipation. “I bet it’s Dan, I bet it’s Dan,” he hollered and bounced to the front door like a ping pong ball. Of course it was Dan; it would have been impossible for him to forget the big day after Josh had reminded him every day of the past three weeks:
Remember, remember, the fifth of September
…

Dan bore two wrapped presents and a big, brown paper bag from the local bakery. He flashed me a quick smile and mouthed, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I replied as cheerfully as I could. And I felt fine. Weird, disorientated, but fine. “Thank you for coming.”

Dan inclined his head as though to say,
no problem
, and focused his attention on Josh. “Hey, little big man. What’s that you’re wearing? You look like you’re going off to a new job somewhere.”

“No, silly,” Josh gushed. “It’s my school uniform. I’m going to school today!”

“Is that the honest truth?” Dan pretended to be overwhelmed.

“It is,” Josh reiterated. “This is my uniform.”

“It’s very smart.”

Dan ruffled Josh’s hair and wandered off into the kitchen to arrange croissants and brioche onto plates. Josh hovered in the background, having spied the presents but being too polite to ask. I left the two of them to it and went to help Emily wake up and get dressed. No more leisurely mornings for us; from now on, we couldn’t afford to be late.

When I brought a slightly sleepy but obediently dressed Emily into the kitchen, Josh had opened his present, and Dan was reading it to him patiently. It was a book about dinosaurs, and it evidently had gone straight to the top of my little man’s chart. Emily hurled herself at Dan and spied the remaining present on the table.

“For me, for me!” she demanded, not yet capable of the restraint that her brother had so unexpectedly displayed earlier. Dan handed her the pink parcel with a big smile. “For my little angel,” he announced, and Emily gave him a thank-you kiss before she had even opened it.

“Like it,” she promised, and sang to herself while she tore at the paper. “Like it, like it, like it.” Predictably, Dan scored another hit with the butterfly coloring book and glittery crayons. My spirits lifted. Maybe with Dan here, this day would be fine.

They sank again, however, as soon as we set off on our first walk to school together, me, Josh and Emily, and Dan. Much as I hated myself for it, much as I realized how ungrateful I was being, I wished Steve was there instead of Dan. He and I had imagined this day together from the day Josh was born; we had played endless scenarios in our heads about the weather and our moods and what we would say and do and feel. It wasn’t fair that he hadn’t been able to hold up his side of the bargain.

I hung back and observed Josh skipping along, holding Dan’s hand and chattering away nineteen to the dozen. They could have been father and son. They didn’t exactly look alike, but they didn’t look unalike either. I tried to superimpose Steve’s image over Dan, tried to pretend, just for a moment, that all was as it should be, and a big lump rose in my throat.
Stop it, Sophie. Now
.

Unwilling to be left so far behind Dan and Josh, Emily jiggled her legs impatiently in her pushchair, signaling that mummy should get a move on. I made myself laugh to reassure her and quash my gloomy thoughts, and we raced after the boys.

At the playground, Josh let go of Dan’s hand and joined his friends from playschool, leaving Dan looking slightly forlorn. I stood next to him and nudged him with my shoulder.

“Don’t look so glum, you. It’s much better this way.”

“I know,” Dan mumbled. “But it was nice to be needed.”

I shot him an amused look. He had never before acknowledged how intense a bond he felt with my children.

Before I could give voice to this thought, an insistent shrilling signaled the start of the school day. Damn, how had that happened? How had I become so distracted when my focus should have been on Josh? And there he was, shooting over like a rocket to give me a hug, then clinging to me, overcome by sudden shyness.

His teacher lined her new charges up to enter Reception, and when the bravest children had disappeared inside under the guidance of the teaching assistant, Mrs. Dean came over to collect the stragglers one by one.

“Hello, Josh.” She crouched down in front of him and gave him a friendly smile. “Time to go in now.”

“How do you know my name?” my son marveled.

Mrs. Dean winked at him. “I have special teacher powers,
and
I’ve seen your photograph. Will you come with me now? Say goodbye to your Mummy.”

“And Dan,” Josh supplied eagerly, giving me and Dan a short hug. Mrs. Dean gave Dan only the briefest of looks while her attention remained fully on Josh. She smiled and coaxed him away.

“That went well,” Dan observed. “A bit of an anti-climax, right? What happens next?”

“I don’t know,” I muttered. Suddenly, I was at a loose end with no idea what would happen next, and I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “They grow up so fast.”

“Time passes too quickly,” Dan mused. “Not always a bad thing, but it can take you by surprise.”

“You’re going all lyrical on me.” I grinned. “I bet you’re writing a song in your head. I know that look.”

“I am, actually,” Dan confessed. “Occupational hazard. Sorry.”

“Park,” Emily demanded when Dan and I continued to stand around. “Emily go to park.”

“Okay, sweetie, I’ll take you to the park,” I agreed, glad of something to do.

Dan sighed. “I’ll have to pass. We have a band meeting with the record label this morning. I’d better be going.”

Emily erupted in disconsolate crying. “Dan come, Dan come.”

Dan smiled at my daughter. “Baby girl,” he spoke, squatting to bring his face on a level with hers. “Dan has to go to work now. But I’ll come back later and maybe we’ll go for a meal. Will you look after your mummy for me this morning?”

He had struck the perfect note, and Emily was putty in his hands. “Of course,” she pronounced slowly, copying the exact tone of voice I usually deployed for the phrase.

“That’s grand,” Dan assured her and offered her a high-five. I laughed as he straightened up.

“Charming the next generation already, I see,” I teased. “You do have a way with the girls.”

“Also an occupational hazard,” Dan retorted easily before turning serious. “I really must be off. Will you be all right?”

“Of course,” I replied, exactly as my daughter had, and the irony wasn’t lost on either of the adults.

Dan grinned and high-fived me. “See you later.”

Chapter Eight

The morning proved to be exceptionally difficult. Initially, Emily reveled in having me all to herself. Even though this wasn’t uncommon, Josh having attended playschool most mornings anyway, for some reason, this morning was different.

After she had been on all of the swings, down the slide several dozen times, on the see-saw and the rocking horse, consumed an ice cream and an orange juice, all in the record time of forty-five minutes, Emily became restless and grumpy. The park was boring, she wanted her brother, she wanted to go to school like her brother. She went into full-scale meltdown when I pointed the stroller in the direction of our customary Monday morning Mummy-and-Toddler group, so I took her home instead. Feeling like an awful failure and a terrible parent, I installed her in front of Cbeebies and made myself a cup of tea in the kitchen.

When we picked up an exuberant Josh from school, bursting with excitement at all the fun, new things he had tried out that morning, Emily’s mood turned from disgruntled to stormy.

“I want school, I want school,” was all she cried during the afternoon, and by four o’clock, I was ready to shoot myself. Figuratively speaking, of course.

Dan came by at five, as promised, to help us celebrate over dinner. He suggested pizza, but, unexpectedly, the kids protested. My little connoisseurs demanded Chinese instead. Dan was only too happy to oblige and took us into Chinatown, to one of his favorite eateries tucked away behind Leicester Square.

I was a little anxious at how the kids would fare in the unfamiliar environment, but, given prawn crackers, prawn toast, egg-fried rice and noodles, they munched peacefully and left us adults to enjoy our own meals.

“You look as though you needed a treat tonight,” Dan murmured to me between courses.

“Oh God, yeah. Emily was driving me crazy,” I confessed. “Suddenly, I’m no longer enough. She wants what Josh wants. You should have heard her. It was like water torture: drip, drip, drip.”

Looking angelic and not at all like the little demon I had described, Emily nudged Dan and offered him some of her noodles. Dan obediently opened his mouth and let himself be fed, rolling his eyes and rubbing his stomach.

“Emily, my pet, how come your dinner is always so much yummier than mine?” he complained, and Emily giggled without responding.

Dan turned back to me. “Why don’t you send her to playschool?”

To him, this was the obvious solution, and it had crossed my mind at least a hundred times today. But she was still so young, just barely over two years old.

“You’re too hard on yourself,” Dan chided. “I know you’re proud to be a stay-at-home mum, but maybe Emily has different needs from Josh. She’s seeing him having so much fun, so it’s only natural she wants to do the same. A few mornings wouldn’t hurt, would they?”

“When did you become the expert on childcare?” I snapped, exasperated and bemused at his sudden insight in parent-and-child psychology.

Dan raised his hand in a placating gesture. “I’m not the expert. I just hate to see you so torn. And I think you’re too hard on yourself. It’s not like you’ve had an easy ride these past few years. Perhaps you need a break. Perhaps you need a new beginning as well, some time to do something for you.”

My turn to throw my hands in the air in a mock-horrified gesture. “How indulgent. How decadent. How selfish!” I intoned.

Dan grinned. “What was that your midwife said when you brought Emily home?” He cleared his throat and spoke in a cheerful falsetto. “Remember, happy mummy makes happy baby.”

I burst out laughing. “You have the memory of an elephant.”

My hilarity caught the children’s attention, and they wanted to be let in on the joke. Grateful for the diversion, I summoned up a quick anecdote. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Dan shaking his head. Something about my attitude was making him unhappy, but I was the parent, and I made the decisions, conveniently forgetting that I had bemoaned the burden of lone decision-making on Dan’s very shoulder not so long ago.

None of the Jones family were surprised when Dan’s mobile phone rang before pudding arrived. “It must be an ee-mergen-see again,” Josh pronounced carefully, proud to have recalled such a big word.

Dan shrugged apologetically. “It is, actually,” he grumbled when he had finished talking on the phone. “Well, not really. Not a massive one, at any rate, but I’d better go back to the studio when we’re done here. How’s about…” He furrowed his brow. “How’s about you come with me and I give you the quick tour, and after that, a limo can take you home?”

He looked at me across the table, seeking my agreement with his eyes over the overjoyed squeals emanating from the kids. I smiled broadly and nodded.
Yes, that would be a lovely ending to Josh’s big day
.