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be hell to pay in class tomorrow. I wouldn’t put it past her to take a photo of the balloons and plaster it all over Facebook. If she hasn’t already.’

      For the remainder of the meal, they all did their best to ignore the other diners. They kept to safe topics of conversation to smooth over Vikki’s spat with her mum, but an awkwardness persisted. After the main course had been cleared away, Rob made an excuse to leave the table, but before he left, he placed a hand on Elaine’s shoulder. They shared one last look which filled Vikki with a horrible sense of foreboding.

      ‘What’s going on, Mum?’

      Elaine was playing with her napkin and wouldn’t meet her daughter’s anxious gaze. ‘I want you to know that I would love nothing more than for you to have a successful career one day, Vikki. You’re a very capable young woman, and stronger than you give yourself credit for.’

      ‘But?’

      ‘Look what I did, Nanna,’ Freya said, waving her latest work of art in the air.

      When Elaine looked back up, Vikki was shocked to see tears welling in her eyes. ‘Mum? Please tell me what’s wrong.’

      ‘What’s wrong, Nanna?’ Freya repeated. She had picked up on the anxiety in Vikki’s voice and copied the frown that had appeared on her mother’s brow.

      Elaine stroked the side of Freya’s cheek, making the little girl giggle, but the smile on her own face was heavy with sadness. ‘I found a lump,’ she whispered. ‘Under my armpit.’

      A cold chill ran through Vikki’s veins, but her expression remained fixed. She wouldn’t let her fear show. ‘Have you seen a doctor?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘And?’

      Rubbing her shoulder, Elaine said, ‘When I went to visit friends last week, I wasn’t exactly being honest. I was in hospital having a biopsy.’

      ‘Oh, my God,’ Vikki said softly and resisted the urge to put her hands over her ears. ‘It’s cancer, isn’t it?’

      ‘It’s been caught at an early stage,’ Elaine told her, ‘and it’s nothing I can’t handle, I promise, Vikki.’

      ‘But …’ Vikki said, looking around the restaurant and wondering why no one else was reacting to this earth-shattering news. She searched for Rob, wanting him back at her side so he would tell her how they were going to deal with this, and that was when a thought struck her. ‘Does Rob know?’

      ‘Yes, he does. I had to put someone down as my next of kin and we both wanted to spare you the worry until we knew the results.’

      ‘You should have told me.’

      ‘I wanted to protect you – isn’t that what every mother does? It was Rob who insisted I tell you today, but I so hate spoiling his birthday.’

      Vikki fought off the urge to rush into her mum’s arms and release the sobs burning her throat. ‘What happens now?’

      ‘I’m waiting on a date for the mastectomy, which shouldn’t be too long. The consultant is keen to operate as soon as possible.’ Leaning over to her daughter, Elaine stroked her cheek as she had done with Freya, but couldn’t raise a smile so easily. ‘It’s going to be OK, sweetheart. I’m going to be fine and so are you.’

      Vikki nodded obediently as everything began to make sense; her mum’s reaction to the new housing development; the reluctance to look after Freya; not to mention Rob’s lacklustre response to her ideas about going back to work lately. In the space of one meal, her whole life had been turned upside down, and they hadn’t even had dessert yet. Any minute now, a waiter would arrive with the birthday cake Vikki had ordered as a surprise, complete with the requisite number of candles. Rob would hate the fuss, especially with one of his students looking on. She had made a stupid mess of it all, as usual, and now she couldn’t stop the tears slipping down her cheeks. Her mum was wrong about her being strong. She wasn’t even good at pretending.

       Tuesday, 15 Sept 2015

      Vikki was kneeling against the back of the sofa as she looked out of the window with her chin resting on her hands. She was peeking through a gap in the vertical blinds so she had a good view of the empty space on the driveway next to her Corsa. From the corner of her eye, she could see Freya mimicking her, although her little girl had to stand rather than kneel to see out of the window.

      ‘Where’s Daddy?’ Freya said with a whimper. They had been waiting for at least ten minutes and the toddler had lost patience after the first two.

      ‘He’ll be home soon,’ Vikki said, and not for the first time. She was getting impatient too.

      ‘No, tell Daddy to come home now,’ Freya insisted as her cupid’s bow lips began to tremble.

      Turning her head towards her daughter, Vikki felt some of the tension that had been building over the last week or so slip away. Becoming a mother at twenty-one had been overwhelming and still was, but she would love and protect Freya until her dying day, just like her own mother had always done with her, and please God, would continue to do.

      When Vikki’s lip began to quiver too, Freya asked, ‘Mummy want a cuddle?’

      ‘Yes, please.’

      Vikki held back the tears and began blowing raspberries against Freya’s neck.

      ‘We do tumbles now, Mummy?’ Freya asked when their giggling subsided.

      Vikki narrowed her eyes. ‘Let’s see if you can do this,’ she said and shuffled backwards to give herself enough space. In one flowing move, she was standing on her head, her back brushing against the sofa cushions and her legs pointing to the ceiling. Using one hand to keep her balance, Vikki helped Freya into a vaguely similar position.

      Despite being out of practice and out of shape, Vikki held her position with relative ease while the little girl toppled over and tried again. There had been a time when Vikki thought she might have made a half-decent gymnast, but her dad had convinced her that her greatest potential lay in academia. She had achieved success in neither, and as Vikki considered what a disappointment she would be to her dad now, she failed to notice Rob’s old Ford Focus pulling up outside, or hear the clatter of keys being dropped on the radiator shelf by the door.

      ‘Don’t you think you’re a bit too old for that?’

      ‘Daddy!’

      Freya tumbled off the sofa, tipping Vikki over in the process as she ran into Rob’s open arms. Vikki got to her feet and waited patiently with her arms behind her back until Rob had balanced Freya on his hip and beckoned her towards him.

      ‘I’ve missed you,’ she said, stepping over so he could wrap his free arm around her. ‘And I’ll have you know there are top gymnasts who are my age and still winning gold medals.’

      ‘For balancing upside down on the sofa? I dread to think what Freya will be telling her nursery teachers about your antics,’ he said, before giving her a curious look. ‘And what’s with all the makeup?’

      ‘I’ve got to keep up with the other mums on the school run.’

      ‘Don’t be silly, you don’t need to compete. You’re leagues above them all.’

      Vikki wasn’t convinced. She might be younger than a lot of the other mums, but for the last three years she had felt frumpy. She didn’t know any of the others particularly well, and she desperately wanted to fit in. ‘I wanted to make myself feel good, that’s all,’ she said.

      He kissed the top of her head, ‘Especially today of all days,’ he said. ‘How are you doing?’

      She could only shrug. ‘How was your day?’

      ‘Still getting to know my new form,’ he said, scrunching

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