LITMIR.BIZ

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was a bit squiffy, do you?’

      ‘You were there for me, that’s the main thing.’

      ‘Perhaps this should serve as a warning. I should be ready for any eventuality.’

      ‘I’ve still got three more months to go,’ countered Lucy. ‘And you should be able to go out and celebrate whatever spurious excuse for a celebration you happen to have. What was it this time?’

      ‘Nothing more than surviving another day at the tax office with double the workload and half the staff.’

      ‘You should retire if it’s getting too stressful,’ said Lucy, almost believing that the suggestion was purely for her mum’s benefit.

      ‘I couldn’t afford to, not yet,’ replied Christine. She looked into the depths of her cup and refused to meet Lucy’s gaze when she added, ‘And I hate to say this, but I might not be able to reduce my hours either. I haven’t put in a request yet because I’m not sure it would get approved.’

      Lucy took a gulp of scalding tea that burnt her tongue. ‘But you’d be saving them money, surely?’

      ‘Our department is already cut back to the bone and the savings wouldn’t be enough to offset the disruption. My best chance would be to wait for a fresh round of budget cuts, or yet another reorganization.’ Christine took hold of her daughter’s hand when she added, ‘I want to help you more than anything but I think we both have to be prepared if it doesn’t happen as quickly as we’d like.’

      Lucy kept her head down so her mum wouldn’t see the tears brimming.

      ‘I’m sorry, this is really bad timing,’ Christine said. ‘A more sober me would have picked a better day to bring it up.’

      ‘It’s not like I was expecting you to be on call twenty-four seven, Mum, and it’s fine. It means Adam will have to work from home a bit more than we were planning, that’s all. His boss doesn’t exactly chain him to the desk. As long as the work’s done, I’m sure no one would mind.’

      ‘And Adam will look after you, won’t he?’

      ‘Of course,’ Lucy said, her instinct to defend him overriding her present annoyance. ‘I know he has his moments, like tonight, and he can be …’

      ‘Awkward?’

      Lucy found herself smiling. ‘Something like that,’ she said. ‘But he’s so loving, and incredibly patient.’

      ‘And I’m sure he’ll make a really good dad.’

      Hoping to take advantage of her mum’s loose tongue, Lucy asked, ‘What about my dad? Was he a good father? Up until he died, I would have said he was the best, but what did I know? What was he really like, Mum?’

      When the sofa creaked as Christine shifted position, Lucy gave her mum’s hand a tight squeeze. She wasn’t going to make it easy for her to evade the questions she had been dodging for two decades.

      ‘He loved you more than anyone,’ Christine said. There was a catch in her throat when she added, ‘He idolized you.’

      ‘If that’s true, then why did he do what he did?’

      ‘It’s—’

      With her heart racing, Lucy shook her head. ‘Don’t say complicated.’

      Lucy had never been given much information about the events surrounding her father’s death and as a result, she had spent most of her life making up her own theories. Her greatest fear of late was that whatever had been wrong with her dad had been passed on to his daughter, lying in wait until she was at her most vulnerable.

      ‘But it was complicated, love,’ Christine said.

      ‘Complicated how? What was so bad that he felt he couldn’t bear to spend another day with the daughter he idolized?’

      ‘He wasn’t thinking straight.’

      ‘I know that,’ Lucy said, her words strangled by twenty years of pain. ‘No one in their right mind jumps off a bridge for no apparent reason. Why did he do it, Mum? Were there any warning signs? Why wasn’t he thinking straight? Was he ill?’

      Christine had never spoken of the possibility that Lucy’s dad had suffered from a mental illness, but Lucy was beginning to understand how something like that could creep up on a person. He could have been hiding it from everyone, even himself.

      Closing her eyes briefly, Christine bowed her head and refused to meet her daughter’s gaze. ‘It was because of me,’ she said at last. ‘Your dad and I had a strong relationship when we first married and we told each other everything. But as time went on, we got in the habit of saying nothing rather than worrying or hurting each other. Eventually, we fell out of practice of talking at all except through you. You were the glue that kept us together.’

      A shudder ran down Lucy’s spine. If she had been the glue that had kept her family together, why wasn’t she sitting there with both her parents? What had been wrong with her dad? What was wrong with her? Lucy could feel herself shutting down in panic – did she really want to know how bad things could get?

      ‘My biggest regret is that the last time we talked, we argued and I never got the chance to put things right,’ Christine confessed in a whisper.

      Her quivering voice gave Lucy the excuse she needed to retreat from the past. ‘Oh, Mum, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have brought it up, but it’s been playing so much on my mind lately.’

      ‘You’re about to become a parent yourself and it’s natural to want to look back, but you need to concentrate on what lies ahead.’

      ‘I am,’ Lucy said, her half-empty cup trembling in her hand as she set it down. ‘And if you don’t mind, I’d better make a move.’

      Lucy worked her way to the edge of the sofa and arched her back as she stood. She was about to put her phone in her handbag when it beeped.

      ‘Another apology?’ asked Christine.

      Lucy grimaced as she read the message. ‘Actually, it’s from Hannah. She wants to know if I still want the kitten. They’re ready to leave their mum.’ Her friend was practically begging her to take one.

      ‘You’re not seriously considering it, are you?’

      An image of wilting roses flashed through Lucy’s mind but she pushed it away. Adam had said she’d be fine looking after a cat and she had read somewhere that animals had a positive effect on mental health. A kitten would brighten her day and, more importantly, build her confidence in time for the birth of her daughter. Those poor kittens needed homes and even Adam had felt sorry for them.

      ‘It would be nice to have some company through the week, and Adam quite likes the idea,’ she said. She was stretching the truth a little, but he had talked about the addition of a cat to their household as if it were a fait accompli.

      ‘But you’re going to have your hands full as it is when the baby arrives.’

      Lucy turned her phone to show her mum the photo Hannah had sent of a fluffy ginger kitten with a handwritten sign in front of it that read, ‘I love Lucy.’

      Christine pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and smiled at the image. ‘Aww, he is cute.’

      ‘You could get one too. I don’t think she has homes for all of them yet.’

      ‘At least one of us has to keep hold of our senses,’ Christine warned.

      If the comment was meant to dissuade her daughter from making a rash decision, it had the opposite effect.

      ‘He’s been de-flead and wormed but I’ll get him health checked anyway and neutered when he’s old enough. By the time the baby comes, he’ll be all settled in. I might even pick him up on my way home,’ Lucy said, liking the idea of snuggling

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