“Where is she?” Daff says. “I was so worried. I can’t believe she left the house and came to you. How did she even get here?”
“She walked,” Richard says seriously.
“She walked? But it’s miles.”
“She left at three in the morning.”
“What?” Daff sits up straight, shocked. “Three in the morning? At thirteen? Oh my God! Anything could have happened to her.”
“I know. That’s what I said.”
“I can’t believe it. That’s punishable. She’s going to have a curfew from now on.”
“I agree,” Richard says quietly, “but there’s a bigger problem.”
“What?” Daff is suddenly fearful.
“She doesn’t want to go home.”
“What do you mean, she doesn’t want to go home?”
“She’s got this thing about living with me, and she’s refusing to go home.”
“She can’t refuse to go home. I mean, she can, but she’s thirteen. She doesn’t get to do what she wants. She has to come home.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I know you and she are struggling, and although it won’t be permanent, I thought maybe the best thing right now might be to have her here for a while.”
“What do you mean, a while?”
“I don’t know, and I’m sure it’s just a phase, but she is adamant and I can’t see the harm in trying.”
“But I’m her mother,” Daff says frantically. “She has to be with me.”
“Daff, this isn’t a reflection on you,” Richard says gently. “My sister hated my mother when she was a teenager, and look at them now, they’re the best of friends and you’d never know the hell they went through all those years ago. Jess reminds me of my sister, and maybe this is just something girls sometimes go through. I think if the two of you had some space from one another, it might help.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Daff says quietly, and, hating herself for it, she is torn. There is part of her that is desperate to cling onto her daughter. There is nothing like the mother-daughter relationship. How can Richard tell Jess about boys, and makeup, and periods, and all the things she is going to have to deal with any second now? And there is another part of her that longs for peace and quiet, that longs to live in a house where she doesn’t feel like she’s walking on eggshells every minute of the day her daughter is home, waiting for the next eruption, crying quietly in her bedroom at the end of the day, wondering when she will ever get her daughter back.
“She loves you.” Richard’s expression softens when he sees Daff’s eyes fill with tears. “She’s just filled with hormones and she doesn’t know what to do with all her emotions.”
“I know.” Daff swallows. “I was the same. But, Richard, you work. How can you be there for her? Who will be home when she gets off the bus? How could you possibly take care of her?”
“I have Carrie too,” Richard says. He didn’t want to have this conversation, not yet, but she has to know.
“Carrie. Your girlfriend?”
“Yes. She just moved in with me. She’s a writer and she works at home. She’s here all the time.”
“She doesn’t mind taking on Jess?”
“They get on. Not always, and God knows it isn’t easy, but Carrie seems to know what she’s in for, and she’s supportive of anything that might make life easier for all of us.”
“Do I get to meet her?”
“I think you should. I thought maybe you and Carrie could have a coffee. It might be easier for the two of you to get to know one another without me there.”
“Okay,” Daff says. “You have to let me digest all of this, Richard. ” She sighs. “This is huge. I just don’t know.”
“I understand,” he says, standing up. But Daff looks suddenly so lost, he finds himself holding his arms out, and without thinking she steps into them and allows herself to be hugged.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers, shocked at how familiar she feels, realizing that although he has moved on with Carrie, he will never fully move on, and not just because they have a daughter together. And he is sorry. He may have found happiness, but the fallout from his infidelity is so much bigger—it is so painful to see Jess so unhappy, and Daff so lost—that he still sometimes wonders what the hell he was thinking.
“I know,” Daff says, tears falling down her cheeks. “Can I go and see Jess?”