I’d kept pushing. “Or Christmas. I know it’s months away, but they’ll be doing the rosters soon. I’ll book time off the week before, and we can do the markets. Get something nice for Sophia.” I thought that might swing it, but she had just said, I’ll think about it, and shut me down.
Then she was snatching up the bill the second Sophia put down her spoon, taking it to the counter to pay. Her phone buzzed against the table, and instinct made me reach for it—the same auto-response that sees my fingers self-swiping to betting sites on my own phone. I glanced at the screen. It was from someone called Ryan.
Swap sorted with Crew Ops. You’re on the Sydney run. Still think I ended up with the better end of the deal!
It wasn’t so much that I didn’t understand it (although I didn’t)—more that it didn’t register as being significant. Only as we were leaving, Mina said, “Oh, about the Christmas markets. Don’t bother booking time off. I’ve been shafted with the Sydney flight. I’ll be away all that week.”
Suddenly, Ryan’s message made sense.
As they walked away, I felt crushed. To be hated so much, she’d rather be ten thousand miles from me… My fault, I knew. Even so.
I think of Mina now, at the mercy of hijackers, and I trace the blame backward. I shift on the cold stone, trying to get some feeling back in my legs without disturbing Sophia, who has dozed off on my lap. She was leaning into my chest, but as she grew sleepy, her head slipped to one side, and with no hands to stop her, I had to twist my shoulder forward to stop her from falling. It was awkward at first, then uncomfortable, and now it’s almost unbearable, but sleep is the best place for Sophia right now, while I figure out what to do and how much of this is my fault. I’m certain that if I hadn’t been so distracted—hadn’t been in so much pain from the kicking I got—I’d never have lost to someone like Becca.
I should have told Mina the truth from the start, except that it was never meant to be a lie. Buying a scratch card might technically be gambling, but no one calls it that until it’s a problem, and it wasn’t a problem until it was. By then I was too worried, too ashamed, too desperate to pay off the debt before Mina noticed.
Water drips from the wall down the back of my shirt, and I shiver involuntarily. Sophia stirs, and I freeze, but it’s too late.
She’s awake.
“Mummy!” And again, louder. “Mummy!”
“Shh, Daddy’s here.”
“Mummy!”
I rock her gently from side to side, my shoulder screaming with the movement. Sophia starts crying. “I don’t like it here. I want Mummy. Mummy!”
“How about a story?”
“No, I want Mummy!” Her body is tense, and her feet kick against my shins.
“In the great green room, there was a telephone.”
“Mummy.” Quieter now.
“And a red balloon. And a picture of…” I end the line in a question.
“The cow jumping over the moon,” Sophia whispers. She stops kicking.
“And there were…”
“Three little bears sitting on chairs.”
How I hated Goodnight Moon. I’d taken it away once, slipped it under the rug in Sophia’s room. I told myself it would be good for Sophia to have a different bedtime story, to break this ridiculous reliance on routine and repetition. I told myself it wasn’t that good a story anyway—there were far better out there. I bought a stack of stories from Waterstones, assuaging my guilt with The Gruffalo and Room on the Broom. I ordered a copy of Le Petit Prince, suggested to Mina that Sophia might like to hear stories in French. “Did your mum speak Arabic to you when you were growing up?”
Mina grinned. “Only when she was cross.”
“We could find some traditional Algerian stories for Sophia.”
“She likes Goodnight Moon.”
“Every night, though!”
It wasn’t only the repetition that needled me. It was the fact that Sophia only ever wanted Mina to read it. When Mina read Goodnight Moon, Sophia would join in. She’d point to the pictures and hold her finger to her lips when the old lady whispered hush. I was always a poor second, the reserve player on the losing team. “Goodnight stars; goodnight air; goodnight noises everywhere,” I’d finish, and Sophia would sit up in bed. “When is Mummy back?”
“She doesn’t say it to hurt you,” Mina would say, but it never took away the sting.