to fill him up and assuage his sweet tooth. In a few hours he’d eat breakfast according to his plan – porridge. Josie liked porridge made the Swedish way with pudding rice, milk and cinnamon. They’d make it together.
Finally, he slept.
He woke to find Josie on the edge of his bed holding the cordless house phone and hissing, ‘Daddy. Dad. DAD! It’s Mummy.’ Her narrow face was creased with worry, hair tousled from sleep.
He surfaced with an effort and took the handset. ‘Thanks.’ He winked at Josie and said, ‘Loren?’ into the phone.
‘Can you take Maria today?’ Loren sounded high and strained.
Nico rubbed an eye. He didn’t recall any agreement about continuing to help with Maria and part of him wanted to ask Loren if she was getting him mixed up with Maria’s actual father. Then a glance at the bedside clock told him it wasn’t even six a.m. and this was odd behaviour. ‘Is there a reason?’ he asked neutrally.
After several seconds she admitted, ‘I’m not feeling good.’
‘Right,’ he replied tentatively. ‘I was going to call you to arrange to bring Josie for a visit so maybe we can discuss it further then.’
Loren’s voice began to shake. ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea for Josie to come today.’
Chilled, Nico put out a hand to stroke Josie’s hair reassuringly, not sure how much she could hear. He phrased his next question carefully. ‘Do you think it would be a good idea for me to fetch Maria soon?’
‘Yes.’ Loren’s voice broke.
Quickly ending the call, Nico kissed Josie. ‘Mum’s not feeling well so we’re going to have Maria home to play.’ Josie trailing after him, looking as if she wasn’t sure whether to be happy or worried, he woke Emelie to ask her to stay with Josie, dressed and drove to Loren’s.
He found Loren sitting on the step of the street door to her apartment block, crying.
‘Where’s Maria?’ he demanded, heart giving a giant leap that Loren should be out here on her own, hair greasy, tears trickling from her chin.
She wiped her face on her wrist. ‘She’s OK. Watching TV.’
Maria his immediate concern, Nico took the key Loren clutched, slipped past and ran upstairs. In the flat he found Maria sitting on the floor of the lounge, watching Peppa Pig with tear-stained cheeks.
When she saw him she jumped up. ‘Juice, Mydad?’
He swung her into his arms. ‘Coming right up.’ She drank two beakers full while he rocked her absently. She smelled stale and was fully dressed in grubby clothes so had probably slept in them. The thirst she was demonstrating, gulping and gasping as she drank, was that big red flag again, waving in his face, not to be ignored. When she was finally sated he wasted no time but went to her room. The bag he’d returned on Tuesday was on the end of her bed, still packed with most of the clean clothes he’d sent back, so he swung it over his shoulder and located her coat on the hall floor. As he threaded her into it, Maria beamed at him trustingly, making him ashamed of his earlier irritation at Loren’s call. ‘Shall we go see Josie?’ he suggested.
Maria clapped her hands. ‘Yes! Yozee.’
Loren came back into the flat, hovering, eyes red and swollen. The confines of the hall made it obvious that she once again smelled of alcohol. He paused. Here was someone else who needed help but he wasn’t superman and he wasn’t a saint. He could only help her indirectly. ‘I’m going to call your mum, OK?’ he said gently.
She managed a ghostly smile. ‘I’ll be OK. Just can’t manage the parenting stuff right now.’
Not by any stretch of the imagination was Loren ‘OK’. ‘Grab some sleep,’ he suggested. ‘And how about a spare key?’
She found one in a drawer and he left, grappling with Maria, her buggy and her car seat. She barely looked at her mother.
At home, Emelie met him in the hall. ‘Josie’s in the shower,’ she said, ‘Hiya, Maria!’ Then, to Nico, ‘What’s going on?’ Her eyes were soft with pity as she took Maria and helped her out of her coat, saying, ‘I bet you want breakfast, hey?’
‘Yes, beckfast,’ Maria agreed, nodding hard.
‘Thanks.’ Nico whispered the bones of the situation to Emelie, adding, ‘I have to call Vivvi.’
Emelie moved towards the kitchen, Maria trotting beside her. ‘I’ll make breakfast for the girls. And some for you for when you come off the phone,’ she added, without looking at him.