and stripped my bed, casting off horrible wet knickers and waiting, sitting in my own piss until the sound of Vicky’s shower eased off through the wall.
And then somehow I got myself ready for work.
I tried to take part in my morning meetings, knowing full well my eyes must be nothing short of shadows underneath. I tried to smile and joke about just how great Oscars was with Lucia and Stacey and Melissa, and it stabbed me in the heart all over again – hearing how happy they’d been to meet him. A spiteful tease from fate at just how good life could be between us if we made it through.
I was waiting to talk with the Kershaw’s project manager when I had to revisit the fun chatter all over again with Peter and Jamie from finance, and I was on the edge of breaking all over again. I was feeling my dreams crumbling a second time around and praying for a miracle when I got a summoning call through from Lucia back on reception.
I had a visitor.
My heart raced, wondering, just wondering, if it was Lucas coming to tell me he’d found a way through hell, but I should have known.
I should have known there was no way Lucia would have said anything more than ‘your dance buddy is here and waiting’, or ‘here your hot guy comes’ if it had been Lucas out there.
I should have known it was some more shit on top of the rest to face on a Monday morning.
But I’d never have known it was Margaret Pierce standing there in reception waiting for me, the first time I’d seen his mother in a decade.
I’d never have known her cheeks were lined with tears, and that she’d take my hands in hers and beg me to let Lucas go back to Maya.
Her brown hair was clearly dyed now and tied up in a bun, and she looked thinner and older, but she was still her as she called up a string of beautiful pictures of a smiling happy family and shoved them in my face.
Lucas smiling at Maya with their baby girl in his arms, and Maya glowing happy in her wedding dress.
A video of Lucas and Maya singing happy birthday to Millie over a dinner table and both of them holding her tight when the candles went out.
“Please, Anna,” she said, and her eyes were so raw on mine I felt the sick bubbling in my throat. “Please, don’t do this. Maya’s a lovely woman who wants to try her best, and she’s always loved him, and always will, he’s just made it so hard for her to show it.”
I couldn’t speak, so she carried on.
“If you love him, then love his daughter too. Please don’t make him choose. Please don’t.”
And that’s when I knew it.
That’s when I knew the answer.
The choice wasn’t his to make, the choice was mine.
It stabbed.
Oh fuck, how it stabbed.
But it was there. And it was real. The answer staring me in the face through the shit storm, while we were still choking and trying to breathe in some semblance of an answer from the clouds.
This time around it wouldn’t be Lucas walking away, it would be me.
But this time I’d be doing it for him.
Him and his little girl.
Chapter Thirty
Lucas
I burst through the door at my mother’s house and I didn’t give a shit about how fucking fierce I looked. I was straight through to the living room where she was sitting in her armchair staring over at some mindless bullshit on the TV, and I closed the fucking distance like a fucking bull at a red rag.
I nearly threw the TV remote across to bust through the screen, but managed to hold my temper back enough to press the power off and toss it back onto the side table, and then I asked her the question. Yelled it out with a voice racked with pain, and rage, and pure fucking panic.
“WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO THAT FOR?!”
Her eyes were a mirror of fierce on mine, lips pursed as she glared back at me.
“Because somebody had to see sense, Lucas. Somebody had to see sense and solve this ridiculous situation!”
I leaned into the chair, my hands on the arms, and she pressed herself back into the cushions, with her eyes opening wider.
I hadn’t been this close to her in years.
“IT WAS NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS, MOTHER! IT NEVER HAS BEEN!”
It was then that she flipped back