Chapter 3

Three

H arry didn't lie often, but when he did, he got a slight tremor in his voice that was a dead giveaway. Such as the time he claimed he hadn't done his homework because he felt sick the whole weekend, but then it turned out that Steven and Luisa had taken both boys to a music festival on Saturday, and on Sunday, they'd all gone go-karting. Steven had posted about it on Facebook. I'd blocked him, of course, but then my divorce lawyer told me we needed to keep an eye on his spending, so I'd set up a new profile for "Martha Fokker," added a picture of a random blonde with plenty of cleavage, and waited three point five seconds for Steven to click the "Accept friend request" button. So far, I'd watched him buy a new Jaguar, gift Luisa a pair of diamond earrings, and take a holiday to the Algarve, all with money he claimed he didn't have. To be fair, that might have been true. He was a big fan of credit cards.

Annnnnnd I was getting angry again…

Deep breaths.

The hospital wasn't the place for this battle, and nor was it sensible to call Harry out over the phone. Firstly, Shawn's mum would be there to witness my parenting fail, and secondly, my darling son would be able to hang up on me.

"Well, Alfie's almost done here, and I'll pick you up as soon as I can."

"It's fine. Shawn's mum said she'd order pizza."

Pizza? Then of course he'd want to stay. Pizza was a rare treat for us, usually when Marissa came over with Liam. But if I had to pay to replace a stranger's door, then Harry would be on a pizza ban for, say, the next decade.

"Promise me you'll be good."

He did promise, and then he hung up, and I sat in the chair beside Alfie's bed wondering if his brother had just told me another lie. This was hard, so hard. Most of the popular parenting blogs conveniently left out the depression and despair and focused on crafts, fun days out, and ways to keep your home perfect with kids around. Even the sites that touched on the downsides thought yoga and mindfulness was the answer. How was I supposed to shepherd two boys towards adulthood when some days, I barely had the energy to get out of bed?

Honestly, I'd wanted to stop at one child, but Steven had worn me down over the years. He'd been so lonely growing up, he said. He'd always wished for a sibling, so it would be cruel to deprive Harry of that joy. My second pregnancy had been even worse than the first. Months of puking and waddling, followed by twelve hours of labour and a torn perineum. And the worst part? Steven had missed the actual birth thanks to a work call, then arrived back in time to take an unflattering picture of me with tear-streaked cheeks and hair plastered to my face and post it on his LinkedIn account with the caption "We just had a baby boy!"

We?

We?

I could cope with the pain, but not with that asshat taking credit for my hard work. One minute of pleasure for him, nine months of discomfort for me. The moment the painkillers wore off, I'd booked an appointment to have my tubes tied. Steven had grumbled about that, but when I pointed out that the alternative was him having a vasectomy, he quickly agreed.

And then went out to wet the baby's head with his buddies.

After I threw a bedpan at him—the nurse told me I had great aim—he'd promised to help more with the children, but of course, he'd broken that promise within two weeks of Alfie's birth. While I dealt with housework and baby colic, he went on a golfing weekend with his work pals and then escaped to the office for twelve hours a day. My worst nightmare was that Harry would grow up and turn into his father.

But I couldn't turn back the clock.

And nor could I avoid calling the stranger whose property Harry had most likely damaged earlier this evening. If nothing else, I needed to get the facts straight before I confronted Harry later. And when I said "confront," I meant in a positive and constructive way, obviously.

"Mum, I'm hungry," Alfie said.

So was I. Starving. I'd run out of time for breakfast after Harry spilled Rice Krispies all over the floor, and then missed lunch thanks to Alfie's accident.

"I'll see if I can find a vending machine. You stay right here, okay?"

"Okay."

The vending machine in the alcove off the waiting room dispensed one cereal bar, then promptly ate the rest of my change and flashed up an error code. The lady behind the desk, who looked almost as harried as I felt, offered to call the maintenance team. Her grimace suggested they wouldn't be along any time soon.

Great.

But with the machine out of action, the alcove did offer a quiet spot to call the stranger, and I gave a heavy sigh as I dialled Harry's phone again. At least I was prepared this time.

He answered almost immediately. "Thought you were going to ghost me."

"Look, I'm having a really bad day, so can we just get this over with?"

"Sure." He sounded remarkably agreeable. "Give me your number. You show up as ‘Mum' on your boy's phone."

Thankfully, Harry had set a PIN, so at least this stranger couldn't snoop through private photos and contacts. Small mercies. A part of me wanted to tell the man to keep the phone, hang up, and pretend Harry hadn't snuck out while Shawn's mum watched Whispers in Willowbrook . Steven would have done exactly that. But unfortunately, my parents had drilled some morals into me, so I read out my number.

"This had better not be a scam. If you send me porn, I'm calling the police."

"Yeah, I imagine you're the type of woman who would."

"What's that supposed to mean? ‘Type of woman'?"

"You sound a little uptight."

"Uptight? I'm not— Okay, fine. I'm uptight. But so would you be if one of your children was in the hospital and the other was busy vandalising private property. I'm not saying he did," I added hastily. "Just that it's a possibility."

"What's wrong with your other kid?"

"He broke his arm. His wrist. The doctor called it a buckle fracture."

"Relax—he'll be right as rain in a couple of weeks."

"How do you know?" Curiosity got the better of me. "Did you ever break your wrist?"

"Twice that I know of, plus I had a buckle fracture in my tibia from jumping off my grandma's balcony. Superhero movies have a lot to answer for."

"Well, Alfie wasn't watching superhero movies. A boy in his class pushed him over in the playground, which is another problem because he's never been one for confrontation, and—" Wait. Why was I talking to a complete stranger about my problems? Although was he a complete stranger? There was a niggling familiarity about his voice, and I thought I might have bumped into him around the village at some point. "Can you just send me the bloody video?"

He gave an irritating chuckle. "Sure, sweetheart."

Sweetheart? I wasn't his freaking sweetheart. Beads of sweat popped out on the back of my neck as I waited. Was the door salvageable? If not, how much did a new one cost? I was about to google when my phone buzzed.

Show time.

The video was every bit as awful as I'd feared. Worse, even. The doorbell camera had recorded Harry struggling up the steps wearing a pair of mittens and his Spider-Man Halloween mask, lugging what had to be a five-litre can of paint. There was a pause as he used a screwdriver to lever the lid open, and then he tossed the contents at the front door, took a picture of his handiwork, and hotfooted it down the drive. But he couldn't have tucked his phone very far into his pocket because it bounced onto the lawn as he ran, and in the last seconds of the clip, I spotted a boy wearing a royal-blue sweatshirt duck out of the bushes and follow him. Shawn? Maybe it wasn't only Steven who was a bad influence.

A sigh escaped. I'd been so relieved when Harry started making friends at the new school that I hadn't stopped to wonder whether they were the right kind of friends.

I called the stranger back, on his own phone this time.

"Fine, how much is a door?"

"Oh, I don't want you to fix it."

"You don't?"

"Nah, your kid is going to fix it himself."

"What?"

"You can supervise."

Was he joking? Harry was eleven years old. He didn't know the first thing about doors.

"A professional would do a much better job."

"And all your kid would learn is that when he fucks up, his mum will bail him out. You need to teach him a different lesson—that he has to be responsible for his own mistakes. How do you think he'd do in a young offenders' institution?"

I gasped. "Prison?"

"If you won't teach him the consequences of his actions, someone else will have to."

My guts churned at the thought. I didn't want Harry to become that boy, the one everyone rolled their eyes when they spoke about. The one people went out of their way to avoid. And I definitely didn't want things escalating enough that juvenile detention was a possibility.

"He'll come and wash the door tomorrow morning."

The boys had been looking forward to a day out—swimming followed by a trip to the cinema—but swimming was a no-go thanks to Alfie's cast, and now we'd have to cancel the movie too. Harry would just have to apologise to Alfie as well as the man whose property he'd damaged. Righting wrongs took precedence. What if Harry hadn't dropped his phone? What if the stranger had called the police instead? We'd all be in a whole world of trouble.

"Washing won't work. It was gloss paint. The door needs sanding down and repainting, the doorstep too. Plus he'll need to use his allowance to buy a new doormat."

More money that I didn't have. I bit back a groan. "We'll go to the hardware store first. Will eleven-ish work?"

"Eleven is fine."

"Thanks for being so understanding about all this, uh… I didn't get your name?"

"You can call me Chip."

"Chip?"

"Is there a problem with that?"

"Uh, no? No problem." The name didn't match the voice, that was all. With that gravelly timbre, he sounded like the hero from a romance novel, and romance-novel heroes weren't called Chip. Maybe that was why his voice seemed familiar? I did listen to a lot of audiobooks. "Where do you live? I mean, where should we come to paint the door?"

"Your son can give you the answer to that question."

Harry would tell me? Great. One more difficulty on top of the eleventy million I was already dealing with, but Chip didn't strike me as the type of man who would bend in an argument.

"Wish me luck."

"What should I call you?"

"Janie. I'm Janie. And I guess we'll see you tomorrow."

His soft chuckle sent a ripple of something dark and sinful through me.

"Good luck, Janie."