Chapter Twenty One

T oby was a sweating, writhing bundle and Cordelia could hear his screams in her bones and nothing she did made him quieten.

“Shh, shh,” she said, rocking him in her arms. But he just wriggled to be free.

She checked the clock. Three in the morning. He couldn’t have more medicine for another half an hour. In desperation, she took him down to the kitchen and popped open the freezer.

“Here,” she said, handing him a strawberry ice lolly.

It was like magic, suddenly, the screaming stopped.

Cordelia sighed. It wasn’t like it was his fault. As desperate and strained as she felt, she understood that Toby wasn’t intending to make her feel this way.

Which didn’t make her feel like slapping Lydia any less.

Lydia, who in all honesty had started all of this, who had taken what was a lovely and quiet little life and turned it into some kind of scream-laced hellscape. Lydia, who could take her good deeds and put them somewhere where the sun didn’t shine.

Lydia, who had kissed her so hard up against that wall that she’d thought she’d never breathe again.

“What…” Lydia appeared in the door, all the color suddenly dr opping from her face. “Jesus Christ, oh, Jesus, Oh, Cordelia, what have you done?”

She rushed to Toby, who was now so smeared in strawberry ice that he looked like he’d committed some kind of massacre. And for an instant, Cordelia was angry, mad that Lydia could even think that she’d done anything to hurt Toby.

Then she saw the funny side and started to laugh. “It’s ice lolly,” she sputtered.

Lydia pulled out a chair and collapsed into it. “Jesus.” She took a deep breath. “It was suddenly so quiet I thought… I don’t know what I thought.”

“You thought that I’d done something horrific and unforgivable,” said Cordelia, pulling out a chair of her own. “Though to be fair, I’m not denying that some pretty bad ideas fleetingly crossed my mind.”

“Your brain is weird when it’s tired,” said Lydia, yawning. “It’s not the thoughts that count, it’s the actions. And it’s nothing that most parents haven’t occasionally thought. It’s only natural when there’s a situation like this that you have no control over.”

Cordelia looked over to Toby, who was contentedly munching on his ice. “I don’t think I realized how hard it was.”

“We’re lucky,” agreed Lydia. “He’s a good boy for the most part. Nat’s a lucky mum.”

“Is she?” asked Cordelia. There was something that had been preying on her mind. “I mean, is she really?”

“What do you mean?”

Cordelia tapped her fingers on the table. “Do you think she’s really going to come back?”

Lydia looked away so fast that Cordelia knew she’d been wondering the same thing. “Of course she will. It’s not been two weeks yet.”

“And if she does, are we really going to hand Toby back to her like nothing happened?” Cordelia pressed.

“That’s not our decision to make.” Lydia didn’t look up.

“What if we…” Cordelia trailed off. She was tired and not thinking properly and it was a stupid idea .

But Lydia reached across the table and took her hand. Her fingers were warm and soft, her eyes were dark and sympathetic. “Cordelia, we’re not his parents. And we can’t protect him forever. There are procedures in place for things like this.”

“Procedures we’ve already broken.”

“And maybe we shouldn’t have,” Lydia said. “The longer this goes on, the more I think we should have gone to the authorities in the first place.”

“He’s just a little boy,” said Cordelia, and her heart felt like it was breaking.

Lydia squeezed her hand tight and said nothing, because there really wasn’t anything else to say.

THE DOORBELL RANG at ten minutes after eight, which was about five minutes before they needed to leave for the surgery. Lydia was struggling to get Toby into his pushchair, so Cordelia opened the door.

“Cord, I’m so glad you’re here. We were hoping to catch you before you went to the surgery,” Max said. “It’ll make things so much easier just to take everything from here rather than to have to come back and pick up Toby’s things.”

A cold wind blew inside, which was odd because the sky was blue and sunny and it really didn’t look cold at all. “Sorry,” Cordelia said. “What’s happening?”

Max stepped to one side and Cordelia opened the door further to see an older woman standing there. “This is Nat’s mum, Toby’s grandma.”

“Thank you so much for everything you’ve done,” said the woman, smiling gratefully. “I don’t know how to repay you.”

“So we’ll just grab his stuff and be out of your hair,” said Max.

Cordelia’s chest felt full, her heart straining to beat. “Sorry, what?” she said again.

“Cord.”

She felt a hand on her back and turned to see Lydia .

“It’s alright,” Lydia said. “It’s alright. It’s time for Toby to go home, that’s all.”

“Oh, not home, not really,” said the woman. “Well, sort of, I suppose. I’m planning on taking him back to Nat’s until she comes back, that’s all. But if she doesn’t…”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Which I’m sure we won’t,” Max said cheerfully. “So, he’s already in his pushchair, let me grab that high chair, and Cordelia, would you just throw his things back into his bag. I don’t want to keep you, I know you need to open the surgery.”

“Bag…” Cordelia’s throat felt tight.

“I’ll do it,” Lydia said, hurrying off. “It’ll just be a second.”

Without Lydia behind her, Cordelia felt cold again.

“You’ve done good,” Max said. “You and Lydia really stepped up, you’re heroes really, at least to little Toby.”

Cordelia couldn’t look at him, couldn’t meet his eyes.

“Here we go,” Lydia said, running down the stairs with a bag. “If there’s anything we’ve forgotten I can drop it by later.”

“Perfect,” said Max, wheeling the pushchair out of the door.

Toby’s grandmother bent down, stroking his face, ruffling his hair.

“He’s teething,” Cordelia said, the words sounding brittle and broken.

“Well, we’ll bring him by if there’s anything we can’t handle,” promised Max. “Thanks again.”

He pulled open his car door and Cordelia slammed the front door shut because she couldn’t watch. Her breath was heaving and she didn’t know what was happening to her.

Until Lydia calmly and slowly pulled her into her arms. “It’s alright,” she murmured. “It’s alright.”

And Cordelia started to sob.

For what felt like an hour she couldn’t catch her breath, couldn’t make herself stop. But slowly, gradually, she came back together again. Enough that she could pull away from Lydia.

“Sorry,” she said.

“Nothing to be sorry about,” said Lydia, eyes gleaming. “It’s alright to be sad, Cordelia. It was a sad moment. And one that you were unprepared for.”

Cordelia snorted. “You’d think that the one thing I would be prepared for would be someone leaving.”

“Toby’s going to the right place. He’s with his grandmother. He’s going to his own house with his own toys and clothes and everything else. He’ll be happy.”

“But for how long?” Cordelia asked. “You heard her. She’s there until Nat comes back. But if Nat doesn’t come back, well, who knows what will happen to him.”

“And you heard Max,” Lydia said reasonably. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Do you trust Max to do the right thing? Didn’t he bend the procedures so that Toby could stay with us? He’ll do what needs to be done.”

“I suppose,” Cordelia said. Lydia was standing so close that Cordelia could see each individual eyelash. She took a breath. “Terribly practical, aren’t you?”

“It’s in the job description,” Lydia said. But she was still looking at Cordelia, her eyes soft and kind and her lips very, very kissable.

Cordelia rolled up all her feelings into a ball and stuffed them deep down inside her. “I suppose we’d better go and open the surgery then.”

“I’ll go,” said Lydia. “I’ve got the keys anyway. You get yourself together, wash your face, and come in when you’re ready. I’ll take care of things until then.”

One more long look, one more shaky instant where Cordelia had a flashing vision of that kiss, and then Lydia was going and the house was quiet for the first time in what felt like centuries.

Cordelia leaned back against the door.

What was she doing?

She was getting her life back, the one that she wanted. Toby was being looked after by his grandmother. Lydia was no longer tied to her. In fact, she could leave at any moment.

Cordelia felt that pressure in her chest again and, determined not to give into it this time, she pushed herself away from the door and went upstairs to wash her face as ordered.

IT WAS ALL for the best, she was thinking as she pushed open the surgery door. After all, Toby should be with family. And Lydia was right, she did trust Max to do the right thing, whatever that ended up being.

In fact, maybe this was all a good thing. Maybe now, without a teething toddler around, she’d have more brain space to figure out this whole Lydia thing. The Lydia thing that she was, inexplicably, more and more sure that she actually wanted.

Not that she had a clue what she was doing.

She just knew that there had been something about that kiss that told her she wanted more of this. More of Lydia.

“Ah, there you are,” Lydia said as Cordelia came in.

“You told me to take my time,” said Cordelia, immediately on the defensive.

“Calm down, I’m not criticizing you,” said Lydia. “I was just waiting for you, that’s all.”

“Again, you said to take my time. Anyway, I’m not even late, the surgery doesn’t open for another ten minutes.”

“Again, not a criticism,” said Lydia and she was smiling broadly.

“Well then why are you waiting for me?”

“To tell you the good news,” Lydia said, smile getting even wider. “I just got a call from the practice in Castor. I got the job.”