by Jo Lovett
Suddenly she was really tired, and she just didn’t care about the inappropriate bed sharing. She just wanted to sleep.
‘I’ll get changed in the bathroom.’ Thank goodness she’d brought modesty-maintaining, high-necked, very comfortable pyjamas. Her one clothing success of the weekend. She’d wear her bra under them to prevent any jiggling of the sort you wouldn’t do for someone you weren’t shagging. ‘And we can put a pillow down the middle of the bed.’
Izzy was really tired. She started nodding off to sleep very quickly.
And then a snuffle from Dominic’s side of the bed pinged her into wide awakeness.
‘Dominic?’
He said nothing, just snuffled a bit more. Izzy moved her head closer to his. He was crying, his face buried in the pillow, like a little boy. She couldn’t ignore it. He was a human being and Ruby’s dad and, as he’d said, they were married for eight years. She wasn’t in love with him now but she did still care about him. She put her arms round him from behind, and he turned towards her and hugged her in tightly to him and cried and cried. Izzy cried a bit too, and eventually they rolled over and went to sleep, back to back. Comfortably.
And it was actually comfortable when they woke up in the morning. Izzy got fully dressed in the bathroom before she came out and left the room, with her suitcase packed, just as Dominic came out of the shower, still damp, with a towel round his waist. He was actually a very attractive man. Maybe not as attractive as Sam, but, unlike Sam, he’d never been unpleasant to her. They’d had the odd minor argument and that was it. You were probably better off with someone who might not make you feel good fireworks, but also didn’t make you feel bad ones.
* * *
Sunday was pretty much a repeat of Saturday, minus the near kiss with Dominic. Izzy was extremely thankful late on Sunday afternoon that she had to go to work on Monday, so that she and Ruby had to leave. She got an email from Sam just before she went to bed, hugely relieved to be in her own bedroom at home in London. A polite one, about their latest cake, and asking about her weekend. Signed ‘S’.
Izzy started to tap out a reply describing the awfulness of the weekend, and then she deleted it because, despite the thawing in his tone, she and Sam weren’t actually that close. He’d shown a side of himself she didn’t recognise at all and, really, how well did she actually know him? A lot less well than she knew Dominic.
Twenty-Five
Sam
This was new. Sam was thumb twiddling while the kids were busy in their bedrooms, doing homework in Barney’s case and who knew what in Liv’s. He pressed the button on the remote a few times. There was nothing he wanted to watch in real time right now and he couldn’t be bothered to hunt through Netflix. Really, what was the point of his having taken a break from his work?
Izzy probably wasn’t going to reply to his email today. She’d probably be going to bed in the next hour or two. Normally, that would mean that he’d get a response from her in the morning, but he wasn’t holding his breath for tomorrow. Basically, it looked as though he’d ruined their friendship. He flicked through a few more channels. Really. Nothing. Maybe he’d text Luke or Ash. Call his mother. Go for a run. Read something.
All quite unappealing. What he wanted was an email from Izzy.
He should not have spoken to her like that in the pub. He’d clearly hurt her badly, when she’d just been trying to help, as a great, caring friend. He’d lashed out, partly because he didn’t know how to change his life and partly because he just couldn’t do romance with someone he might actually love. Who lived in London.
And then he’d sent a really crappy apology. And now they weren’t really talking.
So he’d completely destroyed their friendship.
Or had it already been destroyed by their kiss? Was it inevitable that it would have been destroyed eventually, because the attraction between them was too great?
Love.
If two people were in love, could they ever happily just be friends?
He turned the TV off and threw the remote to the other end of the sofa. Really, there was nothing on that any person with a brain could stand to watch.
Whether or not he and Izzy could be friends again, he’d hurt her and he shouldn’t have done that. Maybe he should break with the tradition they’d established and call her. No. Easier to write so that he could make sure he said everything he needed to. It had to be a proper apology. Maybe they could be penfriends again, maybe they couldn’t, but he was going to do the right thing.
He needed to get the email right, including the title, to make sure she read it.
To: Izzy Castle
From: Sam McCready
Proper apology—I’m very sorry—please read?
Hey Izzy,
No preamble.
This, I hope, is going to be a proper apology for the way I spoke to you in the pub on Thursday evening.
The first thing to say is that you were absolutely right. I do have a work-life balance problem.
The twins are the most important thing in my life. I need to spend more time with them, particularly now as they, and I, navigate their teenage years, but I don’t know how to do it without leaving my job, and I don’t think I can leave my job. In short, I’m stressed.
But none of that excuses how I spoke to you. You were just trying to help and I lashed out. I was a complete asshole to you and for that I am truly sorry. I hope that I haven’t destroyed our friendship, because I value it more than you know.
I hope that you can accept my apology.
I hope also that your weekend with your ex-husband and his mother wasn’t too difficult, and that Ruby isn’t struggling too much with the loss of her grandfather.
Sam xx
That had taken a long time. He’d considered mentioning their kiss in some way but hadn’t managed to find the words. That was literally the most perfect, amazing kiss of my life and immediately afterward I was forced to admit to myself that the reason that it was so good is that I love you, a lot, and have done for some time, and that freaked me out because I’m scared of getting hurt. Plus, my daughter hates you, and my first loyalty has to be to her.
No. Obviously not. You didn’t declare love if you weren’t going to act on it. And he wasn’t going to lie to her and tell her that the kiss didn’t mean anything, because that would be really shitty of him. So he hadn’t mentioned it at all, hadn’t given that additional background to why he’d lashed out so hard. She’d just have to think that his stress had been the entire factor behind his behaviour. Or maybe she’d know already that the kiss had played a part in it.
He re-read the email, pressed Send and dropped his phone on the sofa next to him. Done.
And now he was going to haul the kids out of their rooms and spend some quality time with them.
‘Liv, Barney,’ he hollered. And again.
‘What?’ Liv said, when Sam had got himself off the sofa and was knocking on her door.
‘Come to the kitchen?’ he asked. ‘And hang out? Cook bolognese with me? And then maybe watch TV together? Or play a game?’
‘Maybe.’ Eventually she opened the door. ‘We could watch TV after dinner. And we could make a cake for dessert. If you don’t think it’s boring.’
‘Never boring. That sounds great.’ Sam smiled at his daughter, delighted, and she smiled back, a proper smile. He knocked on Barney’s door. ‘Barney? Come and join us?’
So this was nice. The three of them in the kitchen together. Alright, anyway. Barney had been pretty silent the whole time, but Liv had been chattering away.
‘We need music,’ Liv said. ‘I left my phone upstairs. Can I use your phone, Dad?’
‘Sure.’ Sam. ‘It’s on the sofa.’
Sam, busy getting onions and carrots out to start chopping, didn’t register immediately that she’d gone quiet, until she said, voice shaking, ‘You lied. I hate you. You saw her in London.’
Liv was holding his phone towards him, her arm completely straight. He�
��d left it open on his emails and Izzy had replied while he’d been upstairs.
‘You lied.’ Liv had upped the volume of her voice. ‘I hate you.’
‘You read my email. That’s unacceptable.’ And not what he should be focusing on right now. ‘Liv. Listen.’
‘Listen?’ Liv screeched. ‘You want me to listen to you telling me that it’s unacceptable for me to read your emails?’ She drew a deep breath and then said, so quietly that Sam had to lean in to hear her words, ‘You’re trying to tell me that it’s more unacceptable for me to read your emails than it is for you to lie to me and tell me you love me and that you won’t see that woman any more? Insane.’ And then she threw his phone on the floor and the screen shattered.
‘You broke my phone.’ Christ. What was wrong with him? Again, not exactly the most important issue here.
‘And you broke my trust.’ Liv turned and marched out of the kitchen, slamming the door behind her.
Barney was looking at Sam in silence, eyebrows almost meeting his hair.
Sam decided to follow Liv. She already had her bedroom door firmly closed behind her when he got there. He knocked. Nothing.
‘Liv. I love you so much. There’s nothing between me and Izzy.’ He wished he could remember exactly what he’d said in the email, and that he knew what Izzy’s reply had said. How bad had it looked to Liv?
Liv turned her music up. At that volume it could damage her ears.
‘Turn it down,’ Sam yelled. She turned it up higher. ‘Okay, I’m going,’ he yelled harder. She turned it up even more. Clearly, this was not the way to talk to her.
Barney had gone when Sam got back to the kitchen, presumably holed up in his bedroom again.
Sam Scotch-taped his phone screen and read Izzy’s reply.
Hi Sam
Thank you so much for your email.
I’m sure that I could have phrased things a LOT better in the pub, and I’m sure also that if I hadn’t left so quickly, maybe we’d both have felt better at the time; I’m sorry on both counts. Your apology is completely accepted and I hope that you can accept mine in return.
The weekend was not fun, obviously. Dominic and his mother are both incredibly upset. His parents were happily married for a long time and I’m not sure how Helena, his mother, is going to cope on her own.
Ruby’s okay.
Hope you’re having a good day today.
Izzy x
Under any other circumstances, he’d be trying to work out if this meant he and Izzy were friends again, but now he was trying to work out how bad her reply – and his own email – had sounded to Liv. Very fortunate that neither he nor Izzy had mentioned the kiss. If he replied, he’d better remember to delete the email. Cover his tracks. From his own daughter.
This was a ridiculous situation to be in.
He typed out a WhatsApp to Liv explaining that he loved her and that he’d met Izzy for dinner because it had already been arranged, and that they’d had an argument about nothing in particular and he’d thought that he should apologise, but that that was all.
His message got two grey ticks which did not turn blue.
Liv did turn her music off eventually but she wouldn’t open her bedroom door before Sam went to bed, and didn’t reply when he knocked on the door and WhatsApped again to say good night.
After a terrible night during which Sam had a nightmare – for the first time since talking to Izzy in Hyde Park – about Liv and the aftermath of the accident, he was up early and off to a breakfast meeting with Jim Buck at the Waldorf Astoria.
Back in the office, he was ploughing through a large pile of documents when his secretary buzzed him with an urgent call. It was Penny Ellis, the school secretary. Not again. She’d called him three times already this trimester to arrange calls to discuss Liv’s behaviour. So different from the younger, angelic Liv.
‘Good morning, Mr McCready. This is Penny Ellis calling. Olivia hasn’t arrived at school today. Could you confirm that she’s ill?’
Everything about Sam froze in that moment. Face, body, ability to think, ability to speak.
‘Mr McCready?’
‘I don’t know,’ he managed. ‘I’ll call you back.’
She wasn’t answering her cell phone.
Mrs H was in the apartment. ‘She was fine this morning. She left at her normal time and said she was meeting her friends. Barney left early, obviously.’
‘Obviously?’
‘He has basketball practice before school on Mondays.’ If Mrs H knew that, Sam should. He was their father.
‘Which friends does she normally meet?’ Sam should know that too.
Sam tried tracing her on the family app they shared. Her location permission had been turned off. He called the school back and asked them to ask her friends if she’d met them. And then he sat at his desk and tried not to panic. It would be okay. It had to be. She’d probably just forgotten to sign in or whatever it was that they did when they arrived at school. Another thing he didn’t know and should do.
Penny Ellis called back after seven minutes. ‘Liv didn’t meet her friends, I’m afraid.’
The terror that washed over him was physically paralysing. Where was she? His beautiful, stroppy, innocent, vulnerable daughter. What had happened? He needed to pull himself together immediately and do something. The police. CCTV. He needed to act. Had she run away on purpose? Had she been abducted?
The police were great. Mrs H was great. School was great. His apartment building security team were great. They all had ideas about how to search for her and they were all going to start that search immediately. But none of them actually knew where she was. They were all just going to try to find her. They might all fail. It might already be too late.
Sam was on his feet, running through the office. He took the stairs because he couldn’t wait for the elevator. He kept on running when he got to the sidewalk.
This was insane. He was jogging now, checking every above-average height, slim, blonde young woman he passed. Of course none of them were Liv. Better to be doing something than nothing, though.
His phone was ringing.
‘Joshua from Security. We’ve found her on CCTV. She crossed the road and we think she went into the park.’
Sam upped his pace. Was she still there? What would she be doing? Had she gone in by one exit and left by another? Did she have secrets from him? Was she being groomed online? Or was this because of their argument last night?
His phone again. Mrs H.
‘She left you a letter. I’ve taken the liberty of opening it.’ Mrs H read it to him. It confirmed that Liv had run away because of their argument. She hadn’t said where she was going.
Sam ran into the park. Liv loved the park. Maybe she was in here, just hiding out, needing to calm down. Maybe he’d jog down all their favourite paths. Maybe he’d find her here.
He didn’t find her anywhere. His temples were pounding, and he could taste bile in his throat. What if they never found her? Or what if it was bad news when they did? No. If she’d run away on purpose, she’d have a plan. She was a great kid, a sensible kid.
His phone rang. His secretary. He was missing an important meeting. Whatever.
And then it rang again. The police.
So much bile in his throat.
They’d found her. On a train. Completely safe.
Sam leaned his forehead against a tree and cried.
* * *
‘So.’ They were sitting on the sofa in the kitchen and they’d both been crying. ‘I love you, Olivia McCready. You took a lot of years off my life today.’
‘I love you too, Daddy.’ Liv’s usual bravado was absent. She’d scared herself today, coming across some unsavoury characters who’d freaked her out. Sam had wanted to kill them when she told him what they’d said, but at least she’d learned a valuable lesson. Hopefully.
‘I should have told you that I was meeting Izzy. She and I are friends. Nothing more. You don’t have to like my friend
s. She’s important to us because she’s great for Barney. And you shouldn’t have read my emails. Although if you did read them carefully you will know that I told Izzy that you and Barney are the most important thing in my life.’ Thank God he’d said that.
‘Yeah, I did see that.’
‘Right. Again, I love you. Is that a good summary of where we’re at?’
‘I think so. Yeah. It is. I’m sorry for scaring you. Sorry I broke your phone.’
‘Hey. Phones can be repaired. I’m sorry I upset you so much and that we haven’t been spending enough time together. Things are going to change.’ He was serious about that.
Twenty-Six
Izzy
Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, she was going to be late. There were sheep everywhere. Behind her, in front of her, on both sides of her. Izzy edged the car slowly forward and came very close to touching a couple of them. They didn’t notice and they didn’t move, at all. How did sheepdogs manage? A dog couldn’t do as much damage as a car, could it? So why did sheep respond to dogs?
How dreadful to be late for a funeral. She needed to do something, fast.
Maybe if she got out. Maybe they responded better to people or animals than they did to vehicles.
No.
Sheep were surprisingly large when you saw them up close. She couldn’t get out. There was one right up against the car and she couldn’t get the door open. Again, shit. She’d been sitting here for minutes already, and she’d already been on a tight schedule, having left London later than she’d intended.
She rolled the window down and shouted, ‘Shoo.’ Nothing happened, obviously.
Maybe she could call the police and they could move the sheep.
