We Are Family

by Nicola Gill

  Billy’s lower lip wobbled. ‘I want Daddy!’

  The words rang in Laura’s head all day long. When she was supposed to be chasing leads, all she could think about was having to sit Billy down and have the proper conversation at some point. (Was she going to have to? Did she mean this? Did Jon?) Mummy and Daddy are going to live in different houses. We both still love you very much.

  When Greta was asking her if she could cut her copy, Laura was telling herself that lots of kids have divorced parents and grow up fine.

  She’d had a row with her mother about Jon once. ‘You and Jon aren’t going to grow old together, Laura.’ You were right, Mum.

  Billy looked happy enough as his class was led into the playground but as soon as he saw Laura, the smile disappeared from his face. She’d picked up a doughnut for him, a shameless bribe if ever there was one. He ate it in big, greedy mouthfuls, giving himself a sugar beard in the process.

  ‘Can we go to the playground?’

  Laura hesitated. She’d told Dani she’d finish up the ‘Shock Confessions’ at home.

  ‘Daddy always lets me.’ He scratched his head.

  ‘Okay, not for too long though. Mummy has got some work to finish up.’

  ‘You’re always working.’

  Someone has to.

  There were some other kids from Billy’s school at the playground and he fell in happily with a little gang that had taken control of the climbing frame.

  Amy phoned and asked if Laura could possibly have Josh that evening. Don’t worry, she said, she hadn’t suddenly got a hot Valentine’s Day date, it’s was just an old uni mate was up in London. Josh would be fast asleep so no trouble. Laura wanted to say no. She had to finish ‘Shock Confessions’ tonight and last time she’d had Josh when he was supposed to have been fast asleep, he’d actually been very much awake. But then she realized that she might be a single mum herself now. She was tempted to tell Amy that Jon had moved out. She knew that if she did, Amy would bring wine and ice cream and they would talk about men with the same kind of scorn as they did annoying PRs or the Dulwich mums who talked loudly in cafés about how hard it was looking after two homes. But Laura wasn’t ready to tell anyone about her and Jon yet. So she just said she was fine to have Josh and then hung up the phone, feeling wretched.

  ‘Hey,’ said a woman who Laura thought was called Annie. ‘I heard about your mum. I’m so sorry.’

  Laura felt tears bubble up in her throat and the woman immediately put her hand over hers. Laura felt like such a fraud. I’m crying over my failed relationship, not my mum, she felt like saying. Or was she crying over both? It was difficult to know.

  ‘I lost my dad last year,’ the woman said. ‘Heart attack. None of us saw it coming. It was awful; brutal.’ She started to cry. ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry. The last thing you need is me blubbing.’

  Laura squeezed her arm, told her it was fine and that she was sorry about her dad.

  ‘When’s Daddy home?’ Billy said at teatime.

  Laura felt her breath catch in her throat. ‘You’ll see Daddy soon.’

  Billy ate his sausages but not his mash because it had touched his carrots.

  ‘I thought you liked carrots.’

  ‘Not these carrots.’ He scratched his head.

  ‘Is your head itchy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Oh God, not today!

  She got up from the table to scrutinize Billy’s blond curls for the creatures she didn’t want to find there. He wriggled away from her.

  ‘I have to see Buzz.’

  ‘Can Mummy just check your hair first?’

  ‘I don’t have nits!’

  ‘Let’s just have a quick check.’

  ‘No.’

  Laura’s phone rang and she saw it was Jon. She took a deep breath. ‘Hello.’

  ‘I called to speak to Billy.’

  ‘Oh.’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘I told him you were staying at Jimmy’s.’

  ‘I am staying at Jimmy’s.’

  Laura felt a wave of nausea. This time yesterday, they were still a family. ‘Will you be able to pick Billy up from school the rest of this week?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘And look after him until I get home from work?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘We’ll have to discuss plans long-term …’

  Jon made a kind of snorting sound. ‘Can I just speak to my son?’

  Was this how they were going to be now? She walked into Billy’s bedroom and handed him the phone, saying it was Daddy. As she walked away, she stepped on a Lego brick.

  She stood outside the room rubbing her foot and listening to Billy’s side of the conversation. She wondered what Jon would say to him. She knew he wouldn’t say anything to upset Billy but she wished she had a better idea of exactly how he would explain a second night staying at Jimmy’s because, while one night crashing there wasn’t unusual, two was, and any more than that, well, Laura didn’t know what they’d say about that. Her head spun.

  ‘Bye, Daddy. I love you.’

  Laura walked back into the room. Billy was crouched down next to the guinea pig’s cage.

  ‘How’s Buzz?’

  ‘He misses Daddy.’

  She blinked away the tears. ‘Right, let’s check your head.’

  ‘No!’ Billy said, squirming away. ‘I haven’t got nits!’

  ‘Billy,’ she said. She guided him into a sitting position on the floor and started searching through his curls.

  Maybe that was just a speck of fluff or something?

  No, he had nits.

  ‘Billy—’

  Billy wriggled away from her. ‘I DON’T HAVE NITS!’

  ‘Come on, let’s get rid of them. It won’t take long.’ The second part of this was a blatant lie and they both knew it. The wet-combing took ages. This was the third time in a year Billy’s small head had played host. Laura had gone through oceans of tea tree oil but nothing seemed to keep them away. The trouble was, there was always one kid in the class whose parents didn’t seem to think delousing was a priority.

  Billy sat between Laura’s legs as she pulled the nit comb through each section of heavily conditioned hair and then rubbed the black-spotted white gunk on bits of loo roll.

  ‘Ouch,’ Billy said, wriggling. ‘Ouch!’

  ‘Not much longer now.’

  ‘Daddy said he’s staying at Uncle Jimmy’s for a little while.’

  Laura’s heart stopped in her chest.

  ‘But he’s still going to see me all the time.’

  Laura swallowed a sob. ‘Daddy will always see you.’

  ‘Can I watch Trolls after this?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, nodding at the back of her son’s head.

  ‘With some milk and biscuits?’

  He was pushing his luck but she said yes anyway.

  Laura carried on combing. As ever, she was amazed by the sheer number of creatures that had taken up residence on Billy’s small head.

  She’d have to check her own hair after this, she hadn’t made a start on her work yet and Amy was dropping off Josh any minute. Given that she’d barely slept the night before, it was no wonder she felt exhausted.

  ‘Grandma’s dead forever!’

  Still the sing-songy tone. ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s why she didn’t buy me a present for my birthday.’

  ‘Err … yes.’

  ‘Grandma was your mummy.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’d be sad if you were dead forever.’

  A lump formed in Laura’s throat. It was the nicest thing anyone had said to her in a while.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Laura was sitting at her desk trying not to listen to people around her talking about how they’d spent Valentine’s night. Lisa’s girlfriend had proposed, Chloe’s husband had surprised her with tickets to go to Paris. Even Elaine – the world’s grumpiest sub-editor – had received a big bunch of flowers from a my
stery admirer (Laura just hoped whoever it was punctuated their message perfectly).

  ‘You’re very quiet, Laura,’ Chloe said. ‘Did you and Jon do anything special?’

  Yup, we broke up! ‘Umm, not really.’ Laura reached for her noise-cancelling headphones. ‘Sorry, bit swamped.’ Well, that much was true at least. She’d bought three syndicated stories, all of which needed a complete rewrite, she had to edit Lisa’s box-out copy on post-natal depression and she had to choose her problems for next week’s Dear Laura.

  She decided she would start with the latter, simply because it was the task she was least dreading. She knew that thrusting, successful types got the things they were most dreading out of the way first, but she wasn’t a thrusting, successful type.

  She sighed and opened a letter that was written in small, neat handwriting. Dear Laura, Thirty years ago, I was forced to give up my child for adoption. Since then not a day has gone past that I haven’t thought about him and now I’m desperate to contact him …

  Laura had developed a triage system for deciding which problems would make the page: whiney; sad but okay; desperate.

  She put the letter in her desperate pile and was hit by the sudden and unpleasant notion that she would put most of her own problems on the same pile right now. Dear Laura, My mother died and I’m failing at grief. Dear Laura, I’ve split up with my partner and the father of my child. Dear Laura, My five-year-old is in pieces and it’s my fault. Even her ‘sad but okay’ problems like falling out with her sister or being fed-up with her job didn’t feel that okay. (Still, she was lucky to have a job. The empty pod that had, until a couple of months ago, belonged to the team on Beautiful Brides was a striking visual reminder that the print magazine world wasn’t exactly flourishing.)

  She opened another letter, which was from a young mother who said she was ‘hating’ being a mum and couldn’t stop crying. Laura put it straight on the desperate pile and made a guilty mental note that it would sit very well against the box-out on post-natal depression. Sometimes it was hard to shake the notion that she made a living off other people’s misery, although hopefully she could provide some sort of help to the woman in her reply, especially as this was one where she’d be seeking the advice of a therapist (AKA someone who actually knew what they were talking about).

  Amy messaged her: Emergency meeting?

  Laura smiled and headed for the toilets which was the location for such events.

  ‘Oh, my God, I am having the worst day,’ Amy said as soon as Laura walked in. ‘First of all I’ve got some idiot PR who is desperate for me to include their ugly-ass coffee table in next week’s issue and yet seems to be unable to produce a single high-res image of it, then Elaine has put her fucking red pen all over my feature on “Kitchen makeovers for less” and now Dani “isn’t feeling” my story on “Making your own table runner”. The story that she said yes to and I’ve shot step-by-step images for!’

  Laura laughed. ‘I don’t know what you’re moaning about. I still can’t get the woman for the “Incontinence ruined my life” article to agree to an interview, I’ve bought three syndicated articles that could have been written better by Billy, and now Karen has told me I have to look after Georgie next week.’

  ‘Who’s Georgie?’ Amy said.

  ‘That super-keen intern.’

  Amy made a face. ‘Oh, God, her. Okay, you win.’

  Karen came into the bathroom and, because she was such a workhorse of a deputy editor, Laura and Amy started to showily wash their hands in an of course we’re not just in here gossiping manner.

  Back at her desk, Laura opened an email from a woman whose mother was always making mean comments about her. She says I’m not strict enough with my kids. She says I ought to make my husband do more chores. Mean comments? Laura thought. Christ, that would have been her mother being nice. She mentally filed the letter in the ‘whiney’ category, meaning it was destined to never grace the pages of Natter.

  Laura sifted through several more emails, all of which fell into the ‘sad but okay’ camp. One of them might make this week’s page and, if not, she’d keep them in case there was a slow week anytime soon.

  Then she came to a letter from a woman who’d been ‘knocked sideways’ by the death of her mother.

  As she read, Laura’s breath caught in her throat. The woman sounded completely devastated. Here was someone who was grieving properly – how could Laura possibly help her? Laura, who couldn’t even keep her own life on track.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  It was weird to be standing in her mum’s kitchen. Laura knew Evie hadn’t been in the flat for months but she felt sure she could still detect a faint waft of Shalimar. She half-expected her mum to walk in too, telling her that top did nothing for her and did she really need another biscuit?

  Jess was sitting at the kitchen table looking through a pile of paperwork and sorting it into various piles. Ruthlessly efficient as ever. And Laura – well, Laura was eating custard creams.

  Jess had messaged her the evening of nit-gate. Tried to call you. Sorry if I upset you at the spa. x

  Sorry if. She’d messaged though, which was more than Laura had done. Laura had written a message back: Sorry if I upset you. x She deleted it. Typed: I’m sorry too. x

  Her hand hovered over the ‘send’ button. Should she mention her and Jon? What could she say though? Oh, by the way, I’ve split up with the father of my child. No biggie. She’d decided it was better to just not mention it.

  ‘I wish I’d sorted through some of this when Mum was still alive,’ Jess said.

  Laura sighed. ‘You can’t always get ahead.’

  ‘S’pose not.’

  Laura opened one of the kitchen cupboards and there, right at the front, was the battered frying pan Dad had used for his steak nights. Laura could picture him – an inveterately neat cook – lining up everything he needed like surgical instruments. There would be the steaks, butter, Worcester sauce, cream, salt and pepper, finely-chopped mushrooms. Laura took the pan out of the cupboard and clutched it to her chest. ‘Do you mind if I take this?’

  Jess glanced up. ‘Sure.’

  ‘It really reminds me of Dad.’

  Jess looked at her and nodded. She had a slightly odd expression and she looked as if she was about to say something. Laura hoped she wasn’t suddenly going to make an impassioned plea for the pan.

  But then Jess went back to sorting through the piles of paperwork. Laura studied her, noting that she looked a little tired today. She had big, bruise-like shadows under her eyes. That said, even though it was Sunday and she had nothing more exciting to do than sort through her mother’s stuff, she looked impossibly glamorous in a leopard-print shirt and perfectly-fitting jeans. Laura glanced down at her own scruffy leggings and sweatshirt – sometimes it really was impossible to imagine the two of them had come from the same womb. When she’d been looking at Jess’ Instagram the other day, Laura had felt more like she was looking at pictures of a celebrity than her real-life sister.

  ‘Do you want to start in the bedroom?’ Jess said.

  ‘No, I’ll start in the living room.’ She didn’t feel like being bossed around today.

  In the living room, Laura picked up a framed photo of her mum and dad. It had been taken on holiday in Greece, the last holiday the four of them would ever go on together as a family. Her parents looked so happy and relaxed caught against the sunset; as if nothing could ever go wrong. Laura traced her dad’s profile with her fingertip. Sometimes, even twenty-five years later, it was hard to believe he was gone. She wished he could have met Billy – he’d have adored him, especially when he was being impish and cheeky. He’d lie on his back and ‘fly’ Billy on his feet, just as he used to do with her and Jess.

  She started counting how many photos there were of her and Billy versus how many there were of Jess and the girls. She wasn’t surprised to see that Jess won by a ratio of 3:1. There were four separate photographs just of her wedding.


  ‘Is Billy with Jon?’ Jess had asked her.

  ‘Yes.’ It wasn’t a lie.

  There was a packet of her mother’s painkillers on the side. Evie had been incredibly brave about the pain. Laura didn’t think she’d have been that stoic, not if her experience of childbirth was anything to go by; she’d been asking for the epidural as soon as she arrived at the hospital. Four hours later, they were still telling her the anaesthetist was busy. Things changed as soon as Jon arrived and told them to Get. Someone. Here. Now.

  Laura opened a cupboard and was amazed at how tidy everything was. At her flat, things fell out of cupboards whenever you tried to open them. Who kept the inside of their cupboards tidy? Her mother. And Jess, of course.

  She piled DVDs into cardboard boxes. She didn’t know what they would do with them. Take them to a charity shop, she imagined, although she didn’t know if anyone still wanted DVDs nowadays. There was a tape with a heart shaped label that read ‘Jess and Ben’s wedding’. Like four framed photos weren’t enough.

  ‘How are you getting on?’ Jess said.

  Was that code for ‘get a move on’? Probably not. Laura must stop thinking the worst all the time.

  Jess had picked up one of the framed photos of her and Ben on their wedding day and was staring at it. Laura imagined her sister was thinking what a cute couple she and Ben made. She couldn’t help but feel a bit jealous. She knew judging other people’s relationships was the ultimate modern sin. You only have to look at social media to see that ‘policing’ is frowned upon (although apparently it’s okay to police policing). How dare someone have an opinion on someone else’s decision not to have children, to live in an open relationship, or to marry someone much older/younger? But the truth is, we all judge other people’s relationships and use them as a barometer to measure ours against.

  Laura had done this with Jess and Ben over the years and concluded that their relationship was predictably perfect. Yes, she knew you couldn’t really know what anyone else’s marriage was like from the outside – that you only saw the best bits – but they always seemed to just ‘fit’. Also, let’s be honest, it would be just like her sister to have a great marriage.