by Jenny Frame
Again guilt twisted her guts. Why did Dale find it so easy to be with kids and play with them? If Dale had been in her shoes, the kids would have come straight home with her from the hospital, she wouldn’t have gone running scared.
Jake spotted her and started to run over to the car. Both Dale and Becca had helped her repair her relationship with Jake. For the longest time she’d resented his place in Becca’s life and hadn’t been as friendly as she should have been, but now she realized she and Becca had simply wanted different things in life. And in any case, Dale was the right partner for Becca. She’d accepted that, not that it still didn’t hurt a little bit.
Trent got out of the car and Jake hugged her. This was so different to how things used to be between them. He was a forgiving boy.
“Hi, Trent. We’re feeding the ducks and chickens.”
“So I see. They are lucky to have you to look after them,” Trent said.
She always felt slightly awkward when talking one-on-one with Jake, but she was getting better and had made an effort to engage with him. It didn’t come naturally to her like it did for Dale. She’d never been around children since she was one, so it took effort.
Trent thought of Noah and his eagerness to engage with her because she had a family resemblance to his dad. She prayed they had found a decent foster home.
Dale approached, smiling. “All right, mate. We havnae seen you for ages. Becca’s missed you.”
“Uh…yes, my workload’s been busy recently,” Trent lied.
Dale lifted Gracie’s hand and said, “Wave to Trent, wee yin.”
“Hi,” Grace said in her sweet baby voice.
Gracie was a beautiful child and so like Becca, Trent thought. She reached out and stroked Gracie’s cheek. “What a pretty girl you are, Grace.”
Then a thought flashed across her mind. This could have been her life. She pulled back, feeling uncomfortable all of a sudden. She tried to picture herself in Dale’s shoes, with Jake and Gracie, but she couldn’t shift Dale from the picture in her mind. This was Dale’s family.
You look like my daddy. Noah’s words to her simmered inside her, and then the guilt set in.
Jake took her hand and said, “Come in, and get dinner. Mummy’s made a big roast chicken and roast totties—that means potatoes in Glasgow, Trent.”
Trent and Dale chuckled. Jake had a habit of picking up words from Dale’s Glasgow dialect, but in his very proper middle class accent they sounded adorable.
“Aye,” Dale said, ruffling his hair, “and homemade apple pie and ice cream. Let’s get going, wee man.”
* * *
As Dale fed Gracie apple pie, Becca watched Trent staring into her bowl, her mind somewhere else. Becca could tell since Trent arrived that something was wrong. She had lived with her long enough to know the signs. Trent had a dominant, confident personality, and when she went quiet and subdued, Becca knew she was struggling with her emotions.
Usually Trent was well practised at keeping her emotions under wraps. Emotions were weakness to her, but occasionally something would happen that sent her into her home office and into her head.
When Trent’s father died, the emotions she had kept bottled up since she was a child were hard for her to handle. From what Trent had told her, he had scarred her emotionally, and his death made the anger threaten to burst out. Becca remembered the night it did. She had tried to talk to Trent about the emotional distance between them. They had a blazing row, and all Trent’s anger poured out. The evening ended with Becca holding Trent as she cried. Becca suspected that none of Trent’s other friends knew Trent had that side to her, the one that wanted to be loved and cared for like her mother had done.
Becca couldn’t be that emotional safe harbour for Trent any more. She only wished Trent could meet the person who would love her, the way she’d found Dale. Becca looked up and got Dale’s attention. “Why don’t you take the kids out to see the goats, and we’ll clear up here.”
Dale smiled and winked. “No problem, hen.”
Becca still got a shiver down her spine when Dale winked and smiled. She was adorable and sexy as hell at the same time.
Trent looked up when Jake, Dale, and Gracie went outside. “Sorry, I was miles away. The apple pie was great, Becca.”
“Thanks. Why don’t I make a cup of tea and we can chat?”
“Sure,” Trent said with a hint of suspicion in her voice.
Once Becca made the tea she brought over the cups to the table. “So, what’s been happening with you?”
Trent took a sip of tea and then said, “David passed away.”
Becca was taken by surprise by that answer. “Your cousin David?”
“Yes, he was killed in a collision with a lorry on the motorway,” Trent said.
“Oh my God! How did you find out?” Becca asked.
“My lawyer called. The police and the hospital were trying to get hold of his next of kin. Apparently, that’s me. His wife died a few years ago. He didn’t have any other family and neither did she. I had to go to the hospital to identify his body. It was quite a violent death…”
Becca saw Trent gulp down her emotion. She covered Trent’s hand with hers. “I’m so sorry, Trent. That must have been a hard thing to do.”
Trent had gotten her emotions under better control. “Yes, well. It was the least I could do. The last time I saw him was at his daughter’s christening. I was godmother, if you remember.”
“That’s right. He had a little girl.”
Trent nodded. She knew the question was going to come about the children. “Alice, she’s eleven, and there’s a boy—Noah. He’s six. They were in the car when it crashed but survived without any bad injuries, miraculously.”
“Dear God, those poor babies,” Becca said. Becca’s description of the children as babies made her feel worse. “What’s happening with the children?” Becca asked.
Trent closed her eyes momentarily. Here we go. “They don’t have any other relatives apart from me. Their mother was estranged from her family and no one’s heard of them in years.”
“So…” Becca hesitated. “What are you going to do?”
Trent had been on the phone constantly for the last few days, organizing the funeral, consulting with lawyers. “He left no money. David was a jobbing musician, so I’ll support them financially of course. I’ve contacted several boarding schools to see if they can take them. I think it’s the best solution.”
Becca’s eyes went wide. “Trent, you can’t pack them off to boarding school, not after what they’ve been through.”
“What would you have me do? I’m trying my best,” Trent said sharply.
“They need family, Trent. They need you—plus, they’re too young to send off to boarding school. Think of the six-year-old. He’s still a baby.”
Guilt enveloped Trent. “I was sent to boarding school at that age and it didn’t do me any harm.”
Becca raised a questioning eyebrow. “Really?”
Trent had a memory of her first night away from home at boarding school, and she could remember the fear and panic even now. Becca always could read her emotions and thoughts.
“I’m a busy lawyer, and you know I never wanted children.”
Becca frowned. “Yes, I know only too well.”
Trent rubbed her forehead. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I can’t do it, Becca. You know I can’t.”
“I don’t believe that. I know you can, but even if you send them to boarding school, bring them home to you in the holidays.”
“I don’t know about that. Maybe. In any case, the boarding school I like can’t take any more students for months.”
“Wait,” Becca said, “so where are they now?”
“In foster care,” Trent admitted.
Becca shook her head. “Trent, you can’t leave those children in foster care for six months until the school can take them. Have you any idea what foster care is like? Those two kids are traumatized.”
“Foster carers are in high demand. They’re probably in a children’s home at this very moment, and there’s no guarantee that they’ll be kept together.”
Trent was lost for words. “I had no idea, Becca.” She got up from the table and walked over to the kitchen window. Trent gazed at Dale with Gracie up on her shoulders and Jake standing close by her side. Dale was so open with the children and appeared to have a natural affinity with them, something Trent never had or wanted.
Childhood was a time that she didn’t want to revisit or be reminded of, but then she tried to imagine Jake and Gracie alone, without their parents. The thought was horrendous.
Becca walked up to the window too and looked out in silence for a few seconds, before saying, “Couldn’t you get a nanny, Trent? It’s only six months, if you insist that they go to boarding school.”
Trent let out a long breath. She couldn’t live with the consequences of her actions and the memory of the kids in that hospital room, whether it was convenient for her or not.
“I’ll bring them home to me—I am Alice’s godmother after all—but I need a nanny to look after them, 24/7.”
Becca hugged her from the side. “It’s the right thing to do. There’s a good nanny agency one of the mothers at Jake’s school uses. I’ll get you the number.”
* * *
Becca woke up and immediately felt Dale wasn’t there. She looked at the clock on the bedside table and read three o’clock in the morning. She got up and walked onto the stair landing. She heard Dale before she saw her. She was singing one of her goofy Scottish children’s songs.
She crept up to the door of Gracie’s bedroom and peeked around the open doorway. Dale was standing in just boxers and T-shirt, singing softly with Gracie in her arms. Dale looked absolutely adorable and Becca just stood there and listened to her.
“Ye canny shove yer grannie aff a bus. Ye canny shove yer grannie aff a bus. Ye canny shove yer grannie, cause she’s yer mammie’s mammie. Ye canny shove yer grannie aff a bus.”
Becca crept in so as not to wake Gracie and pressed herself against Dale’s back. “I hope you’re not planning to push Granny Sadie off a bus?”
“Nah, she’d kill me,” Dale said with a smile.
Becca stroked Gracie’s soft brown hair. “Was she crying?”
“No, but I couldnae sleep,” Dale said.
After Trent went home, Becca had told Dale about Trent’s cousin and the children left without parents.
“Why couldn’t you sleep, darling?” Becca asked.
Dale brushed her lips over Gracie’s forehead and then placed her in her cot. They both stood at the side of the cot, and Dale put her arm around Becca’s middle.
“I kept thinking about those two kids. They just lost their da and they’re in foster care, and I worried if that could ever happen to our two if something happened to us.”
Becca turned into her arms. “That won’t happen to Gracie and Jake. You know I’ve left instructions in my will that if anything happens to me, you are to get both kids.”
“I know that, but what if something happens to both of us? It’s possible, and we don’t have any family—well, I don’t have any family that’s interested in me.”
Becca stroked Dale’s cheek. “You really are worried about this, aren’t you?”
Dale took Becca’s hand and kissed it softly. “When my ma died, I was seventeen, but I still felt so alone in the world. Imagine if that was Jake and Gracie.”
“Dale, it would be extremely unlikely that both of us would die, but if that were the case I’d like to think Val and Sammy would take them. Why don’t we ask them, and then change our wills to make it official?”
Dale suddenly felt so much better. “Yeah, I think we should. They’d have a safe, happy life with Val, Sammy, and Mia.”
“Good, now any more worries I can smooth out?” Becca asked.
Dale cupped Becca’s face and kissed her softly. “I’m okay, thanks to you. How do you think Trent will cope?”
“We’ll support her. Trent has some issues, but she’ll do the right thing, I know,” Becca said.
“What was her family like?” Dale said.
“Not great. Her mother died when she was a child. She won’t admit it, but she has so many unresolved issues from her mother’s death.”
“And her da?”
Becca sighed and gripped Dale’s hand. “He was my father’s lawyer. That’s how we met. He sent Trent around to look after me, protect me from the press that descended on our home after my mother committed suicide.”
Becca’s father, a pain specialist, had been involved in the biggest drug fraud the country had ever seen, and when things were at their bleakest, Becca’s mother took her own life.
“I met with her father a lot during those times, and all I can say is they had an extremely dysfunctional relationship, to say the least. He wasn’t a nice man, and I felt sorry for Trent. He was hard on her and didn’t behave like a parent at all.”
“Hmm,” Dale said. “It seems like we all have our issues with our parents. Maybe this is a chance for Trent to deal with some of her issues, just like I did when Jake came into my life?”
Becca leaned her head on Dale and gazed at a contented looking Gracie. “I hope so. I don’t know if Trent’s ready to face her old family issues yet, but we’ll be there to support her if she needs us. Let’s leave Gracie to sleep.”
Chapter Four
It turned out to be a little more complicated than Trent calling social services and telling them she’d take the children. One week later, with the help of her secretary, she was still jumping through hoops to satisfy the standards that social services had given her.
There was a home visit where she’d had to assure them that she would be hiring a full-time nanny, since Trent worked, and promised to fit new locks on the balcony doors so the children couldn’t get out there.
Trent had been so busy organizing everything she would need to have children in the house that she hadn’t had time to dwell on what day-to-day life would be like. But now the day had arrived that she was to pick up the children, and reality was starting to set in. It was bad enough that she would have no privacy from the children, but she would also have the nanny staying in her penthouse too. It was going to be a difficult six months, but in the long run, she knew she was doing the right thing.
Her phone beeped with a message. It was from Lady Claudia and she didn’t open it. She had given Trent a few calls this week, but she’d brushed her off since she had the funeral and so many other things to do.
The funeral went off without a hitch. A lot of David’s musician friends came, and Becca came to support Trent. Alice and Noah weren’t there. The children’s social worker thought it might be good for them to say goodbye to their father but left the decision to Trent. Trent said no. She wasn’t going to put them through what she did when she lost her mother.
There was a knock at her office door and India walked in.
“Trent, I’ve confirmed the nanny interviews for tomorrow. There’s five so far from the agency, but if one of those isn’t suitable, they can set up more.”
“Okay, what about the seats for my car that social services insist I have?” Trent asked.
“They’re being delivered here by lunchtime.”
“Thanks. Anything else?”
India looked down at her pad and tapped her pen against her lips. “Mr. Anderson wanted an update on his wife’s response to his divorce petition.”
Trent sighed. Her work was getting so backlogged because of her personal problems. That was unprofessional, but hopefully once the nanny was in place, she could just leave her to get on with taking care of the kids.
“I’ll give him a call.”
* * *
A few hours later she was driving back to her apartment overlooking the Thames, with Alice and Noah in the back seat. It was surreal and nothing
like she thought her life would ever turn out, but it would only be six months out of her life. She kept telling herself that. The children’s places at boarding school were secured, and she didn’t have the guilt eating away at her any more. She was doing the right thing.
Trent looked into the mirror and saw Alice staring silently out the car window, as she had been silent the whole time. Noah, on the other hand, jabbered constantly, telling Trent about things he saw out the window, all that had happened since they last saw her at the hospital, and all about his toy dinosaur.
“Trent? Are we nearly at our forever home?” Noah asked.
The mention of forever gave her a sense of panic. “Remember, the lady talked to you about this, Noah. You’re staying with me for six months until you go and stay at a new school.”
“How long is six months, Trent?”
Trent shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “A few months after Christmas.”
She cringed when she realized she’d have a Christmas with the kids. Christmas was about drinks parties, going out to restaurants, going on skiing holidays—adult things, all to help her forget what a bad time Christmas was for her growing up. What would she be expected to do with kids?
Trent sighed and thought to herself, Nanny can take care of that. Don’t panic.
They finally arrived at Trent’s riverside building. She parked in her designated place in the car park underneath the building and said before getting out, “Stay there a minute and I’ll get your bags.”
She got out and opened the boot to her Audi sports car. There wasn’t much room for luggage in these cars, but the kids only came with one bag each. It wasn’t much for two kids that age to have one bag of clothes and a few toys. Their social worker had told her that they went to David’s rented flat for some of the children’s things, and there was very little. He lived from gig to gig, it seemed.
She supposed she would have to get Nanny to get them some fresh clothes. Trent put the bags over her shoulders and shut the boot. It was funny—every time she said the word nanny to herself, she had a ripple of fear shoot through her. Her own nanny had left a lasting effect on her.
