Sweet Child of Mine

by London, Billy

  “He’s working,” Abigail explained.

  “This is Abigail,” Leila introduced pointedly.

  Karen’s face crumpled into a frown. “The café lady.”

  “She owns it,” the girl corrected her grandmother on Abigail’s behalf.

  “Well,” Karen sniffed. “Your father’s found himself a friend. How nice for him.”

  And she was finished with this. “Lei, take your case. I’ll see you soon, okay?”

  Leila turned into Abigail and hugged her tightly. “See you. Thanks for driving me.”

  “No problem,” she whispered, kissing the top of her head. After a minute, when Leila didn’t let go, Abigail looked up at Karen for help.

  “Leila, darling, come inside. Mark’s waiting.”

  Both Leila and Abigail froze. “I don’t want to,” Leila protested immediately.

  What? Who’s waiting for them? “Mark?” Abigail asked. “Mark Wooldridge?”

  Karen didn’t seem to know where to start. “Leila, go inside. Miss... Whoever you are, it’s not your concern.”

  “Answer the question,” Abigail snapped. “Is Mark Wooldridge in there?” She thrust a finger toward the house. Karen looked increasingly uncomfortable. How utterly ridiculous, was the woman insane? Shaking her head, Abigail picked up Leila’s suitcase.

  “Let’s go, Lei.”

  Leila didn’t hesitate, she practically ran back to Abigail’s car, Karen following them in frantic strides.

  “You can’t take her! We agreed!”

  Leila got into the car and sat down as Abigail put the case back into the boot. “I know what was agreed and him in there, that didn’t form part of it. Any part of it.” Anger flared through Abigail at the utter density of the woman’s thought process. Why on earth would she think Liam would agree to letting the man who destroyed his marriage and tried to take his daughter away from him anywhere near his child? “Do you have any idea what you nearly did to them? Leila and Liam? Do you know how close you came to ripping them both apart and you’re still trying?”

  Karen went to open the door on Leila’s side, but Abigail locked it. “You don’t understand,” Karen begged. “There was something wrong with the test. Sarah wouldn’t have lied to us.”

  “They did a DNA. Liam’s her father. Just drop it.”

  “Maybe Mark touched the swabs,” Karen blurted, scrambling for excuses. “We don’t know. Liam didn’t tell us he was even doing it. We should do it again just to make sure!”

  “Sarah’s gone,” Abigail said softly. Karen reared up. “Don’t destroy what’s left of her.”

  A man came barrelling out of the house, storming toward the car. “Look, don’t,” Abigail said, guessing from his age and his attitude that he was Sarah’s famed saviour from Liam’s “devilish” clutches. Mark. “We’re leaving.”

  She got into the car and Karen knocked on Leila’s side of the glass. “Darling, please. Just stay.”

  “No! Stop pushing him on me! God’s sake Nana, what’s wrong with you?” Leila burst out, cheeks bright red with anger.

  “Seat belt.” Abigail nodded to her charge.

  “Leila,” Mark said imperiously. “You need to come out of the car. This instant.”

  Leila glanced at Abigail, who started the car. And her brilliant, bright McNamara girl gave Mark Wooldridge a one-finger salute as Abigail sped away from the house. His expression of shock made Abigail giggle uncontrollably.

  “Don’t tell Dad I did that,” Leila begged. “He’ll take it out of my allowance.”

  Just recalling his face cracked Abigail up even more. “Stop, I can’t drive like this.”

  Leila was quiet for a moment. “You could have left me there.”

  Abigail snorted. As if! “Over my burnt carcass. And listen, I’ve barely seen your dad angry. I’m cool with keeping it like that.”

  “So what are we doing?” Leila visibly relaxed into her seat.

  “I guess you’re coming to party with my friends.” Abigail shrugged. Her girl gave people the finger, swore and could articulate her annoyance better than most adults. She’d fit right in.

  ***

  “She doesn’t look like a demon,” Laura mused, easing herself into the lounger next to Abigail’s. There were several scattered over the enormous garden Tyler shared with the flat below his own.

  After sitting in the car and calling Liam to tell him that Leila would be back with them for the remainder of the weekend, they’d gone into the party. Liam’s nonexistent response worried away at her. She hoped he wasn’t plotting a murder. Even if Karen Ellis and Mark Wooldridge deserved it. Whether she’d overstepped her boundaries by just refusing to hand Leila over also worried away at her, but Liam told her she’d done the right thing.

  “She is not a demon at all,” Abigail answered. “I adore her. She’s flipping hilarious.”

  She looked over to where Leila was bored, listening to the thirteen-year-old boy from the flat below attempt to charm her. The girl’s eyes had a tendency to wander off into the distance when she lost interest. Maybe Abigail should intervene. The last thing she should do is let Liam’s blood pressure spike by allowing her near any hormonal males.

  “As I can see,” Laura murmured. “Shouldn’t you put a stop to that?”

  Abigail sat up properly. “Yup. Lei Lei!” she called. Leila put up a hand to the boy, sauntered over to Abigail’s lounger and sat down.

  “Did you see the spots on his face? He looks like a cheese pizza.”

  Laura pressed her lips together to hide her amusement. “That’s not nice.”

  The girl shrugged. “Maybe I’m not meant to be all the time. What’s the point in lying?” Abigail and Laura exchanged glances again, but Leila was onto the next subject. “This is like, the best party. Can I have some Winter Pimms? Tyler said I could.”

  Laura’s eye twitched and she screamed, “Tyler!” Her boyfriend leapt into the air, whipping around to look for where the scream had come from. “The hell is wrong with you?”

  She struggled up from the lounger, yelling on her march in her boyfriend’s direction. Tyler did the smart thing. Turned and ran inside his flat. Leila took over Abigail’s lounger, crossing her legs at the ankle. “He’s nice, but if we end up visiting a lot, we’re too close to my grandparents.”

  “Who’s we?” Abigail asked in mild interest.

  “You, me and Dad of course.”

  She gently tucked a curl of hair behind Leila’s ear. “Do you know something that I don’t?”

  Her young charge’s eyes widened with guile. “You’re around a lot, I saw you sneaking out of the house about five in the morning the other day...” Crap. She thought she’d been on stealth that morning. “And you’ve cooked for us. I guess you’re staying around. With your friends and their boyfriends. If Laura still has one. Do you think she’s killed him?”

  Abigail listened out for a moment. “Nope. She wouldn’t do well in prison. No Grazia magazine and no gel nail manicures.”

  They shifted more comfortably onto the lounger and Leila’s hand slipped into Abigail’s. Touched by the show of affection, Abigail squeezed her digits.

  “Don’t leave,” Leila whispered. Abigail turned her head in shock. “I know everything’s a mess, but everything’s now ’cause of... but everything’s been so much better with you and me and Dad.”

  Abigail lifted her arm and hugged her tightly. “If I was going to run screaming, it’d take more than that oversized twit at your grandparents’ to do it. You’re a brilliant, brilliant young woman.”

  “Really?” Leila’s voice was muffled against Abigail’s shirt.

  “Yes, really. And you’re a better plus one than your father. He’d be trying to get my friends drunk.”

  She giggled and snuggled into Abigail. Progress. Felt a lot like love.

  Chapter Seventeen

  His living room was filled with tension. Liam had no intention of having either Karen Ellis or Mark Wooldridge in his home. But the alternative
would be that neither of them would respect his boundaries, and more than likely Mark would find himself in a shallow grave right next to his late lover, if Liam didn’t extend an invitation to talk things out. Neil Ellis, Karen’s husband, had forgone the meeting, preferring to stay out of a fight he understood was lost long ago. Abigail sat on a sofa opposite Karen and Mark, with Sheila next to her. No one had said anything from the moment Karen and Mark entered the house. Liam got up and they all stared at him.

  “I forgot the water,” he said into the stillness. They all looked down at the tea service in the middle of the room. Ignoring it, Liam left to take a moment of patience in the kitchen. He drained a glass of water and stared out of the window, watching the neighbour’s cat creep along the fencing.

  “I haven’t heard anything,” a quiet voice piped up. Liam turned to see Leila cowering in the corner of their vast kitchen, nibbling on a Pop-Tart.

  “Nothing’s been said yet,” he replied, going over and lifting her from the counter. She was still such a small thing. All he wanted to do was protect her from all of the nonsense adults were inflicting on her, for little more than their own ego.

  “It’s my fault, isn’t it? That everyone’s angry?”

  He folded her in an embrace. “No, baby. Not at all.” He kissed the top of her head and rubbed her back soothingly. “Give us ten minutes, all right? We’ll be done.”

  Releasing her, he removed the jug of filtered water from the fridge and carried it back into the living room. Everyone was still deathly quiet.

  “Leila,” Liam said gently, returning to his seat on Abigail’s free side, “thinks all of this is her fault.”

  “It’s your fault rather,” Mark blustered. “Hiding her away from her natural parents, from her grandparents just so you can hold onto that last bit of power you had over Sarah.”

  “I don’t know what she told you,” Liam said, feeling the frayed edges of his temper catching alight, “but Sarah did what she liked. This has nothing to do with power. It’s about my child’s mental stability. Which both of you are fucking with and I do not like it.”

  Karen bristled. “There’s no need for language like that.”

  “He’s got a right to be angry,” Abigail argued.

  “Why are you even here?” Mark demanded. “What does this have to do with you?”

  “Plenty,” Abigail countered, her voice vibrating with irritation, “when Leila’s telling me she overhears her grandparents saying things which turn her whole world upside down. When I’m comforting her because she doesn’t know how to reconcile loving her grandparents who seem to not want her to have a father. When she’s so upset I can barely understand her for the tears.”

  “That’s all irrelevant,” Karen brushed her actions aside. “It’s important for Leila to know who her father was. More than that, her mother loved her father. Her real father.”

  “Of course it’s relevant,” Sheila intervened. “This is about not causing unnecessary and expensive problems.”

  “This isn’t a problem, this is about what Sarah wanted,” Mark dismissed. “And I doubt she’d want Liam’s new side venture to be making decisions about who Leila spends time with.”

  “Sarah’s vote is rather moot on this point,” Liam sarked, his temper sparking again at Mark’s mention of Abigail.

  “That’s not fair,” Karen’s voice wobbled with emotion.

  “It’s why we are here,” Mark said, his tone lofty as he put an arm around Karen’s shoulders. “To speak up for her. For Sarah.”

  Sheila gazed at him, disgust curling her top lip. “Do you feel that brazen? That proud of yourself for having an affair with a married woman and flaunting it in her husband’s face? Her mother’s face? My face? Do you understand what it means to her daughter to know her mother was unfaithful?”

  A shamed blush stained Mark’s face beetroot. “It wasn’t at all how you’re describing. I took no joy in the fallout from my relationship with Sarah.”

  Liam snorted dismissively. “You loved every minute of it. And for all your great, meaningful love, your Sarah wasn’t in any hurry to divorce me. I sent her the paperwork.”

  Mark wavered. “That’s not true. I would have seen.”

  “She was good at deception. Who knew?”

  “We’re not here to bash my daughter’s memory,” Karen interrupted. “We’re here to find out the truth. At least agree on the path to it.”

  Christ alive, he thought, anger threatening to overwhelm him. Reaching to the nearest table, he handed over a plain manila envelope. “Here. The notarised version of the first DNA test we did. It would have said clearly if the samples were compromised. How could they have been in a sealed, unopened sterile bag, I do not know. You’ve also got in there a second notarised test. Because the two of you put so much doubt in my daughter’s head, she imagined all sorts had gone wrong, we had to do it again with a different service. And guess what? She’s still my child.”

  Karen and Mark frantically read through the papers until they came to what they needed to. Abigail took their silence to speak. “You’re causing nothing more than grief. Not just to Liam and Leila but Sheila. She doesn’t deserve any of this. After everything she’s done to support you after Sarah died, you’re essentially trying to remove her granddaughter from her. Whatever imagined life you think will come along with Mark being Leila’s father, it’s not going to happen. She’s not his. I’m sorry Sarah lied to you, to all of you, but this needs to end.”

  Mark ripped the test papers into two pieces. “And two minutes of knowing him and you’re preaching to us? What the fuck do you know?”

  Liam sprang to his feet. “Don’t talk to her like that. Ever.”

  Mark smirked. “Why? Because she plays with your dick?”

  Two long years he’d resisted the urge to batter Mark Wooldridge. After the man had the audacity to collect Sarah’s belongings from his home and tell him to “not worry.” When the Ellis’ publicly comforted him at Sarah’s funeral. Even when he’d sent that fucking letter, Liam hadn’t done what he really wanted to, which was to get into his car, drive to Mark’s home and rip the man into shreds. He barely heard Abigail’s warning for him to not do anything, before the man was cowering on the floor and Liam’s fists were flying. Karen, Sheila and Abigail all were on their feet trying to separate them.

  Abigail whispered furiously in his ear, “Calm down. Calm down.”

  Her voice filtered through the haze of anger and still trembling with adrenaline, he sat down. Sheila handed him some water and then gruffly handed a napkin to Mark. Where he would put it, Liam had no idea; he was spoilt for choice between his eye, his lip or his nose.

  “Don’t get blood on my son’s carpet,” Sheila said sharply.

  “Do you feel better now?” Mark’s voice was muffled by the blood caking his nostrils. “All this so you get to play happy families with my child?”

  “She’s not yours!” Liam, Abigail and Sheila all yelled.

  “However much you wanted this to be true, it’s not. However much it would have fit into the perfect little bubble for you and Sarah to exist in, it’s not the case.” Liam exhaled heavily, thrusting his fingers through his hair. “I’m not even angry with Sarah anymore, I’m past that.”

  “Then what was all that about?” Karen asked, waving a hand in Mark’s direction.

  “That was the last straw,” Liam retorted. “Him insulting the woman I love in my own damn house.”

  He heard Abigail’s intake of breath next to him. Fucking Mark. Liam and Abigail were supposed to have a romantic evening with flowers and champagne and goddamn oysters and he would tell her how he felt. Now it was a slip in the middle of this theatre production in front of a man he utterly despised. Shaking his disappointment from his shoulders, he continued. “We all know the truth now. Accept it. You have to. I spoke to a solicitor not too long ago, and biology doesn’t always account for what’s best for a child. She’s old enough to tell anyone who she wants to live with.
Who she wants a relationship with. And if she tells me what she wants is for you both to leave her alone, I’ll do that.”

  “You can’t!” Karen bleated.

  “Until you learn to keep him,” he jerked his chin in Mark’s direction, “away from her, I’ll do it.”

  “At the very least,” Mark spat, “I loved her mother. You didn’t care a scrap for her. At least I won’t be disgusting about her memory.”

  Liam frowned. “What do you want from her? You know she doesn’t look like Sarah any more. She looks like my mum.”

  Sheila started. “That’s nice of you to say.”

  “She does,” Abigail agreed. “And she’s a beautiful girl.”

  “Do you understand you’ve tainted her memories of Sarah? What dominates her memories is her mother spending time trying to keep your attention instead of keeping an eye on her.”

  Karen refused to believe what he was saying. “That’s not true. Sarah loved Leila.”

  Sheila rolled her eyes. “Good lord, she was so jealous of Leila and Liam it burned her up. Anyone could see it a mile away. No wonder she said what she did. Best way to hurt Liam. What loving mother would do that to their child?”

  “She was hurt,” Karen argued. “I know she didn’t mean it.”

  “But look what she’s done,” Abigail said. “She’s left this emotional time bomb for her own child to pick up the pieces. That’s not love.”

  “You didn’t know her,” Mark interrupted. “You don’t get to make judgements about her.”

  “I will make judgements when you’re behaving like a brat who’s lost a toy,” Abigail fired. “Don’t you dare come in here looking for tea and sympathy. Karen’s lost a daughter. Leila’s lost a mother. I give you next month before you’ve replaced your ‘love.’ If you haven’t already.”

  “I get it,” Liam said into the shocked silence. “You’ve lost someone you cared about. You’re not going to use my daughter to replace her.” His eyes cut to Karen. “Fair warning, you carry on insisting that Mark needs to spend time with Leila and you’ll find yourself on the wrong end of a court order.”