‘Aw, that’s great!’ Dustin’s eyes are bright with excitement. ‘Can I come with?’
I’m taken aback, but flattered. ‘Of course, I’d love that. Gran’s coming too.’
Dustin stops walking, raising an eyebrow. ‘So when do I get to meet this gran of yours? We can’t all go to Reading together if she’s never even met me.’
Dustin has never been to our flat, or at least not inside it. I’ve never been to his house either. I’m not sure why. I can’t imagine introducing Gran to anyone, having someone else cross the threshold of our private sphere. For years it has been just the two of us. And what if Gran doesn’t like him? I couldn’t bear it if she doesn’t. I’d rather the unknown than her disapproval. Though as I look at Dustin now, his easy smile, his wide-eyed earnestness – it seems impossible that anyone could ever dislike him.
‘When I get to meet your mum,’ I retort.
Dustin’s reaction confuses me, however. He doesn’t smirk back. For a split second a frown creases his forehead and it’s obvious there’s something he can’t bring himself to say. Shit, have I misread this completely? But then that grin is back, and he’s the same old confident Dustin again.
‘OK, deal,’ he says. ‘But I want to go to your gran’s first. I want her to approve of her granddaughter’s boyfriend.’
‘Sorry, her what?’
Suddenly he blushes so hard I think his whole face is about to turn crimson. ‘I just thought … aren’t we … I mean, if that’s OK, of course?’
I kiss him.
Chapter 19
Dustin
After breakfast I mope for a bit but I can’t settle to anything. There’s nothing on TV and without many of her toys here Zara soon gets cranky and restless so I decide to take her into town.
The town centre is in the opposite direction from the park, which is unfortunate because it means encountering a new lot of familiar yet foreign spots. The Sports Direct where I whiled away insane amounts of time as a teenager. The Wetherspoon’s where I’d go with the lads on weeknights, winding up in McDonald’s in the early hours and creeping home just before sunrise and Mum’s alarm. Weeknights when Willow couldn’t come out because of college the next day. Most of my experience of this town was a life pre-Willow, so why does everything seem to be tainted by her? The Pizza Hut where I had my seventh birthday party is also the Pizza Hut where Willow and I occasionally went for Saturday lunch after a Friday night at the pub. We’d order ham and pineapple. Her favourite, and after a while it became mine.
When I get to the high street I survey the line of shops.
‘Where shall we go, Zara?’ I mutter. Then I spot an Entertainer I don’t remember being there before. Perfect. I spend maybe twenty minutes steering Zara through the aisles. I glance down at her every so often to see her expression, but nothing seems to be grabbing her attention. I guess she’s a bit young for everything in here. Eventually I give up and push the pram into a coffee shop, sit down dejectedly. How am I going to do this for the rest of my life? Life is short so you have to make the most of it has always been my mantra. Now, for the first time, life seems to stretch ahead of me endlessly. OK, one step at a time, Dustin. I just need to get through the next hour, then I’ll focus on the next, and eventually this day will be done and that’ll be one less day to endure. I look at the time on my phone. Thinking about it, maybe an hour is a bit long. Maybe I’ll just focus on getting through the next twenty minutes instead. I feel like someone told me that once; I can do twenty minutes.
They have a high chair in the corner so I grab and it and wrestle Zara into it. I’m still manoeuvring her right leg through one hole when the woman behind the counter – a kindly lady in her late fifties – asks what she can get me.
‘Erm,’ my mind has gone blank, ‘can I have an almond milk caramel latte, please?’
Willow’s drink. Why the hell did I order Willow’s drink?
‘Coming right up, dear.’
‘Um, actually … ’ I say but she’s already bustling away.
I sit down miserably. When she brings it I stare at the mug for a while before taking a sip. Ergh, it’s gross. It’s so sweet, how the hell did she drink these things? I swill the sickly milky liquid around and then push it away. At least Zara is sitting quite happily in her high chair.
I don’t know how long I stare absent-mindedly out of the window before I see it. A flash of golden hair, long, but not too long, naturally wavy. Oh my God. I jump up and race outside. And there, I see her. A girl dressed in an oversized sweatshirt, leggings, socks with sliders, walking away from me. She’s already halfway down the pavement on the other side of the street. Is that … is that Willow? I am running now, weaving through the people, my eyes never leaving her, my heart thumping in my ribcage. I am forced to stop for a cyclist. She’s getting further and further away, I’m going to lose her. ‘Willow!’ I hear myself shout.
But she doesn’t turn, she is still walking. Did she hear me? Is she deliberately ignoring me? ‘WILLOW!’ my voice booms through the street. Multiple people stop, turning around to stare at me, including Willow. She stops, turning around to look at me, and my heart sinks. I grind to a halt. I’ve reached the other side of the street and now I’m closer I see it’s not her. It’s someone totally different. She frowns at me.
‘Sorry,’ I gasp. ‘I thought … ’ I thought you were my girlfriend, the mother of my child, the love of my life. ‘I thought you were someone else.’
And then I’m turning around and walking away. People are still staring but I can’t bring myself to feel embarrassed. There’s no room for shame in the swell of misery and helplessness inside me. As I’m walking home I pass a couple, arms linked, pushing a baby in a stroller. Then another couple swinging a toddler between them just a bit further down. Christ, I swear it’s like the universe is trying to rub it in my face – how many happy, normal families there are out there. How I’m not one of them. How Zara won’t grow up feeling safe and loved between two parents.
Zara.
My stomach lurches.
Shit.
I forgot her.
I run back to the coffee shop, practically elbowing people out of the way on the pavement, burst through the door and find a lady holding a screaming Zara in her arms. She’s locked in discussion with the woman behind the counter and they’re both frowning anxiously. I rush up to them, dazed with panic.
‘That’s my daughter,’ I shout and try to grab Zara, but the lady holding her pulls back protectively.
‘It’s my daughter, I swear,’ I say, pushing the words out though I can barely breathe. With trembling hands I retrieve my wallet from my back pocket and take out the photograph tucked inside it. The photo of me, Willow and Zara. ‘Please.’
The woman’s eyes soften and she hands Zara over to me, who instantly stops screaming. I squeeze her so tight I feel I must be hurting her, but she snuggles into me. ‘Don’t worry, I am a mum of three kids, it happens,’ the woman says, giving me a reassuring smile and leading me over to a table. The woman behind the counter follows.
The lady who had been holding Zara explains they were just about to call the police, and as soon as I hear that I break down. I’m crying so hard I can barely get the words out, but I tell her about Willow leaving, about how the police aren’t helping, about moving in with my family and my sister hating me, how I feel paralysed. It’s all so scrambled and muffled by my tears that I’m fairly sure they can’t understand a word. But they listen and nod and one of them puts an arm around my shoulder, patting my hand sympathetically. Then I have nothing more to say and the woman behind the counter goes back to her station. The other waits quietly with me till I’ve calmed down. Zara is looking up at me with anxious eyes and I stroke her beautiful face. I can’t believe I forgot my daughter. I could have lost her. Then I would have lost both of them.
‘You probably think I’m an awful dad.’
She shakes her head. ‘Not at all! You were barely out of the door before you came ba
ck. Don’t be so hard on yourself.’
She ruffles Zara’s hair and orders me a cup of hot, sweet tea.
Later, when I have finally stopped crying, I thank them both and try to pay, but the woman behind the counter shakes her head and says to forget about it.
I walk back home, pushing the empty stroller with one hand, the other clutching Zara to my hip. I don’t want to let go of her quite yet.
When I get home, Mum is instantly there at the door, smiling like she hasn’t seen us for days.
‘How was town?’ she says.
I look at her, still feeling panicked, sick, and out of breath. My heart hasn’t stopped thumping in my chest. But I force my mouth into a smile. ‘It was lovely. Good to be home.’
Chapter 20
Willow
Then – November 2017
There’s a knock at the door, and I rush to the living room, leaving Gran to set the table. I open the door, hoping my nerves aren’t written all over my face. Dustin stands there, bottle of wine in one hand, a bunch of flowers in the other.
‘Hello, you,’ he says, planting a kiss on my cheek, before confidently stepping past me.
Gran was thrilled when I asked if Dustin could come for dinner. ‘Oh, I get to meet this mysterious Dustin,’ she said and two seconds later had whipped out her diary to check when she was free in between her bingo, book club, knitting group and the country market. We decided on a Tuesday evening, and when I asked Dustin if he was free, he told me it was a stupid question.
I introduce him to Gran, who beams excitedly as he shakes her hand – very formal. But before too much conversation is exchanged, I drag him to my room. He flops back onto my bed, arms folded behind his head. ‘Exactly how I imagined.’ He smiles.
I frown at him. ‘Is that a bad thing or a good thing?’
He shrugs. ‘It’s just a thing,’ he says, propping himself up on one elbow, his eyes scanning every inch of my room. Then he notices my knitting basket at the foot of my bed and grins. He leans forward, picking it up. ‘This is the famous knitting basket?’
He picks out a yellow half-knitted blanket, staring at it. ‘This your next project?’
I snatch it from him, glaring. ‘Well it was going to be for you, but now you’ve ruined it.’
‘Noo,’ he whines. ‘I’m sorry. I’ll forget I ever saw it. It’ll be a perfect surprise.’
‘Shut up,’ I say, rolling my eyes, but I know I’m smiling.
Thirty minutes later we are sat around the small fold-out table Gran got out from the garage just for the occasion. She made salmon fillets, new potatoes and broccoli. Dustin inhales it like he hasn’t eaten in about three months and Gran, delighted, piles more potatoes and veg onto his plate. Dustin and I did most of the talking – about college, the Reading open day in a couple of weeks, Dustin’s job at the coffee shop and his plans for the future. Gran mostly sat and listened but I could tell she was so happy. Happier than I’ve seen her in years.
‘That was amazing, Mary, thank you so much,’ Dustin says, and gets up to start clearing the table.
‘Oh, you sit down and leave that to me.’ Gran smiles, taking the plates from him. ‘It was my pleasure. You’re welcome anytime, Dustin, you’re such a gentleman.’
She turns away and Dustin beams at me, so obviously pleased with himself I have to suppress the urge to laugh.
Dustin stays over in my room (Gran, to my amazement, doesn’t even offer to make him up a bed on the sofa) and as we lie tucked up under the duvet it strikes me that he is the first person to ever share a bed with me. Even when I stayed at Gee’s, or she stayed with me, one of us would be on the blow-up bed. I’ve always liked my own space. But now as my head rests on his chest and he runs his fingers delicately through my hair, I couldn’t feel better.
‘Thank you for coming tonight,’ I say.
He kisses me. ‘Thank you for having me.’
‘So your house next, right?’
Dustin pauses. I can feel his body tense.
‘Yeah,’ he says, and he slackens. ‘Yeah, of course. We’ll have to sort that soon.’
Chapter 21
Dustin
It’s Monday evening now. It’s been one week since she went missing and I still haven’t heard anything from Willow. In the past week I have called Zara’s daycare, the dentist Willow went to, and her GP. I even called her hairdresser she went to once. They couldn’t tell me anything. Georgia still hasn’t heard anything either. I know she and her mum must be worried sick, they’re Willow’s family, after all, but Georgia is only ever calm when she speaks to me.
‘There’s nothing more we can do now,’ she says.
And she’s right, I guess. She and I designed a missing poster and sent it to Naomi, who, with the help of my work friends, plastered them all over Brighton – pieces of paper with Willow’s picture taped to lamp-posts, shop windows, wherever we can think of.
‘We should put them up here,’ Georgia said. ‘Especially if you think she might have come here with the blanket.’
But I refused.
‘If she’s deliberately avoiding us, missing posters will just put her off coming here,’ I said firmly, knowing that what I was saying only half made sense. The real reason, of course, was that I didn’t want Mum, Alicia or Elliott seeing them.
Though it is more painful than I ever imagined anything could be, I am starting to accept what the police and Georgia seem to think. Willow wasn’t abducted, she left me.
Mostly I think this because she has blocked me from everything on social media. I was checking her socials about ten times a day and one day I just couldn’t see her any more. She has blocked Georgia too. She has even blocked me from Twitter, though she’s only ever tweeted once or twice. Or maybe she’s deleted herself from all of these platforms. Either way, when you search her name there’s nothing there, like she never existed.
But she does exist. She will always exist to me.
Zara is grizzly. She’s been grizzly all morning.
‘Please stop crying,’ I beg. I can feel anger bubbling and feel instantly guilty. Willow probably never got angry with her, and she was on her own with her a lot. Why did Willow ever think I’d be a better parent?
Zara doesn’t stop crying.
This has been the longest week of my life, like an ongoing nightmare. The life I used to have doesn’t exist any more. I don’t work. I don’t see or talk to my friends. I’m back living with my family. My sister hates me. She has barely spoken to me since she and Elliott argued.
I’m not even sure how my mum feels about me being back. Most of the time she acts like she couldn’t be happier and everything’s just perfect, but on a couple of occasions I’ve come into a room to see her hastily stuffing a tissue into her pocket, red-eyed and sniffly. I sleep in an empty bed, cuddling a pillow next to my body. I’m looking after my baby all on my own. I have no clue what I’m doing.
I’m sitting on the kitchen floor, Zara in the high chair. She wails, her puffy red face scrunched up, tears streaming down her cheeks. I stand and try again to pop a spoonful of food into her mouth. She spits it back out again.
I grit my teeth. It’s not fair. I want to cry all the time too, but I can’t. I have to be a dad, I have to have my shit together. Doesn’t Zara realise that?
She stops crying. I look at her, her big brown eyes watching me, her lip trembling.
‘You OK now?’ I ask, wiping my tired eyes. Zara starts shaking her head. Her bottom lip juts out. No, no, no. Don’t cry, don’t cry again. I’m not sure I can take it any more.
I can feel sweat trickling down my forehead. ‘Come on, Zara, how about something to eat, eh?’ I spoon some of the pureed mush onto the stupid plastic spoon, pushing it up to her mouth, but she clamps her mouth shut and turns her head away. ‘No!’ That’s another one from her limited repertoire of words. Possibly her first actually.
‘Just eat the bloody food!’ I slam the spoon on the table.
Damn it.
T
hat was loud. And aggressive.
Too loud and aggressive. Zara looks up at me, eyes wide, blinking, and then the screaming starts. She lifts her arms up this time, screaming loudly, throwing herself against the sides of her high chair. I go to pick her up but she just screams harder, scowling at me with accusing eyes.
‘You all right, hon?’
I turn to see Mum standing in the doorway. Her hair is tied back into the smallest bun, neatly ironed sheets folded over one arm. As I see her staring at me, I realise how thankful I am to see her. I realise why I’m here. My heart sinks as I swallow the bile in my throat. I need my mum.
I shake my head. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ I whisper, pulling on the neck of my T-shirt. ‘I don’t know how to make her stop crying.’
Mum smiles gently. ‘It’s OK, hon, babies cry.’ She moves forward, places the sheets over the back of the chair and stretches out her arms towards Zara. But then she pauses. I know Mum wants to hold Zara, but instead she calmly instructs me. ‘Pick her up and hold her close to your chest.’
The last thing I want to do is bring the crying closer to me.
‘It’s all right, it’ll calm her down.’
‘No, it won’t. She wants her mum.’
‘Pick her up, Dustin.’
I bite my tongue, and slowly lean down and lift Zara up out of her chair, holding her thrashing body away from me.
‘Now bring her closer to you, that’s it.’
I carefully pull her onto my chest, hand under her bum, the other around her body.
‘Great, now gently rock her.’
I start swaying, and I feel Zara start to relax and her moans grow quieter. I look up at Mum. ‘Thank you.’
The Missing Pieces of Me: Discover the novel that will break your heart and mend it again Page 8
