I Need You (36 page)

Ester stood, with Saint held to her shoulder as she rubbed his back again. “We’ll make sure he goes in to see Rachel tomorrow. Hopefully she won’t be in there too long.”

I nodded.

“Jason said I should go visit her.”

“Oh, she would like that. She has kept beating herself up over hurting you.”

I nodded. The world seemed such a different place today. For years I’d been trapped by what was happening to Mom. Now I could see everyone had something going on in their lives. “Has Rachel made friends here?”

“Not really, the bipolar makes it difficult. She has us but––”

“Well, I’ll try and help her––”

“You have enough going on with your mom––”

“I know, but I could do with rebuilding friendships too, I’ve been hiding away because of Mom.”

“Well, we shall do what we can to help you and Miriam, Lindy. If you need anything you must call and I can make extra dinner for you to take home to feed you and Dwayne.”

“Thank you, I know Dad will appreciate it, and if I’m working at the store, I’ll want to spend my evenings at the hospital.”

“You can have some time out every afternoon too, Lindy, I can cope for a couple of hours on my own,” Darren added.

Déjà vu
… How many times had I sat here listening to Jason’s parents offering to support me?

When Ester went to put Saint down to sleep, Billy and I left. We didn’t speak until we were back in the SUV. Then he said, “You okay?”

I looked at him. “I think so. I think I am better than I have been in a long time. I don’t feel jealous of Rachel. I am happy for her and Jason. Does that sound stupid when Rachel has just been admitted to the hospital?”

He smiled, his hand reaching over to grip my knee. “No. It’s good.”

“It’s thanks to you.”

“No, it’s just you learning to deal with it all.”

“Because you’ve helped me.”

“You’d have probably got there in the end anyway.” His hand came up and stroked through my hair before he turned away and started the engine.

I floated home like I was living in a dream, and I slept really well.

Chapter Twenty-two

Billy

When I woke, I had Lindy’s head pillowed on my chest. Her hair spread out tickling my skin as she breathed.

I lay still listening to her breathing, absorbing the weight of her small hand on my belly and her leg over my thigh, thinking about last night.

Shit her mom in the hospice, Rachel in the hospital… What was wrong with the stars?

Then I thought of Lindy holding Saint. She’d looked so natural feeding him. It had pulled a cord, excruciatingly tight, around my heart. I wanted kids with her one day––and a house, with a yard for our kids to play in.

But only when she loved me as much as I loved her.

I’d seen her look at me last night; when Jason had come to fetch Rachel. I’d watched her, watching them, and then she’d looked at me.

She’d looked at me in a different way, as I treaded on nails and eggshells, trying not to break anything, but let this be what it should be, and hoping the music that I heard playing between us would start playing in her head too.

She knew what I felt about her. I was just gonna keep saying it, and showing it, and hope the spell of it wrapped around her and made her feel the same.

I shut my eyes and a deep breath sucked into my lungs. The movement made her stir and start to wake.

Images of Mom’s and Eva’s angry, disbelieving faces hovered behind my closed eyelids. I needed to get them on my side. On mine and Lindy’s side. I’d have to take her ‘round there today.

She sat up a little, blinking sleep from her eyes. My fingers stroked through her hair.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” She turned away to get up, though. “I’m gonna go call the hospice and check Mom had a good night, then I’ll call Jason and find out how Rachel is.”

“Okay, but let’s visit your mom later and I’d say it’s best we don’t crowd Rachel for a couple of days. Why don’t I call my mom and ask if we can go ‘round for lunch. Then we can tell her about this rota thing…”
and make them fricking like you again.

She smiled and nodded. “Okay.”

After she stood, she slipped on her dressing gown, then left the room.

She had no idea my family hated her now and I wasn’t gonna tell her. She didn’t need to know.

When we walked in to my house, Mom, Dad and Eva stood in a row, like the bloody defense on a football pitch, about to charge.

My hand rested on Lindy’s shoulder, making it clear I was gonna protect her. I stared at them, saying without words––
don’t cause any trouble, be nice
.

Lindy’s arm surrounded my waist in return and she leaned into me.

Eva’s gaze dropped, looking at Lindy’s fingers as they pulled at my waist.

I hoped Eva saw things were different.

“Lindy.” Mom said stiffly, turning away. “Do you want to come help me dish up.”

Shit, if she was gonna interrogate Lindy I’d strangle her.

“Billy,” Dad said, “Let’s lay the table.” Frick this was an ambush, they’d planned to split us up for some reason. Eva smiled at me, confirming it, then disappeared into the kitchen, following Mom and Lindy.

“If Mom says anything mean to her…” I ground out as Dad turned and gave me the tablecloth.

“She won’t, she’s just––”

“Testing her. I know. It’s bullshit, Dad.” I flicked the cloth out over the table then grabbed the cutlery from his hand, trying to get this done as quickly as possible so I could get into the kitchen to help her.

Lindy

“It’s nice to see you, Lindy.”

Some sort of undercurrent flowed into the room, right along with the Mrs. Worrall’s words. I glanced at Eva. There was something in her eyes as she smiled.

Neither of them sounded like they were really happy I was here.

“Thank you, Mrs. Worrall.”

“How is Miriam?”

“Not well, but coping better now she’s in the hospice.”

“Here, would you tip the salad into this dish and toss it in the dressing while I get the plates out? Eva, can you put the lasagna on the table?”

An empty bowl and a large packet of salad leaves stood on the side. I pulled the packet open as Eva took the lasagna away.

“So Billy said you two are dating now…” Why did that sound like annoyance?

My forehead scrunched, at the cold and clinical pitch in her voice and I glanced at her, but she wasn’t looking at me. “Yeah.”

“And how long have you liked him for…?”

She was asking something else, not that, but she still didn’t look at me. I picked up the bottle of dressing and drizzled it over the lettuce. Eva came back in.

I swallowed, trying to work out the answer to whatever Mrs. Worrall was not asking… “I’m sure you heard we got closer before Christmas.” There were enough rumors. Heat brewed under my skin. “And Billy took me away a couple of months back. We have kind of been on and off since then, because of Mom being ill. But now we’re properly on. You don’t mind him staying over mine do you?”

I looked at Mrs. Worrall and saw Eva standing behind her glaring at me.

Didn’t she like me?

Mrs. Worrall faced me, a look of speculation and deep intensity in her eyes. Like she was trying to look inside me to see an answer to the question she hadn’t asked. She judged me badly.

Oh my God.
They didn’t want him at my place, or me here. They didn’t like me. They didn’t want him dating me.

Billy came in and my heart leaped, flying out to grip a hold of him. Not literally, just metaphorically. Really Billy came to me, our gazes locking, and mine probably telling him how relieved and pleased I was he’d come in here.

His arm wrapped around my shoulders.

He knew.

He knew they didn’t like me.

“Mom,” he said in a deep pitch. It warned her to leave me alone.

What had I done to them to make them hate me?

Billy’s fingers squeezed me against him, like he knew I’d panicked. I turned to him, my arms wrapping about his waist and clinging as he talked over my head. “Have you heard about Rachel?”

“Yes, she’s in a hospital isn’t she?” Eva said.

“Yeah, she disappeared last night, Lindy and I found her down at the swings in the lower park. She’s been off her meds because she was feeding Saint and her bipolar has reared up. We saw Mr. and Mrs. Macinlay last night and told them what had happened.”

“Oh,” his mom said.

“Lindy and I are gonna go visit Rachel, tomorrow probably, after work, if Jason says she’s up to it. Lindy is going to go back to working in the store as well, until Rachel is better at least.”

“Oh.” The second, oh, of acknowledgement was different. Some thought had leaked into her pitch.

“Yeah,” Billy said in an odd tone, like it was meant to mean something.

Gaining courage and telling myself to stop being so stupid, I let him go and straightened up. “We talked to Ester last night about sorting out a visiting rota for Mom. Mom didn’t want visitors at home, she’s been too ill and too worried about what people think. She’s lost touch with everyone. But I’ve persuaded her to let people visit. She needs more company than Dad and I. We’ll bore her stupid if it’s us all the time, especially as the doctors think it will be weeks before…” I couldn’t say the word, die… “So it would be good if her old friends spend some time talking to her. She gets tired, so people would only need to pop in for half an hour. Ester has agreed and maybe you could help her set it up, if that would be okay?”

Sympathy touched Mrs. Worrall’s gaze now. Pity. Mom would hate it if she just turned up out of pity. “Of course, Lindy. I’ll call Ester in the morning and we’ll sort something out, and maybe we can both go up and visit Miriam tomorrow while you’re working.”

“Thank you,” I nodded, and looked at Eva, who was still staring at me.

Did they not like Mom either? I wanted to ask… But how did you ask a question like that.

The conversation was stilted and awkward at times over dinner. But every time I felt uncertain, Billy caught a hold of my hand and squeezed it, and I glanced up at him and smiled a thank you. It didn’t really matter what his family thought. It only mattered what he thought.

Every time I looked at him a warm, mushy feeling tumbled around in my belly.

It
really
didn’t matter what
anyone
else thought about us being together. I was glad we were together.

Chapter Twenty-three

Lindy

Life was so strange. How could it settle into a pattern and feel normal when Mom was dying? But it did. It had.

Working back in the store gave me a new focus for my thoughts. I knew Mom was ill, but the hospice was safe, and she had friends again, who helped her. Every lunchtime I went there and did her hair, her makeup and her nails before she had a visitor so she felt good before they came in.

Billy and I visited early in the evening together and when Dad got there we left him and Mom alone. I know Dad mostly just sat and held her hand because by then she was really tired.

I had friends too, and my best girlfriend––Rachel. That is how bizarre my life had become. But she’s the only person who seems to understand how hard it is watching Mom die.

Rachel hadn’t seen her mom since she’d been really young. She’d run away from home. Her mom had bipolar too, but had never taken any medication. Rachel understood what it was like losing her mother, just in a different way.

Our friendship had started when Rachel had come out of the hospital. She’d been really doped-up, and not very talkative when Billy and I had visited her on the hospital ward, but after she’d got home they’d gradually balanced her meds, and we’d started having heart-to-hearts––about Jason and Billy––about love––about life.

We’d spent hours talking at Jason’s parents. I’d just gone round to keep her company, but talking to her had started getting addictive because she’d had such a colorful life. I would have a heart made out of iron if I hadn’t been moved by some of the stuff she’d said.

Two months on from that, she came down to the store regularly, with Saint. Just to talk and help out, and at lunch we often headed over to the diner to eat and talk. I’d introduced her to some of my old friends from school too. Friends I hadn’t seen for years who I had reconnected with.

I was starting to get my life on track.

And I had Billy.

He stayed at mine a lot, but not every night. When I went out with friends, he stayed away.

I missed him, though, when he didn’t sleep over, and I missed him when he didn’t come out with me, but I knew I couldn’t become reliant on him like I had on Jason. I had to make myself happy first. That was one of the things that talking to Rachel had taught me and my counselor agreed and encouraged.

Rachel loved Jason, but it was Rachel who’d turned her life around after she’d met him.

“Hey, Lind.” Jason, walked into the store from the back office, carrying his laptop. Rachel stood on the customer side of the counter. She turned around.

“Jason.”

“Honey.” He put the laptop down on the counter. He often sat out here working now, even when Rachel wasn’t around.

Saint was tucked up in the carrier, in front of Rachel. Jason rubbed his head then pressed a kiss on it. Saint made a croaky little sound as Jason straightened and kissed Rachel, his fingers cradling the back of her head.

I smiled. I liked watching them together. They were good together. It didn’t make me jealous; Billy and I were good together too.

My cell rang.

It was probably him.

I picked it up. It wasn’t Billy’s image, though. It was Dad’s.

“Hey…”

“Lindy…” I knew from his pitch. “The hospice called. I’m on my way there. Can you get someone to give you a lift?”

Tears flooded my eyes and spilled over. I wiped them away. “Is she unconscious––“

“Not yet…”

Mom had been getting worse, but… “How long?”

“They said her heartbeat is really weak. It could be hours, Lindy, love.”