‘Hey,’ I say softly and he looks up, his expression soft.
‘Hey,’ he whispers.
I walk up to the cot. He is gently stroking her cheek with his finger.
‘Congratulations, Jake. Other than the hairy ears she’s beautiful.’
He looks up at me, a huge, stupid grin on his face. ‘She is, isn’t she.’
Suddenly I feel an overwhelming wave of love for my brother. All these years he never had anything for himself. To call his own. Always he was fighting all our battles. I blink back the tears.
His eyes narrow. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s just perfect.’
He nods. ‘Are you going back to London now?’
‘Yeah. The traffic won’t be so bad now.’
‘Why don’t you stay a bit longer and let Shane drive you back?’
I shake my head. ‘Then you’ll just have the hassle of sending my car back to me.’
He frowns. ‘It’s no trouble.’
I smile softly. ‘No, it is trouble for you. I’ll be back for the weekend.’
‘All right. Drive safely.’
‘I will.’
That’s the thing about Jake. Even at a time like this he is worrying about me. I hug him tightly and go down to the kitchen. My mother is putting together plastic containers of food into two carrier bags. The containers are labeled so I know exactly what’s in them. Dom is sitting at the table finishing off a massive bacon and sausage sandwich.
‘Are you off?’ he asks me.
‘Yeah.’
‘Didn’t you have something else you had to do?’ He puts the last bit of the sandwich into his mouth and raises his eyebrows meaningfully.
I glance at my mother, but she is busy washing her hands.
‘I’m not doing it today. I’ll be back this weekend, I’ll do it then.’
My brother wipes his mouth and stands up. ‘I’m off then. See you at dinnertime, Ma.’ As he passes me he whispers, ‘I wouldn’t wait beyond the weekend if I were you.’
I watch my brother leave with a heavy heart.
‘Put this bag into the fridge and consume it today, tomorrow at the latest,’ my mother says. I turn back to her. ‘And the other bag, you can freeze it and eat on Thursday and Friday. You’ll be back here on Saturday, won’t you?’
‘Yeah. Thanks.’
‘Do you want to take some cake for Maddie too?’ my mother asks.
‘No, I’ll share what I’ve got with her.’
‘All right then,’ she says moving towards the fridge.
‘Ma,’ I say sinking into a chair.
‘What?’
‘Did you ever think we’d all turn out like this?’
She looks at me. ‘Never.’
‘What did you think we’d become?’
‘I didn’t know. I didn’t dare dream anything like this. I thought we’d always be struggling,’ she says softly.
‘You’re really proud of Jake, aren’t you?’
She is so choked up she can’t even speak. Just nods violently, her body clenched tight.
‘Me too,’ I say.
She comes outside with me, and waves as I drive away. I watch her become smaller in the mirror and I get a horrible cold feeling in my stomach. When I am far enough away, I pull over by the side of the road and call BJ.
‘What’s up?’ he asks immediately.
‘Oh, BJ. I don’t know how I can ever tell Jake about us.’ My voice is shaking.
There is a tense pause. ‘Where are you now?’ he asks urgently.
‘About a mile away from Jake’s house.’
‘Look, I can be at Silver Lee in about an hour. Do you want to go there and wait for me?’
With all the excitement about the baby, no one will notice my absence so I could even spend the night there and leave very early in the morning for London. ‘But what about Marcel?’
‘I’ll ask him to leave the French doors open for you.’
‘OK, I’ll see you there in about an hour,’ I say.
‘Layla.’
‘Yeah.’
‘We’ll figure it out, OK.’
‘OK.’ I pause for a moment. ‘BJ.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Nothing. I’ll talk to you when I see you.’
I sever the connection and stare at my phone. It seems impossible that I once thought my relationship with BJ would diminish with time. That I had actually told Dom that it was just a sex thing. It’s far from just a sex thing. My feelings have grown and grown.
I know BJ likes me. Maybe a lot, but I also know that I can’t base my future on that alone. He owns clubs full of beautiful women who are constantly throwing themselves at him. When I am not with him, I sometimes worry. All kinds of thoughts plague me. We haven’t promised to be exclusive with each other. Our relationship is like a dirty secret. We never go any place where we could be recognized. No one in his life knows. Even Marcel has never seen me. At least in my life, Maddy and Dominic know. Now that Lily has given birth, I might even tell her and ask her advice.