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‘Liv will stay with you for a few minutes,’ Stefano said, ‘and then she will ring ICU.’
Liv gave an inward smile. He was also controlling. ‘Once they have him settled, I’ll take you up there,’ she assured Helen and the woman blew her nose again.
‘Thanks. You’ve been incredibly kind, both of you.’ Tucking her handkerchief up her sleeve, she tried to smile. ‘Men. Why must they play these dangerous sports?’
Stefano rose to his feet, a sardonic smile touching his mouth. ‘We are incomprehensible, no? Blame it on testosterone.’ Suddenly he sounded very Italian and Liv felt her insides tingle.
She found herself wondering if some glamorous, skinny woman was at that moment lying naked in his enormous bed, waiting for his return.
Horrified by the direction of her thoughts, she rose to her feet. ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea, Helen,’ she said quickly. ‘And then I’ll find out what’s happening in ICU.’ And while she was at it, she was going to bang her head against the wall a few times to try and reprogramme her thoughts back to the place they’d been before the conversation with Anna.
Why on earth was she envying a woman she hadn’t even met for having something that she didn’t even want?
She was definitely losing her grip.
CHAPTER TWO
‘MUMMY, can we have a really big Christmas tree this year? Up to the roof?’
‘Absolutely.’ Liv tried not to dwell on just how much ‘really big’ was going to cost. Maybe if she waited until Christmas Eve she could negotiate a bargain. ‘How was school today?’
‘Fine. I want to get our tree at the weekend.’ Max scrambled onto a chair and spread his toy dinosaurs over the kitchen table. ‘Then we can enjoy it for ages and ages.’
‘It’s only December the first. ‘If we buy it on Saturday it will have no needles by Christmas.’
‘If we don’t buy our tree till Christmas Eve we won’t have time to have fun with it. Sam is getting his tree next weekend. Can we? Please?’ Max looked up at her hopefully and Liv felt something shift inside her.
‘We’ll see,’ she said gruffly, promising herself that she’d sit down with a pen and paper once he was asleep and take a serious look at her budget. ‘I love you. Have I told you that, lately?’
‘Every day. You’re always telling me that.’
‘Are you complaining?’
‘Nope.’ Max picked up a plastic tyrannosaurus. ‘I love you, too. It snowed again today, but not much. I want there to be piles and piles. Wouldn’t that be great?’
Seeing the sparkle in her son’s eyes, Liv forgot about the havoc that snow always caused. ‘Fantastic.’
‘Ben broke his leg yesterday.’ Lower lip between his teeth, Max crashed the tyrannosaurus into a less superior species and sent it flying. ‘He went to the hospital and they gave him crotches.’
Liv hid a smile. ‘Crutches,’ she said, spreading creamy butter onto crusty bread, ‘it’s crutches.’
‘That’s what I said. I told him my mum works in the hospital, but he said he didn’t see you there. You won’t work on Christmas Day, will you?’
Liv felt her heart flip. Every year she faced this dilemma. The money was good and in her situation that was incredibly tempting, but working Christmas meant not being with Max.
‘I’m not working,’ she said firmly, putting the plate on the table next to Max. It didn’t matter how tight her finances were, nothing would make up for not spending Christmas Day with her son. ‘I’ve saved up my holiday. I have a whole week off. I might work on New Year’s Eve, but not until you’re in bed.’
‘So I’ll do a sleepover with Sam?’
‘Maybe. I’ll have to speak to Anna.’ Liv filled the kettle, wondering what she’d do if her friend and colleague hadn’t had a child the same age as hers.
‘Cool. I love sleeping over with Sam.’ He looked at her, his eyes sparkling. ‘Do you know what the best thing is about his house?’
No, but she could guess. Liv’s heart plummeted as she thought of Sam’s house, with its five large bedrooms, three bathrooms and huge garden. Then her eyes scanned the tiny living room of her cramped flat. If she stood in the middle, she could almost touch all four walls. And although she had two bedrooms, one of them was so small it would barely accommodate a single bed. And when the train went past the entire flat shook…
Aware that Max was looking at her, she braced herself. ‘So what’s the best thing about Sam’s house?’
‘Their guinea pig. It’s called Rambo and it’s so cute.’
Liv laughed and then impulsively she bent down and kissed her son, the son who had noticed the guinea pig instead of the huge bedrooms or the soft white sofas and wall-to-wall luxury.
‘You’re a nice person,’ she said gruffly, but her eyes were drawn to the patch of damp on the wall. She’d painted over it repeatedly but it always came through again and now that the weather had turned cold…
Suddenly she wished she could wave a magic wand and make the world perfect for her son. Why was it that no one told you that parenthood came with non-stop guilt and anxiety? Especially single parenthood.
Telling herself that she was doing all right, Liv watched as her son played a make-believe game with his toys. He was bright, happy and well adjusted. She worried too much.
Everything was fine.
Max lifted his head and looked at her wistfully. ‘And Sam’s dad’s buying him a goal for Christmas so he can practise. You should see it, Mum. It’s just awesome. It’s huge, with a big white net—I’ve seen the picture. Could we have a goal?’
‘Not in a fourth-floor flat,’ Liv said dryly, squashing down the guilt that swamped her once again. He was a little boy. He needed a garden. Somewhere he could kick a ball when she was too tired to take him to the park.
‘If we had loads of money, would we buy a house? I heard you telling Anna that if you had a bathroom like hers, you’d lie in it all day. Why don’t you lie in ours all day?’
Because of the chipped tiles, the draught from the window and the stubborn black mould that refused to die. ‘Because I have to work. I’ve explained that to you. I work to make the money we need.’ Liv lifted an onion out of the vegetable basket. ‘Now, enough of this conversation. If I don’t get on with the supper it will be bedtime.’
The tyrannosaurus attacked again, scattering other dinosaurs over the kitchen floor. ‘You could do the lottery or something.’
‘It’s a waste of money. We wouldn’t win.’
‘You could get married. Emma’s mum got married again and now they’re really rich because her new dad is loaded!’
Liv gasped. ‘Where did you hear that expression?’
‘Emma told me.’ Max stopped playing and looked at her anxiously. ‘Is it swearing?’
‘No, but it’s not very polite.’ Her mind slid back to the conversation she’d had with Anna earlier that day and she frowned, pushing away thoughts of Stefano Lucarelli. ‘And it isn’t how much money someone has that counts, it’s whether you like them or not that matters.’
‘Well, Emma’s mum has been married twice now, and you’ve only been married once.’
‘It isn’t a competition, sweetheart.’
‘Why did you stop being married?’
Liv closed her eyes briefly. Why did the hardest questions always come when she was tired? ‘We’ve talked about this before, Max.’ She peeled the onion. ‘Sometimes these things just don’t work out. And when that happens, it’s no one’s fault.’ Yes it was. It was her fault. She hadn’t been exciting enough for Jack. Her eyes suddenly started pricking and she told herself it was just the onion.
‘You should definitely try being married again,’ Max said sagely. ‘You’re always telling me I have to keep trying things. You always say you can’t tell if you like something if you’ve only tried it once.’
‘That’s food,’ Liv said dryly, reaching for a chopping board. ‘Marriage isn’t like broccoli. Marriage is a very big thing. You have to really, really love someone to do that. And they have to love you, too. They have to think you’re special.’
‘You are special, Mum.’ Max looked at her, his eyes huge. ‘I don’t know any other girls who love football and cars and noone makes pizza like you do. All my friends think you’re cool.’
‘Well, maybe I am cool to a bunch of seven-year-olds.’ But bigger boys wanted something very different. They wanted someone sexy and she was—
Ordinary.
Liv stood for a moment, distracted by her own thoughts. Across the road she could see lights from the other flats and in one window she could see a man and a woman sitting down to eat with two lively, excited children.
Then she glanced at Max. Her little boy, his face a mask of concentration as he lined up his dinosaurs. She paused for a moment, swamped by a feeling of such intense love and anxiety that she almost couldn’t breathe.
He deserved so much more. He deserved a loving father who would kick a football with him.
Damn Jack. Damn Jack and his slick, womanising ways.
She put the onion on the chopping board and stabbed the knife through it.
Why should Max suffer because his father hadn’t been adult enough to face up to his responsibilities?
‘Mummy, you’re chopping that onion like you hate it or something.’
Liv’s gaze slid from the blade in her hand to the minute slices of onion that now lay on the chopping board. Pulverised. She gave a weak smile. ‘I’m making supper.’ There was no point in regretting the past. ‘We can play football together this weekend, if you like.’
‘Cool. I’ve been picked for the match on Friday. I was a reserve but now Ben can’t play so I’m in the team.’
Liv’s face lit up. ‘That’s fantastic! Why didn’t you tell me before?’
‘It’s only the second team, not the first.’ He looked at her and his little shoulders lifted in a tiny shrug. ‘And I knew you wouldn’t be able to come. You’ll be working.’
Liv swallowed. ‘Max—’
‘It’s OK,’ he said firmly. ‘It isn’t your fault. We’re a team, isn’t that what you always say? You go to work, I go to school.’
‘Actually I’m not working on Friday,’ Liv said brightly. ‘I—I have the afternoon off.’
‘Really?’
No. ‘Yes.’ Somehow, whatever it took, she was going to make it happen. She was going to her son’s football match. ‘What time is kick-off?’
‘Two o’clock.’
‘I’ll be there.’ How, she didn’t know. But she was going to be standing on that school field even if it meant changing her job.
Exhaustion washed over her making her head foggy. As usual her day had started before five and one glance at the washing, ironing and the pile of Max’s toys in the living room was enough to tell her that she wouldn’t be in bed before midnight.
She envied mothers who could be at home for their children. Yes, she loved her work but the constant pressure of trying to be in two places at once was grinding her down.
Welcome to single parenthood.
Max scrambled off the chair and hugged her tightly, his arms round her legs, his head pressed against her stomach. ‘You’re the best mum in the world. I know it’s hard for you because you have to work. That would be one of the good things about having a dad. He could do the work bit and you could just come and watch me.’
Liv felt a lump in her throat. ‘There’s more to being a dad than signing cheques, Max.’ And some men didn’t even manage that bit, she thought wearily as she bent to kiss the top of his head. He smelled of shampoo. ‘Spaghetti bolognese all right for supper?’
‘Yum.’
Dismissing fantasies of herself standing on the school field, while someone else worried about the family finances, Liv squashed down the guilt, gave him a quick kiss and released him. Reality, she reminded herself. That was what she had to concentrate on. ‘So what was the funniest thing that happened to you today?’ Taking the lid off a can of tomatoes, she emptied it into the pan. ‘Make me laugh.’
‘Sam told me a great joke.’
‘Go on.’
‘What’s the best thing to give a seasick elephant?’
‘I don’t know. What is the best thing to give a seasick elephant?’
‘Plenty of room.’
‘Max!’
The following morning brought a flutter of snow and a sharp drop in the temperature.
‘Isabella? Tutto bene?’ Stefano brought the Ferrari to a smooth halt, his attention on the phone call. Snow dusted the pavements and the roads were slick with ice. It was going to be a busy day in the emergency department and he knew this would be his only chance to make this call. ‘You called me?’
‘Every day for the past two weeks!’ His sister exploded into Italian. ‘Where have you been? You don’t call—you don’t come home! Have you forgotten your family? Don’t we matter to you any more? You don’t have a heart, Stefano!’
‘That’s the sort of comment I expect from my girlfriend, not my little sister.’ Stefano sprang from the car, his long, black, cashmere coat swirling around his strong legs as he strode across the consultants’ car park. Knowing exactly which buttons to press to annoy her, he smiled wickedly. ‘Why are you at home? You should be taking your children to school.’
Ever predictable, Isabella bristled with indignation. ‘I dropped them at school and now I’m on the way to the office. Remember the family business, Stefano? The business you turned your back on? Well I am here, keeping our father happy while you stroke your ego by playing doctors and dating actresses with bodies as thin as spaghetti and brains as soft as ravioli.’
Already bored with the conversation, Stefano pushed his way through the swing doors that led to the emergency department. ‘Are you ringing me to nag me about my choice of career or my choice of women?’
‘I’m ringing you because despite your many faults, you’re still my brother and like all men you need reminding about family responsibility. When did you last call Papa?’
Stefano strode along the corridor, oblivious to the sideways glances he received from the female nurses. ‘I don’t have any news.’
‘News? What is “news”?’ Isabella didn’t bother hiding her exasperation. ‘He just wants to hear your voice, Stefano!’
‘Talking about nothing because you enjoy the sound of your own voice is more of a girl thing than a man thing,’ Stefano drawled. ‘And I’ve been busy. I’m working.’
‘Well, find the time to call. And make sure you come home for Christmas. We’ll all be in Cortina from the twenty-third of December.’
Stefano was well able to picture the scene: a noisy group of family and old friends descending on the enormous family chalet in the exclusive mountain resort of Cortina D’Ampezzo, in the Italian Dolomites.
‘Isabella—’
‘I know you’re busy, but this is family time, Stefano. Be there.’
‘I will be there, but I don’t know when or for how long.’ Or how much of his well-meaning, interfering family he’d be able to stand.
