Keeping Up Appearances by Tricia Stringer

Author:Tricia Stringer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HQ Fiction
Published: 2022-09-07T00:00:00+00:00

nineteen

It was Thursday afternoon when Paige heard a knock at her back door. She and Levi hadn’t long finished their lunch. He jumped up from the game he’d been playing at her feet and ran to the door. Paige followed.

“Dane!” Levi cried out in delight as he pulled on the handle.

“Hey, little mate.” Dane high-fived Levi’s outstretched hand. “Can I come in?”

“Of course,” Paige said, happy for some adult conversation.

Dane held out a biscuit tin. “Mum’s been baking again.”

“That’s kind of her.”

“Yay! Biscuits!” Levi jumped up and down, tugging on Dane’s arm.

“Stop, Levi,” Paige said. “Let Dane get in the door and then if you ask nicely maybe you can have a biscuit.” She accepted the tin from Dane and led the way into the kitchen. “Would you like a coffee?”

“Thanks.”

While the kettle boiled, Paige put the TV on for Levi and settled him in front of it with a couple of Sarah’s biscuits and a drink.

“It’s my only babysitting service,” she said guiltily.

“Hey.” Dane held up his hands. His face was split in a huge grin and today his wild hair was trapped beneath a woollen beanie. “No judgement here. Zuri’s had far more than the allowable screen time over the years. You do what you have to to survive. I was lucky to have Mum nearby.”

“How is your mum?” Paige asked. She’d been concerned for Sarah ever since she’d dropped her home but she didn’t have her number, and even if she did she wouldn’t have felt brave enough to call.

“She’s the reason I’ve come, really.”

Paige set the mugs on the table with the open biscuit tin between them.

Dane wrapped his fingers around his mug and stared into it. The lead-in music for Dinosaur Train drifted from the lounge with Levi’s mumbled accompaniment.

“We…Dad and Mum and me.” Dane looked up. “We wanted to thank you for supporting Mum the other day. And driving her home.”

“She had a shock. I didn’t think she should drive.”

“It was kind of you.” He glanced into his cup and back at her. “Evidently I have a half-sister.”

“That must have been a surprise.”

“For my brother and me, yes.”

“Is your brother home?”

Dane shook his head. “Mum insisted we skype with Chad so she could tell us both at the same time.”

“What about your dad?”

“He’s known a long time. Mum said she couldn’t marry him without telling him she’d had a baby before. They decided they’d tell us one day…but one day never came.”

“Life was different for an unmarried teenager in your mum’s day.”

“I get that. I’m not judging. It’s just that after all we went through when Zuri suddenly arrived in our lives…then my dickhead brother leading a double life. Mum knows how I feel about keeping secrets.” Dane shook his head slowly back and forth. “Nothing in my family is ever how it seems.”

Paige wanted to reach out and lay a hand on his but he was across the table, beyond her reach, and if she moved to him it would feel awkward.

“Are you going to meet your sister?” she asked instead.

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