The Wish List of Albie Young (ARC) by Ruby Hummingbird

Author:Ruby Hummingbird [Hummingbird, Ruby]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781838880910
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

A friend in Tesco told me she’d heard from her cousin that Steve was married now and had twin boys. They lived in Cumbria and he worked for her dad, doing something in farming. It hurt – the idea of Steve and his new family. It shouldn’t have: it had been years with no news but the pain felt as fresh as the day he had walked out.

I’d left the supermarket with an empty trolley and was late for school pick-up.

I was quiet on the walk home, responses late, distracted. She didn’t say anything, she didn’t seem to notice anything was amiss. She was obsessed with Hubba Bubba bubble gum and I let her buy two packets in the newsagent on the way home, reaching into the small freezer for the dinner I hadn’t bought earlier.

I hadn’t eaten mine, pushing the food around the plate and trying to imagine what Steve would look like now: did he still wear leathers? Did he have streaks of grey in that black hair? Did he love his twin boys with a fierce passion?

I hadn’t heard the kettle. She pushed the mug towards me.

‘Mum.’ Her look was solemn. I stared vacantly in her direction and then down at the drink in front of me.

She had made me a tea.

She half-rubbed, half-patted my back, ‘There you go,’ and my heart lurched for my child who saw everything.

It must have had at least five sugars. I spat the mouthful back into the mug as discreetly as I could. ‘Thank you, darling,’ I’d said, knowing it had been done to comfort, to help. My heart swelled with the enormous love I had for her.

Thank god, thank god I had her.

And a red-hot anger fired through me that he would never know this incredible, generous, loving girl.

I had so much to do the next day, so many meetings lined up, but in that moment, I just wanted to gnash and wail and throw things.

Cumbria.

I’d never been and now I struck it from my list of places I wanted to visit.

Twin boys.

Works for her dad.

‘I just need to do a little work,’ I said, picking up my briefcase in the hope I could disguise the emotion building inside me.

She just looked at me, watched me leave the room, twiddling a strand of her hair round a finger, a sure sign of nerves. I couldn’t meet her eye as I pushed my bedroom door shut.

‘I’ll come through and say goodnight soon,’ I said in a high, unnatural voice before dissolving onto my bed, face into the pillow.

I didn’t want her to see me crying. This wasn’t how it was meant to have been.

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