Happy Ever After by C. C. MacDonald

Author:C. C. MacDonald [MacDonald, C. C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473568693
Publisher: Random House

SIX

‘Think about it,’ he says. Uggy’s not seen that look in his eye outside of the bedroom. She opens her mouth to speak but he puts the pads of two fingers on her lips. He presses hard, not to hurt her but enough to make his point. ‘I told you to think about it.’ She turns back towards the kitchen. She was so excited when he said he was coming over to the flat. She hadn’t seen him for weeks, since he’d come over to tell her that Greg’s parents found the pictures of her on his phone. She thought he might ask her to move out but he didn’t. He was so nice about it. Said it had been selfish of him to put her at risk by keeping them, told her that he should have protected her better. But now he’s asking her to do something that seems so wrong.

‘Baby,’ she says from behind the kitchen counter, stirring the beef stew she started cooking for him three hours ago, ‘I only don’t want to involve the kids. You know?’

‘I begged Merrick and Fran not to show nursery the pictures of you. Begged them. Me and Merrick fell out over it.’

‘Baby—’

‘I put you before Merrick; mate of mine for years and I put you first.’

‘But this is—’

‘Everything I’ve done, sorting out your landlord, giving you a roof over your head, for Christ’s sake. I haven’t asked for hardly nothing in return.’ She goes to him. Tries to put a tender hand on his neck but he brushes her off, walks over to the window and looks out at the supermarket car park. He shakes his head. Punches a fist into his open hand. She has done everything she can to show him how grateful she is for what he’s done for her. Things she never imagined doing.

‘I shouldn’t have bothered. Not with you, not all this.’ He indicates the flat, the nicest flat she’s ever lived in. ‘You think there aren’t other women who want to be with me? Who wouldn’t do little things I ask them to help me with?’ He’s right. He could have picked so many other women, better women, and he’s chosen her. What they have might not be something from a fairy tale but here, in this country, this town where she couldn’t feel less at home, he’s become everything to her. She can’t have him angry with her.

‘Baby, if I knew why?’

‘It shouldn’t matter why.’

‘I don’t get why we have to include in it the little ones?’ He drops his head down, puts it to one side and then the other, stretching his neck muscles. She’d love to stretch now, she hasn’t felt this tense for weeks.

‘The little girl’s mother,’ he says, eyes still looking at the floor but his tone has lost its edge and he sounds exhausted. ‘Fuck, I didn’t want to say anything.’ He flicks his head up to her, breathes in so his shoulders puff up. ‘Sit down.’ Uggy sits on the sofa as if he’s pushed her, eyes down at her fingers twining around each other.

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