The Stepmother(38)

‘I’m on my way.’ Matt is scrambling out of bed, falling over as he pulls on his trousers.

 

‘What is it?’ My stomach is plunging like a fairground ride. ‘Matt? What’s wrong?’

 

‘It’s Luke,’ he says shortly. ‘He’s been rushed to Hemel Hempstead Hospital. Where the f*ck’s my shirt?’

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

We race back down the empty motorway from tranquil Oxfordshire, driving straight to the hospital. There Matthew is rushed off by a nurse through paediatric A & E to the theatre, where they are about to operate on Luke for suspected appendicitis.

 

I don’t know what to do for the best. I want to support Matthew – but I can’t really see myself hanging out with a distraught Kaye. We’ve never even met.

 

In the end, after spending a lonely hour in the lobby with no news, I call a cab and go home.

 

 

 

 

 

Twenty-One

 

 

 

 

 

Jeanie

 

 

 

 

 

15 February 2015

 

 

 

 

 

6.30 a.m.

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The dawn is flat and unpromising. The empty house is cold. Frankie is in Glasgow this weekend with a group of friends, watching a local band they’ve started to follow.

 

‘They’re kind of grungy, Mum, like Drenge,’ he’d explained kindly when I’d dropped him at the station. I was none the wiser.

 

I put the heating on and walk into the kitchen in my coat, staring out into the forlorn February garden. A few pathetic shoots struggle to reach the light from the pots on the terrace; further down clusters of snowdrops hang their pure white heads.

 

Everything else looks withered and dead.

 

Switching the kettle on, I see my Valentine’s card to Matthew on the windowsill: a gaudy, soppy affair I made myself.

 

It feels wrong, misplaced somehow. I feel wrong and misplaced myself.

 

What is going on? Everything feels discordant suddenly.

 

Picking up the card, I put it in the kitchen drawer.

 

Then I pull my phone out and check for messages from Matthew: nothing. I send him one saying I love him and hope everything is okay and to let me know if he needs me.

 

Then I text my sister.

 

Everything’s going a bit odd. Can’t wait to see you next week.

 

 

 

 

 

Twenty-Two

 

 

 

 

 

Marlena

 

 

 

 

 

A bit odd? This is starting to sound like an episode of The Real Housewives of New Jersey or Dynasty or some crap, don’t you think?

 

I didn’t really know what her text meant at the time, but I did know it didn’t sound great for a newlywed.

 

And – a ghost?

 

I mean really?

 

 

 

 

 

Twenty-Three

 

 

 

 

 

Jeanie

 

 

 

 

 

22 February 2015

 

 

 

 

 

The good news is Luke’s fine, thank God.

 

It wasn’t appendicitis – in fact, after they put a camera inside him when he’d stopped being so sick, they couldn’t find anything wrong, which was a relief all round. They didn’t have to operate after all.

 

I couldn’t help feeling then that maybe the degree of urgency had been unwarranted; that the screaming on the phone had been largely hysterical and not helpful to the poor boy.

 

I kept that to myself though. I appreciated that if something happened to Frankie, I’d have rushed down the motorway even faster than Matthew had: a parent’s instinct kicking in – only natural. I loved Matthew even more for caring.

 

I just wish I didn’t feel so – excluded. Like it’s him and them, and him and me. Or me and Frankie, and him and them. I suppose that’s normal in this set-up. My book on step-parenting says it takes years to ‘blend’ a family; it says women have overly high expectations. Ridiculous expectations, in my case.

 

But none of it says quite how tough it is – or how bad it might make you feel.