‘I really appreciate this.’
I hear him draw in a sharp breath. ‘That’s OK, Ella. I’m always happy to help.’
I park Anna’s company car next to Lily’s Mercedes-Benz and walk up to the front door. Smoothing down my hair, I ring on the doorbell. Lily opens the door with a smile.
‘Hello,’ she greets.
‘Hey,’ I say awkwardly.
She opens the door wider. ‘Come on in,’ she invites.
I step into her home. Lily is one of those women who have it all. Happiness, beauty, love, wealth.
She’s wearing a long, halter-neck dress that comes to her ankles. It’s one of those dresses that you know cost an arm and a leg. Once, a dress like that would have sent me to my computer to see if her husband’s tax records matched that level of expenditure, but those days are gone. It feels as if the notion that I was a tax officer at Her Majesty’s Revenue Customs was another life, or just a dream of mine.
I smile at her. ‘Congratulations. I heard you’re pregnant.’
She rubs her belly and smiles contentedly. ‘Yes, thank you, Ella. And how have you been keeping?’
‘Good,’ I say.
‘Jake’s expecting you. He’s in his den. Do you want to come through and have a drink before you see him?’
‘No. No, thank you,’ I refuse politely.
Liliana runs in from one of the reception rooms, screaming, ‘Aunty Ella, Aunty Ella.’
She is wearing a pink skirt and a T-shirt that states in bold letters ‘My Mother Thinks She’s The Boss’. I go down on my haunches. ‘My, my, look how much you’ve grown since I last saw you.’
‘That was yesterday,’ she says scornfully.
‘Dear me. Yes, that was yesterday.’
‘My poo was blue today,’ she declares suddenly.
‘Oh,’ I exclaim.
‘Lil,’ her mother reprimands, ‘what did I tell you about telling the whole world about the color of your poo?’
‘Aunty Ella is not the whole world,’ Liliana argues with impeccable logic. She turns her adorable face toward me. ‘My poo was made of icing.’
I straighten and look at Lily.
‘She went to a birthday party yesterday and ate too much blue icing from a Thomas the Tank Engine cake,’ Lily explains
Even though I was distraught, it made me giggle. How utterly sweet.
‘Where’s Uncle Dom?’ Liliana demands.
The laughter dies in my throat. ‘I … I have no idea.’ Voicing the thought saddens me greatly. Far more than I would have expected.
‘Lil, Aunty Ella has come to see Daddy. Say bye-bye now.’ She looks at me with an encouraging smile. ‘Go on, Ella. It’s just at the end of the corridor.’
‘See you later, Liliana,’ I call as I start walking down it.
&nb
sp; ‘Can I go and sit with Daddy and Aunty Ella?’ I hear Liliana ask her mother plaintively.