“Yes, but now you’ve licked your little paws and I don’t want germs on the gingerbread house.”
“Oh-kaaay,” he said in an exaggerated voice, making it clear how hard done by he felt at the request.
“Good boooyyyy,” she mimicked in the same tone, earning another laugh from Jordan.
“Mama?” He paused at the door to the bathroom. When had he become so big? He had the body of a boy now, not the baby that first filled her heart with love.
“Yeah?” She used a flat bladed knife to scrape off the excess icing, neatening it so that none was visible beyond the joint.
“Is daddy coming for Christmas?”
Melinda froze. Jordan hadn’t mentioned Brent in a fortnight, and she’d been so caught up with Ra’if that she’d almost given up on trying to find Brent. Almost, but not quite. She thought with guilt of the calls she should have been making but hadn’t.
“He’s not, darling, no.”
Jordan’s little face was stoic. Her son was not one for dramatic displays of emotion. He was a concerned little human; always had been. Even as a baby he’d come out analysing the world for its intent. She’d sometimes worried that her own anxieties during pregnancy and his first year had transformed his personality, but she understood now that it was just his nature.
“Why not?” A careful, measured response. More information, so that he could decide how he felt about it.
Cursing Brent and his weakness and hating drugs and those who were tempted to them, she rinsed her hands patiently and wiped them dry, then crossed to her son’s side.
“Your daddy is sick, darling.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
He was big, but still not too big to scoop up in her arms. She did so now, lifting him to her chest and carrying him to the sofa. She sat with him on her lip, holding him close, staring out at the bleak London sky. “It’s hard to explain. It’s a grown up sickness,” she said thoughtfully. “But until he gets better, he can’t come and spend time with us.” Her voice cracked a little, hating Brent then. Hating him for making this their reality.
“When will he be better?”
She pressed her cheek against his soft, brown hair. “I don’t know if he ever will be better, my love. The sickness he’s got is hard to beat.” She cleared her throat. “But mummy is going to do everything possible to help him, okay?”
Jordan was quiet. Absorbing, thinking, processing. “Remember that time I fell over and you put that stuff on my knee that really hurt and then you gave me a Minions band aid? Maybe we could do that for daddy? Would that help?”
Her smile was weak. “Not this time. But that’s good thinking.”
She put him down gently on his feet. “Now. Go wash those lucky little fingers.” She watched him go with a heavy weight in her heart. When he returned, Melinda was back in the kitchen, readying the lollies on a tray. She demonstrated how to add a drop of icing to the back of each one before placing it onto the roof panels.
She watched him work for a minute and then leaned back against the bench. “Jordie? Ra’if was hoping to have Christmas day with us.” She waited, nervously, for the reaction. What would he think?
“Cool,” Jordie said without looking up.
Melinda pulled a face. Cool? She’d worked herself into a lather over ‘cool’?
“I like him,” Jordan said, fixing her with his direct stare. “He’s a nice person.”
“Yes, he is a nice person,” she said with a slow nod. “He’s a good friend to mama.”
“Kelvin says he’s your boyfriend. That you’re in love.”
Melinda froze, her heart hammering in her chest. Damn Tara’s oldest son and his big mouth and school yard perceptions. “Did he?” She smiled as though the statement hadn’t knocked her sideways.
“Yeah.”
Boyfriend! Just imagining introducing Ra’if as her boyfriend felt strange. Strange in the best possible way. She pictured him standing beside her, meeting her friends, Brent’s parents, being around her and Jordan all the time. Like a real family. And her heart swelled to breaking point.
“I like him a lot,” she said cautiously. “But we’ve only known one another a little while.”
“And you’re my girlfriend,” Jordan said seriously, earning a laugh from Melinda.