“No, I’m your mummy.”
“Okay, but you love me.”
“Yes. I love you.”
“So you can’t love him.”
Thump, thump, thump. Her heart hurt. “Love doesn’t work like that,” she said carefully. ?
?That’s the amazing thing about it.”
“So you do love him?”
“That’s not what I meant,” she said quietly. “Do you love Granny?”
He nodded, his lips pressed together in deep concentration.
“And you love Papi?”
Another nod.
“And you love your daddy?”
“No.” His eyes were big, his face stony. “I hate him.”
Her throat was scratchy; sore. “You’re sad that he’s not in your life,” she murmured, even though she’d been thinking only minutes earlier how much she hated the man.
“No, I’m not.”
“Darling, it’s a sickness. It’s not … it’s not your daddy’s fault. And I don’t know if he’ll ever get better. I don’t know if you can get better from what he’s got.” She thought of the last time she’d seen Brent. How desperate he’d been. How thin and dirty. How he’d lost almost all his teeth and had marks all over his body. “But I know he loves you. Even when he’s sick, and far away from us, I know he thinks about you. I know he wishes he could be with you.”
“Then he would be here.”
“I told you …”
“Kelvin says daddy’s a druggo.”
She compressed her lips, biting back the very ungenerous thoughts she had in that moment for her friend’s son.
“Is he?”
“That’s a very unkind and simplistic way to describe what your daddy is going through.” She toyed with her fingers thoughtfully.
“I hate him.”
She expelled a sigh and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “You won’t always feel that way.”
“Yes, I will.” He pressed a spearmint leaf down on the house with force and it cracked a little. “Mummy!” He screamed, his lip wobbling as the dam of emotions he’d been holding in began to burst. “It’s breaking!”
“Oh, it’s not broken yet though,” she said soothingly, taking his little hands away. “Why don’t you go get changed and then we’ll take this to Ra’if? He’s going to love it, sweetheart.”
“It’s broken!”
“Hush, hush.” She pulled him to her chest and hugged him, knowing that his sadness was about Brent and not their construction. “It’s okay.”
She was able to repair the roof using a skewer, some very gloopy icing and by hiding the patch lines with a generous dusting of icing sugar.
“It looks like snow,” Jordan marvelled when he came out of his bedroom. He’d chosen to wear his best outfit – a pair of skinny jeans and a black button up shirt that Melinda knew he felt very smart in. He’d done the buttons up right to his neck and used water to smooth his hair to the side.