“It won’t matter if I have custody. She’d have to take me to court to get him back and she’s never going to do that.”
“Won’t stop her making your life miserable, like she did Damon’s.”
“That was different. Damon had already made his bed. All she did was push him into it. And if she did start trouble on the street, I’d just move.”
“How, though? If you’re on a part-time wage, how are you going to raise the money you’d need to sell your flat and buy another one somewhere else? You already told me you’re tied into a fixed-rate mortgage with early settlement fees.”
Why? Why the hell did I ever tell her that?“I don’t know. I might not have to.”
“He’d have a better life up here. You both would.”
“You keep him then!” My frustration finally overwhelmed me and my shout rang out in the big kitchen, reverberating off the shaker cabinets and flagstone tiles. “It’s not like I don’t know he’d be better off with you.”
“Oh for God’s sake.” Safi rolled her eyes to the ceiling before fixing me with her best glare again. “You don’t get it, do you? It’s notmethat would make his life up here worth living, it’syou,Rama. It always has been. That kid loves you like you’re his biological father andthat’swhy you need to have something better than the bullshit you’ve come up here with.”
“So what’s your solution then? Unless you’re volunteering to give up your fucking life and move to Manchester to help me out?”
“The solution is obvious.” Safia somehow laced her acid tone with love. “You need to go home, pack your shit up, and come back here for good.”
It was my turn to roll my eyes at the full circle our conversation had taken in the two hours we’d been having it. To Safia, it was that simple: abandon my entire existence and come and live hers, but whichever way I looked at it I couldn’t see myself milking goats and building fences for the rest of my life, all the while trying to play parent and teacher to Charlie when whatever Safia thought, she was so much fucking better at it. And how would I work? On top of offender rehabilitation, I was a qualified counsellor, but with no reliable Internet coverage, I couldn’t even work remotely.
We flogged the same horse all afternoon. Eventually, Safia bullied me into agreeing I’d stick around for a few days and rest while she helped me with Charlie. “You’re worn out, Ram. It’s no wonder you can’t see sense.”
I gave her a subtle finger. She caught me, but she was as tired of fighting as I was, and she brought out the cake as a peace offering. “So…” She handed me a slice of spice-laden fruit cake. “How do you know Fen? I couldn’t make sense of what you told me on the phone. The line was so bad.”
“From the prison. He was an officer there before he came back here. We worked on some cases together.”
Safia’s eyes widened a touch. “In Manchester?”
“That’s where I live,” I snapped before I caught myself. I had no desire to reignite the festering row between us. “I mean, yeah. HMP Manchester. He was personal officer to some of the offenders I took on from there. We got on well, and apparently we still do, though it shocked the shit out of me to see him again. I never saw him after…” I trailed off, all but certain Safia knew nothing about the circumstances that had brought Fen back to Christmas Mountain.
“After what?”
“After he left. I disappeared for a while after Damon died. When I got back to the prison, he was gone.”
Safia drummed her fingers on the thick butcher’s block table, gaze more speculative than I could stand right now. Was I that transparent? Could she already see my fixation with Fen growing fresh roots? “You know,” she said. “It was strange when he came back here. When we bought the land from his dad, their plan was always to rent that cottage out as a holiday home and sell the log farm when Isaac died. I didn’t know Fen was here until a month after he showed up—it was almost like he’d come to hide away from the world.”
“And now?”
Safia shrugged. “Life moves on, doesn’t it? He runs the farm himself and makes my kids laugh like they aren’t little devils incarnate. He’s the best friend we have around here, I just wish he let us be the same to him.”
“He doesn’t let you?”
“Not even a little bit. When he comes up here, he’ll stick around sometimes to eat with us, but he won’t hang out late or spend the night in the cabin. I thought it was because he didn’t want the memories of his own childhood around him so much, then he told me he never spent much time up here, so…” She spread her hands. “I don’t know. He’s such a nice man, I hate the thought of him being lonely.”
“He is a nice man,” I agreed. How could I not?
“Gorgeous too,” Safia inserted slyly.
I scowled. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Nothing. Just saying.”
“Well, don’t. He’s been through enough without—” I clamped my mouth shut, but it was too late. My runaway tongue had betrayed Fen and Safia’s eyebrows had disappeared into her thick, dark hair. “Never mind.”
“Clearly, youdomind,” she said. “What do you know about Fen that I don’t?”
“Nothing.”