“Sick. Now I really love you.”
Dad pulled out his phone, scrolled through his contacts, scribbled down the phone number for Eudora. “I have to go into work. Boys—Katherine is the parent in charge. Whatever she says goes. Katherine, you’ll need to put clean sheets on the spare bed. I’ve been sleeping there so as to not disturb Ella.”
Katherine gave Dad a long, hard stare. Mom hadn’t shared news of the family sleeping arrangements? Funny, he’d always assumed Mom told Katherine everything, the way he’d always done with Max—until Sammie.
A yawn slipped out. Harry couldn’t help it. The room seemed a little fuzzy, and suddenly all he wanted was sleep.
Dad squeezed his arm. “Go to bed, Harry. I’ll see you tomorrow evening. No guilt, alright?”
“I’m on it, Mr. FW,” Max said. “If he starts acting all melodramatic and contrite, I’ll beat him over the head with his Darth Vader cushion.”
Did Dad smile—at Max?
“Dad!”
Halfway to the front door, Dad swung around. “Yes?”
“Drive carefully. Be safe.” Harry bit into his bottom lip.
“Always, Hazza.”
“Heavens to Betsy,” Eudora said, then swallowed the leftover moonshine in one gulp. “I’m such a Star Wars fan. If it weren’t a school night, boys, I would suggest a movie marathon.”
Max pointed at Eudora. “So much love for this woman.”
THIRTY
Felix sat in a chair by the nurses’ station to answer his phone. Why was Mother calling his mobile and costing both of them a fortune? She knew it was an emergencies-only number.
“Darling! How’s my beloved grandson?”
Mother’s one saving grace was her devotion to Harry. Although she blamed his energy levels and tics on lackadaisical parenting. As if she would know.
“He’s fine.”
“Terrible line. Are you in a wind tunnel?”
“I’m at the hospital. A minor setback with Ella. Nothing to worry about.” His voice—flat, emotionless, disconnected—was not his own. “Shouldn’t you be asleep, Mother?”
“After hours of tossing and turning I have simply abandoned all hope.” She gave a labored sigh. “I decided I might as well start my day at three in the morning. Of course, my GP is responsible. That dreadful man is utterly determined to sabotage my sleep patterns and refuses to prescribe tablets. Personally, I think he’s on the sauce.”
“How about I send you some more melatonin tablets, Mother?”
“I suppose that would do. But the National Health Service is not what it was.”
“Mother, you have private health insurance. If you don’t like your doctor, find someone else.”
“But the family has been with the practice for generations.”
Felix tapped his palm. “I can’t have this conversation right now. I’m in hospital with Ella.”
“I thought Ella was back at home.”
“She was. As I said, a minor setback. She’s been readmitted for a few days.”
“I suppose I could get on a plane if you need me to come and help out.”
Help out. How would that work when Mother didn’t cook, didn’t clean, didn’t parent, and hadn’t driven since the eighties? She smoked, drank gin, and pottered in her garden shed. Tom dead at forty-one because his long-term partner had strayed once; Ella fighting for life at forty-seven because of faulty genetics; Mother in prime health at eighty-two despite her pack-a-day-plus-Hendrick’s habit. Maybe all the cucumber slices soaked in gin kept her healthy.
“Felix, are you there?”
Felix balanced the phone between his shoulder and his neck, and put his thumb on his pulse. Yes, racing like the clappers.
“Felix!” she squawked.
“Yes, Mother?”
“If it’s absolutely necessary, I can ask my travel agent to book a flight.”