Page 72 of A Forever Home at Honey Bee Croft

‘Me too. I’ve never thrown a sickie in my life but it’s so tempting right now.’

I nipped to the bathroom and, when I returned, Poppy was sitting up in bed, her arms wrapped round her knees, tears in her eyes.

‘Are you okay?’ I asked, rushing over to her, worried that she might have had a phone call with some bad news about her dad.

She sniffed. ‘I don’t like goodbyes.’

I sat down beside her and gathered her into my arms. ‘Neither do I. But it’s not a goodbye – it’s asee you later, remember? We’ll sort something out. I’ll come to you or we’ll meet halfway.’

She nodded into my chest. I wished we could have put a definite date in the diary last night but there was too much uncertainty at my end to do that. I needed to know aboutmy job, secure an appointment with my solicitor, find out if Tilly was definitely taking Imogen to Scotland over the Easter holidays and work out when I was next seeing her as Tilly hadn’t committed to any dates.

I released Poppy reluctantly and pulled on last night’s clothes.

‘What if I stayed one more night?’ Poppy asked.

‘I thought you had a meeting tomorrow morning.’

‘I do, but I’m sure she’ll be okay to move it and I can see my dad as soon as I get back on Tuesday. I’m desperate to see him but…’ She broke off with a shrug. ‘What do you say?’

‘I’d love it. If I come straight from work, I can be here for quarter to seven. I’d have to leave early in the morning. Assuming it’s okay to stay, that is.’

‘What do you think?’ she said, smiling shyly. ‘It’s a deal, then. I’ll ring Mary but she’s said all along that I’m okay until Friday. I wish I could stay that long.’

‘One more night is an unexpected bonus so I’ll happily take that.’ I understood what a big thing it was for her to stay one extra day and wouldn’t dream of putting any pressure on her to stay any longer.

‘Do you want to get another takeaway?’ she asked.

‘No. I was going to cook last night so I’ll do it tonight instead. Don’t worry about getting any ingredients. Leave it with me. It’ll all be sorted.’

I kissed her goodbye, thanking my lucky stars that I’d have one more night with her.

I arrived at work to chaos. There’d been a power outage during the night and we were massively behind on production so it wasall hands on deck for the first few hours but at least it meant the time flew. When I returned to the office, Sal was there looking stony-faced. I didn’t need to ask what was up as she thrust an envelope into my hand with my name on, marked private and confidential. I clocked a matching envelope on her desk with her name on and a screwed-up letter next to it.

‘I’m not going to say anything,’ she said, her voice brittle. ‘I’ll let you read it first.’

With a sigh, I ripped open the envelope and scanned down the contents of the letter.

‘They can’t be serious,’ I cried.

‘Makes you feel really valued, doesn’t it?’

I sank down onto my chair, shaking my head. It was the news we’d finally been waiting for – an announcement of the restructure plans. I’d expected my job to be at risk in that they might reduce the number of shift managers, but I hadn’t expected them to eliminate the role altogether. They were getting rid of all the shift manager and engineering manager positions and introducing a team of supervisors who’d report to a new assistant production manager. Existing shift and engineering managers would each have a consultation meeting over the next couple of weeks after which they’d be invited to apply for the supervisor roles.

‘Less money for the same responsibilities,’ Sal snapped as I scanned down the enclosed job description. ‘Can you believe the nerve of it? Oh, and don’t get excited about the assistant production manager role. Somebody from Bramblecote already has that.’

I flicked the letter over but there was nothing on the back. ‘How do you know that?’

‘Eloise told me when she delivered these. She stuck around while I opened it and poor lass got the brunt of my reaction, although she knew it wasn’t directed at her. She’s out of a jobtoo. They’ll be running HR from their head office but she’s welcome to apply for an HR assistant role if she wants. As if! The woman’s the flaming HR Director!’

I scanned down the letter again, shaking my head in disbelief. ‘That’s made my next decision really easy.’

‘Jumping ship?’ she asked.

‘Yep. No way am I taking a demotionanda pay cut to do exactly the same role. I’ll take the redundancy money and run, thank you very much. You?’

‘I’ve got an interview lined up on Thursday so, with any luck, I can take my dinky redundancy cheque and run straight into another job. Cuppa?’

‘No. I think I’ll pay Eloise a visit and see how she’s doing. She’s been really good to me.’

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