Page 46 of Second Story

The hard-faced kids I spend my working hours supporting would crumple under her cross-examination—she pokes holes in my silence the same way prosecutors want to poke holes in their stories. Gotta be honest, I enjoy our banter. What I don’t enjoy is fending off the subject she keeps coming back to night after night.

“What’s he like?”

“Who?”

“Your new man.”

“Imaginary. That’s what he’s like. A figment of your imagination.” And that’s how it feels now that I’m in a city that never stops pitting kids against criminals who only want to use them. It’s wild that Isaac is from the same streets and yet is somehow…

Good.

That’s what I revisit each time I go home to a tiny flat with a view of where we both came from. I shower off grey paint, then crawl into a bed beside a window where I don’t see stars. I don’t see Wintergreen’s tower blocks in the distance either. Instead, I stare at the message I keep typing into my phone and then erasing.

Hey, how are things in Cornwall?

I can’t press Send. Not when I left the ball in his court. And not during a first work week that has to be busy for him. I stare atmy bedroom ceiling with more than my dick aching at a distance that part of me hates. The rest of me channels my brother by listing these facts:

Isaac needs to stay the fuck there.

They both do.

Josh has always been bossy. So is Meera the next evening. “Time’s running out. Get busy, da Vinci.”

This little nursery is hardly the Sistine Chapel, but her eye for detail means I have to repaint the ceiling twice before she’s happy. I also get to listen in to another nightly phone call from my brother, which is almost as much of a mindfuck as wondering whether Isaac would welcome contact from me or find it distracting.

Lenny needs to be his focus.

Josh is my sister-in-law’s.

Her smile when she snatches up her phone tells me so. So does her teasing greeting. “Hello. This is your baby’s incubator speaking. Press 1 to bypass pointless chitchat. Press 2 to interrogate me about ladders. Press 3 to—” She cackles at whatever Josh tells her, and this glimpse into their relationship does something to me.

Yes, I wish I was in Cornwall instead of London, but this? I wouldn’t have missed getting to see how she never stops pushing for Josh to relax. To communicate. To laugh like I get to hear more often this week than I have in years.

I don’t tell her that she’s worked wonders. Her head would only get as big as her belly. I do ask her something else that has been on my mind. “Can I pick your brains?”

“About what?”

“Autism. The high functioning kind.”

“Yes!” She’s out of her nursery rocker in an impressive hurry for someone who just ate their own dinner and half of mine. Meera risks breaking her neck by thundering downstairs beforeI can stop her. I follow in time to see her practically skip across the living room with a folder. “I already put this pack together for you.” Her eyes are huge. “He talked to you about it?”

I’m gonna need to talk to Josh. Him nosing through my court calendar is one thing. He has the clearance for that. Him reading the report I filed on Noah, then talking about it with his missus is another matter. “No,” I tell her. “My client won’t talk to anyone. That’s one of the things his family are struggling with. Think they’re beating themselves up a bit too about not spotting that he might need support with wrapping his head around a potential diagnosis.”

There’s nothing between us for Meera to trip over. I still need to catch this folder when it slips from her hands. It opens to a page full of intersecting circles, their sunny yellows a much better colour for a nursery in my opinion, but there’s no way I’m about to suggest more painting, so I stick to what might help Marc Luxton support his little brother.

“Be good if this pack has any tools for, I dunno, when it’s late presenting?” I’m not sure that’s even a thing. My wheelhouse is gang-related crime avoidance, not neurodivergence. “Do you know what I mean?”

“Yes. Yes, I do know, Joe.” She sits heavily on the sofa, and I make a mental note to find more cushions for her. “Let that family know they won’t be the first who didn’t realise. There’s nothing wrong with that, just a whole lot of potential once everyone’s on the same page. Tell them to let your client set the pace, yes? Let him steer. It’s his story. He gets to choose who he tells it to. And when.” Her voice thickens. “And tell them I said welcome to the family.”

My phone pings an interruption, then pings again, over and over.

“That your imaginary boyfriend?” She pats the seat beside her, which feels like a trap, but I go ahead and show her thephotos my phone fills with. Of Lenny. Of a library Isaac has been busy reorganising. Of him and Len together. “Looks pretty real to me.”She eyes me. “You know I had to tell your brother to put a ring on it, yeah?” She shows off my Mum’s old engagement ring. The diamond sparkles like her eyes do at me. I’m surprised she has to blink away sudden dampness that floods them out of nowhere, but that’s pregnancy, I guess, so I just do what Josh always refused to do for me—I stand in for him by giving his wife a good, long cuddle.

She sniffs against my shoulder. “He didn’t think I’d say yes, so he didn’t ask me. Josh could handle now, but not knowing what might come next stopped him in his tracks. I would have had to wait forever if I left popping the question to him. Sometimes you have to ask out loud for what you want, Joe. Manifest what you need most in your life into happening.” She wriggles out of my hold to tap my phone screen where a photo shows Lenny writing my name under a silvery drawing. “Looks like someone sees you in their life right now. What happens next is up to you.”

I don’t stare at my bedroom ceiling later.

I follow my sister-in-law’s example by manifesting what I want most, then press Send on an email to Luke Lawson.

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