Page 58 of In This Together

The kitchen was in worse shape. The countertops were cluttered with things that hadn’t been put away – a loaf of bread, a chopping board and knife, a block of cheese. Dishes were scattered around the sink, unwashed.

Instinctively, she started to run the hot tap and fill the sink with soapy water. Admittedly, she’d seen the place in a shoddier state than this. The superficial mess aside, the place seemed clean enough and the walls looked like they had enjoyed a refresh of pale yellow paint.

The toilet chain flushed upstairs, then Jimmy appeared in his usual attire – stonewash jeans and a lumberjack-style shirt.

‘You don’t have to clean those,’ he said, putting away the food items from the side. ‘I thought we could have coffee in the yard, since the weather’s good for it.’

Coffee. Just the mention of it made that sickly feeling come back. ‘I’m off coffee but I’ll take tea.’

Jimmy set about making tea as Andrea finished up the dishes and they settled into the small yard, sitting around an old rickety table and chairs.

‘New parasol?’ Andrea asked, noting the replacement for the rusty green and white striped version that had adorned the table for the last decade.

‘The old one wouldn’t open so it left me no choice.’

Andrea smiled behind her cup of tea. Jimmy hated parting with things. He was a stickler for habits, just like Sofia. Which, incidentally, was the reason she had made the trip out to her dad.

‘So, you’re working back at the studio,’ Andrea said, moving directly to the point of her visit.

‘I’m helping out, yeah. It’s not like I had much of a choice,’ Jimmy said.

Andrea scoffed. ‘Great, let’s start with a dig about me moving to XM Music Group, huh?’ Would he ever let it drop?

Jimmy scratched his head and visibly lowered his shoulders from around his ears, making Andrea realise that she, too, had been uptight. ‘Let’s not fight, Andi.’

‘Then let’s not make smart remarks at each other, Dad.’

‘Deal. It was a shot and I apologise for it.’

Andrea nodded her acceptance. ‘So Jay is what, drinking, taking drugs, both?’

‘I think both. You know what Sofia’s like, she won’t badmouth him. I take what she says, add a multiplier and think I’ll come close to the truth. What I do know is that they’re in a bad way. Jay is definitely back to drinking and god knows what else.’

‘And the bruise on her eye?’

Jimmy shrugged. ‘She said it was an accident, cleaning up milk or suchlike.’

‘Do you believe her?’

Jimmy sipped his coffee and squinted as he raised his face to the direction of the sun. ‘Whether I do or don’t, I could believe that he’d hurt her. He’s a piece of work, whether he’s drinking or not. The way he speaks to my girl…’

And it came to her, tumbling like black thunder clouds rolling down a hill, her being a little girl stuck at the bottom, waiting to be hit.Guilt.

Sofia was her little sister. The one person she was supposed to protect, and she’d walked out on her and Sanfia Records to go to XM Music Group. It had been as much about giving Jay and Sofia a shot at making things work between them as an advancement of Andrea’s career, but had she done the right thing? Was a chance to work what Sofia had really needed, or had she needed to see that Jay was a manipulative leech, whether he was on a bender or not?

‘I tried to tell her a thousand times, Dad. He was bad news when she first met him and I told her that. I told her before she got married but she thought I was… jealous.’ She scoffed. ‘Sofia wants the fairy tale – the career, the husband, kids. If Jay is her fairy tale, it’s her choice. She’s stubborn as an ox.’

No, she couldn’t keep feeling guilty about her move. If she had her way, Andrea would still be producing, even if that meant for less money. The reality was, Sofia wanted to fend for herself. She wanted to build a life with Jay, start a family. And Andrea and Jay just couldn’t get along. She’d left Sanfia Records to give them a chance at being happy and to salvage her relationship with her sister. Not that anyone else, Jimmy included, saw the move in that way.

‘Yeah, well, she married him andshe’sloyal to the bone,’ Jimmy said.

She’sloyal. ‘God, you’re incredible. You see nothing but her, do you? She did marry him, Dad, and sheisloyal.’ Andrea stood, anger making her legs lively. ‘But, you know, maybe she’s loyal to a drunk because she never had to see what living with one is like. How… how soul-destroying it is to see your own father stumbling home, fumbling with his keys in the lock, bouncing off walls, bringing women home to screw them in the lounge. Maybe she doesn’t know because she was kept locked in her bedroom, in a crib or wrapped in a duvet, with the sound of her mom’s music playing her to sleep through the stereo.

‘I’ve done everything my whole life for her and for you, yet you throw the one thing in my face that you don’t like. Yes, I left Sanfia. Yes, I’ve left my sister with a drunk. Buthewas an asshole with or without the drink andshewants to be there. She chose that life.’

Feeling her eyes sting, Andrea walked to the bottom of the yard, where she instantly felt shitty about calling out her dad on those years after their mom died. He’d got sober, for them, that was what she had to remember. In his shoes, if she’d lost the love of her life, how would she have reacted? She didn’t know and she would never let herself be in that position to find out.

She sensed Jimmy come up behind her.

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