Page 31 of Forever, Maybe
Chrissie’s heart twisted as her mum blew her nose. She couldn’t do that to her—couldn’t pile on more weight when she was already carrying so much.
Not long after, Mum was diagnosed with breast cancer. It clung on for six relentless years, spreading to her lymph nodes despite the double mastectomy. Chrissie, Dad, and Mikey were thrust into a world of hospital appointments, chemotherapy and its brutal aftermath, their home thick with the sharp tang of antiseptic—an inadequate mask for the slow, unrelenting decay of a body losing its fight.
Chrissie sniffed. She had adored her mum, and the memory of that smell made her shudder. Towards the end, her mum insisted on speaking to her and Mikey separately. “Chrissie.” The grip was stronger than Chrissie expected. “Go find your mum and dad.”
What mum, Chrissie replied, her words automatic.The only Mum I've ever had is here in front of me now.
She stood up now and opened her bedroom door. “Mikey, if you touch that cake, I’ll kill you!” she yelled. He rejoined with “Yeah? You and whose army?” and she pelted down the stairs, recognising a threat when she heard one.
In the kitchen, her father was standing in front of the pine table, a rolling pin in hand, as Mikey sparred with him jokingly, trying to get at the cake. They kept it up as she darted around them, throwing herself in a protective huddle over the cake. “No, don’t touch it!”
Sometimes she wondered if all families did this—acting out exaggerated versions of themselves—or if it was something that only happened in familial units like hers, where people sought comfort and found their identities through absurdity.
Mikey halting his hopping from foot to foot. He raised his palms in surrender. “Okay, okay, your cake’s safe!”
He was still dressed in his police uniform. The thick stab-proof vest made him barrel-chested, and the baton in its holster unthreatening, though he’d drawn it for Chrissie once, and she’d flinched, the sound a whip-crack through the air.
Their father maintained a protective stance in front of the cake. “I don’t trust him, Chrissie!”
“Neither do I,” she said, whisking the cake from the table and onto the counter. Dad would have taken fabulous pictures, and she was super-proud of the three tier wedding cake with gold and silver petals spiralling from the top to the bottom. The cake had not been commissioned by anyone—yet!—but Chrissie hoped that once she uploaded the pictures on her newly established Instagram account @chrissiecakes, orders would flood in. Then, and only then, would she allow Mikey to get his greedy mitts on it.
Her brother—jammy git—had the world’s fastest metabolism. Capable of consuming cakes, burgers, buckets of chicken nuggets and massive packets of crisps without gaining a single ruddy kilogram.
Mikey burst out laughing, the sound of it—a weird huck, huck, huck—too much for her and her dad to resist. They joined in, swallowed up in the joy of the moment, delighted to be here, to forget about the sadness of Mum’s death and rally round Dad, encircling him with love and protection.
“Who’s making dinner?” Mikey asked, swirling his fingertip in the air before theatrically pointing it at Chrissie.
“Fudge off,” she retorted. “I just spent five hours lovingly crafting this cake. My culinary energy is officially spent. It’s your turn, you blooging bucktard.”
Mikey’s eyebrows shot up and down in rapid succession, his lips quirking into a grin. Their ongoing game of inventing substitute swear words was one of their greatest shared joys. For all their loving tolerance, Ma and Pa had drawn a firm line at the f-word, the c-word, the b-word and a colourful assortment of others. But that didn’t stop the siblings from creatively pushing the boundaries.
Their dad, ever perceptive, caught on and gave Mikey a light thump on the arm. “Kittens,” he offered, “I could make dinner?”
“Ah, no, no, no!” Mikey exclaimed, all mock solemnity. “The real artist in the house has done all he can for the day and should retire to the living room. Perhaps, take a small nap?”
Dad protested, half-heartedly, that he wasn’tthatold, but Mikey was already herding him toward the sofa. Chrissie smirked as she uploaded the cake photos to Instagram, listening to Mikey’s exaggerated attempts to coax Dad into relaxing.
She hadn’t pressed Mikey about what happened during his conversation with Mum that time, but she knew their mother must have told him the same thing she’d told her. That was what had set Chrissie on her current mission: tracking down the woman who had given her name to social services, signalling she was open to meeting her son—if he wanted to.
Chrissie loved the deep, bare bones of Mikey, but God, he could be infuriating. Shutting down when anything personal came up and shoving it beneath the surface.Typical man, as Chrissie’s friend Luce, also adopted, announced, world-weary.It’ll come back to bite him on the bum at one point, you know. His refusal to find out anything about his biological parents, even though your dad’s given his blessing…
Chrissie had agreed, though she hadn’t said so out loud. And that was why, with her trademark tenacity, a bit of cunning and an unshakeable belief in her own rightness, she’d taken matters into her own hands. Hours of combing through online records, piecing together scraps of information, all with a single goal: finding the woman named on Mikey’s birth certificate.
If Mikey wouldn’t do it, Chrissie would because sometimes love meant charging headfirst into situations, even when the person you’re doing it for might not thank you.
Chapter twelve
April2016
Nell jolted awake as her phone buzzed to life at half-past eight. She groaned, the dull thud in her head echoing every heartbeat, and fumbled on the bedside cabinet. Her hand knocked the phone onto the wooden floor with a clatter. It rang off before she could reach it.
The master bedroom, situated at the front of the house, had been one of the reasons she and Danny fell for the place. Its bay window bathed the room in morning light, making the already spacious area feel even more open and inviting. Elegant cornicing framed the ceiling, a detail Nell had adored on first sight.
The built-in wardrobe loomed at one side. The cavernous storage solution was meant for a couple with wardrobes to rival celebrities. So far, Nell had barely managed to fill her half.
No sign of Danny. She hadn’t heard him come in last night. He must have crashed in the spare room again.
With a sigh, she swung her legs over the side of the bed, leaning down to retrieve the phone. The missed calls list glowed with a single name: Artie. Her oldest half-brother. He called so rarely it was practically a solar eclipse.
