Page 45 of The Thief
“Of course she does.” He looked up at me, but it wasn’t pity I saw in his eyes, just acceptance. “Her world was shattered. But in time, we’ll put it back together. It can be fixed.”
We.
He’d said,‘We’ll put it back together’, and hearing that made my heart ache and my insides prickle with warmth at the thought that he wasn’t here to pay lip service to some misplaced guilt or false sense of responsibility he might have. He wanted to help us. And in that moment, I wanted him to. I didn’t trust anyone else. Not with this. He knew what we’d been through. Who better to talk to about it to than him?
“Can it? Be fixed, that is?” I asked, waiting to hear what he’d say. Would he talk about psychiatrists like my mum? Or tell me I should move back in with my family to feel safer, like my brother had suggested? All well-meaning, and all so not what I wanted to do.
“Of course. It’ll take time... and love. Being there and talking. Helping each other. But we can do it. Ava will forget, eventually. And you? You’re strong. You’ll beat this. I have faith in you.”
“I’m glad someone does.” I smiled. “My mum would have me committed if she could, and my brother, he’d have me sell this place and force us back to Mum’s to live under house arrest.”
“Everyone has their ways of coping,” he replied. “You just need to find yours. But it’s up to you how it goes. You need to do what’s right for you.”
I took a deep breath as I regarded him. He looked so familiar, like home, and yet I’d only reconnected with him days ago. When he looked at me, it was like he could see more than what I showed the world. He could see the lies behind the masks I wore, the truths underneath the confidence I tried to portray.
Standing in my hallway, sharing that space, it felt like he’dbrought an aura of peace into the house. My shoulders had eased up, my muscles were less tense. He made everything feel... better. Calmer. My racing, raging brain seemed less noisy, less chaotic now he was here, standing in front of me. Offering me a solace that I so desperately needed but didn’t want to ask for.
After a moment of comfortable silence, he turned to look down the hall, where the TV was playing cartoons. I’d left Ava lying on the sofa to come and answer the door.
“Do you want to go and see her?” I asked, and he smiled, his eyes sparkling.
“Always.”
We walked the short distance to the living room, and when Ava saw who was standing beside me, she shot off the sofa and launched herself at him.
“Tyler!” she squealed, holding her arms up for him to catch her, which he did.
And everything inside me squirmed with satisfaction at seeing him holding her so tightly, and her hugging him back.
“I knew you’d come,” Ava told him, and he laughed.
“I missed my favourite girls.”
“We missed you too,” she said, and I wished I could be as honest as she was. I wished I could tell him all the things that were swimming through my head right now.
Ava slithered down and out of his arms, then put her hand out to take his, leading him over to the sofa.
“We’re watching cartoons,” she announced. “You can sit by me.”
“And where does Mummy sit?” He looked up at me, and I could have sworn I saw a hint of mischief in his eyes.
“She can sit over there.” Ava pointed at the armchairopposite.
I quirked my brow. It was the first time she’d relegated me to second place.
I sat, watching Ava jabber away to Tyler about the cartoon we were watching, and then asking him a million and one questions about where he’d been, why he hadn’t come to see us sooner, what had he been doing, each question coming thick and fast.
Tyler answered her truthfully, giving her his undivided attention, taking her comments and questions seriously, and showing her that she was important to him. That she mattered.
After a while, Tyler sat back, comfortable in our space as he said to her, “Mummy told me you didn’t want to go to the teddy bear’s picnic at nursery.”
Her face fell and she crawled into a corner of the sofa to rest her head on the arm.
“Why didn’t you want to go?” Tyler asked quietly, tentatively. He wanted her to talk, but he wasn’t pushing her.
“I didn’t want to go,” she said, not really answering him.
“I know that,” he replied. “But why? You were looking forward to that. Did you take princess bear with you?”
