Trust - Page 109

“Well, you and your sister—you have to live in this house because it’s full of magic. A special kind of magic that’s called family. You know what family is?”

He giggled. He’d heard this story a million times, but it still seemed to make him happy.

“I know.” He grinned. “But tell me.”

“Family is when you have people around you who love you. People who keep you safe and feed you when you’re hungry and wash your clothes and take you to nursery. Nursery is really good, because you get to see all your friends. And then your family pick you up again and you come home. And you’re safe. And happy.”

“Sometimes people are not happy.”

“Of course.” Reuben leant over, placed a kiss on top of his head.

Our little boy. My stomach churned over the fact that we still hadn’t had this finalised. Their forever home. They were our kids now, and I would fight for them with everything I had because it didn’t matter that I had money in the bank. Apparently loads of money. I couldn’t buy this. This. Right here.

“But remember what I told you? If you’re ever sad or scared or hurt, you have to find your family and they will give you a hug and kiss it all better. Okay?”

“Okay,” he said. “But what about the magic?”

He laughed, my Reuben. And I laughed too, because Reuben kept changing this part of the story.

Like we kept evolving. Learning. Growing. Figuring this shit out.

“There are dragons in the loft,” he whispered. “Big dragons, and they keep an eye out for us all at night. Make sure no monsters turn up. They blow away anything bad with their fire breaths. And sometimes, you know, when you hear thunder? That’s just the dragons blowing their noses.”

I had to snort at that, and my son stared at me in disgust. Yeah. I might be the songwriter here, but goddamn, Reuben. He needed to write that book. We could at least have one book on our bookshelf. Whatever.

Dragons or not, this was our home, and as I sat there, I felt a weird mix of high and relief. At least the court case was over. We could move on.

We didn’t even talk about it because there were so many more things in life to talk about. There was a lot to laugh about. Things like the fact that I still didn’t have a driver’s licence. If I needed a driver, Stewart would take me in his car. He even dressed up and all that. Wore a suit and tie. Dark glasses. It made me laugh.

Reuben still only cooked bacon sandwiches. Or plain pasta with butter.

We still had three empty bookshelves in our living room. Well, they didn’t house any books, but they were full of photographs and trinkets and toys. A few old awards gathered dust on the top shelf.

Reuben kept telling me to get them down so he could dust them. I kept forgetting. Because they weren’t important. Not like the drawings that covered our fridge. Or the ridiculous number of shoes that littered our hallway.

I also laughed every time I suggested to Reuben to let me fuck him. That would never happen, he insisted. I still held out hope. Because, well. Hope was a good thing. Not that it mattered. We didn’t have much time for sex these days anyway, and I still preferred to suck his dick and watch him get all desperate.

Desperation. Another thing that made my gorgeous husband laugh. Married? Me? Graham Smith? Yup. We had the rings to prove it. And no, we hadn’t got arrested in Vegas. Despite Reuben’s worries about his criminal record hampering our attempts to get him a tourist-visa-ESTA-thingy. Turned out that hadn’t been an issue after all. Some juvenile record that had expired years ago. Another thing that had made Reuben sob like a baby.

The things that put scars on our souls for no reason at all.

I wanted to put that line in a song lyric. I didn’t even have to say that sentence out loud for him to get what I was on about. He just reached out and took my hand. Held it. Rolled his eyes at me.

Dragons? I mouthed.

“Dragons. And no, you can’t use that for a song lyric.”

I would, and he’d laugh.

Which was when Stewart came stomping up the stairs, slamming the door open like a big roaring dinosaur, waking our daughter and setting her off wailing.

“Stewart!” I barked.

“Is nobody going to make an old man a cuppa here? I drive you all the way round London, and not even a cup of tea in return. What’s the world coming to?”

“Stewart!” our son shouted. “Do the dinosaur thing!”

“I’ll make you a cuppa.” Reuben sighed, trying to get up from the sofa. He could barely move, as exhausted as me, as he lifted up my hand and kissed my fingers.