Chapter Thirty-Seven
Roy – Thursday
I felt better than I thought I would, especially now that I was more in the swing of things.
It had taken me a couple of days to get used to running the office again, but I felt like I was doing a good enough job. It would take a while before everyone fully trusted us again, but with enough hard work and perseverance, we would get there. I was going some way to get people trusting me again, just by telling them that we would have an outside audit conducted every quarter that would be published publically on the website for everyone to see.
Transparency was the way forward; that much was obvious.
“So, how are you getting on, boss?” Fredrik, an intern who was slowly becoming my favorite member of staff, asked. He’d been faithfully helping me ever since my return, and even though I knew I should probably withhold my trust a little after being burned by Lewis, I could tell that he was a good guy.
Things with Lewis weren’t great; he was in the news a lot. More and more of his issues were coming to light, making me wonder if I ever knew him at all. There was definitely a darker side to him, and it was a shame that I’d never seen it. Of course, I would have had I not been sucked up by depression, but there wasn’t anything I could do about that now. There was no point in living in the past and what I should have done. I was all about moving forwards these days.
His trial was coming soon enough, and he would get his judgment then. It wasn’t for me to worry about anymore, I’d done my part. It was likely that I would have to be called up for a witness statement, but I was doing my best not to worry too much about that just yet.
“Yes, thank you, Fredrik. It’s only the accounts that I still need to get through. I decided to get things back up and running again before delving too deeply into it, because I know that once I do, I won’t be coming out for a while.”
“Well, obviously I know that you’ll want to check through it all yourself. I’m sure that you want to find all the gaps for yourself, and you need to know exactly where the business stands to keep on moving forward, but I can always help. That’s what I’m here for, after all.”
“You don’t know how much of a Godsend you are,” I told him happily, patting him on the back. “It would be awesome to have some help because I don’t even know where to start at the moment. It seems that Lewis kept all of the papers chaotic and messy on purpose, so if you could sort them into date order for me to look through, that would be amazing.”
I felt bad for bringing this kid in, but I really did need someone more organized than me to do what needed to be done. I didn’t think I could tackle it alone, and Fredrick was very keen. “Of course, I will give you a massive bonus once it’s all done, just for the stress it will cause you.”
Fredrick laughed, but shook his head. “No, I don’t want to do it for that. I just want to help. This company is an amazing place to work, and I want it to stay that way.”
The fact that he didn’t want it was exactly why I would pay him more.
“Hi!” June’s sing song voice burst into my office. “Oh, I am sorry. I didn’t realize that you were in a meeting. I wanted to take you out for lunch, that’s all.”
“You go, Sir,” Fredrick jumped in. “I’ll get started. I’m much better at organizing things by myself.”
I so desperately needed to get out of the office, to get a break from it all, which was exactly why I agreed. “Okay, sure,” I smiled at June happily. “Let’s get going.”
We were slowly becoming common knowledge throughout Florence now, which was great, as things were a lot more serious between us these days. Luckily, we’d received nothing but positivity from everyone. There was a time where I didn’t think that I could ever move on, and not just because of me, but also because I lived in a small town where I felt like I would be judged. It was why I’d always kept things casual and on the down low. Now, I could see that was just another excuse that I’d given myself because I wasn’t quite ready for it.
“So, how has your day been?” I asked her once we were inside the café. A couple of days ago, June decided that since she couldn’t donate any money to the Hangout, she would give her time instead. She was working at the Hangout while she decided what to do with her life, but I got the impression that she wanted to stay.
I hadn't ever seen her as happy as she was at the end of a shift, particularly when she was working as a journalist. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Hailey eventually hired her as full time staff. She probably wanted to already.
“It was great!” she exclaimed excitedly. “You know that kid, Sawyer, well he…”
As she launched into a speech about the children, I found myself on the edge of my seat waiting for her to get to Ali. I already knew that June adored Ali, and I did now, too. Just that sort time with her had been enough to have me needing to know more. For such a sweet young kid to have gone through so much… Well, in a way, I felt like I could relate. Very distantly of course; when I lost my mother, I was old enough to understand it, but still that raw, muddy feeling was the same.
“And, how about Ali?” I eventually felt compelled to ask, when she hadn't gotten to her yet. “How is she doing?”
June’s eyes fell, which wrenched at my heart. It had to be bad news, and I really didn’t want to hear that. “She went to see the counselor today, and I think it dragged up some painful stuff. She was really closed off and sad. Even I couldn’t get through to her. I don’t know what to do about it.”
I held her hands in mine, seeing the sadness deep in her gaze. “There isn’t always anything you can do,” I told her regretfully, hoping that I was helping. “Sometimes you just need to be there as a constant figure in her life and she will come around eventually. It isn’t easy I know, but when she’s ready to talk, she will.”
“Yeah, I hope that you’re right,” she replied sadly, but before we could get anymore into it, the waitress came over with our food, completely distracting us.
***
“Wow, you did that quickly!” I exclaimed to Fredrick as I got back into the office. “It’s really all organized already?”
“Well, I don’t think it was as confused as you thought it was. I think that maybe Lewis had it all well sorted at one point, but maybe he messed some of it up looking for something. I’m not sure, but it won’t be as hard to go through as you thought.”
“Well, I am still impressed, and you will still be getting a bonus in your pay check!”
As Frederick left the room, leaving me to it all, I got to work with much more of a positive attitude in mind. If I could get all of this sorted, then I could finally move on – we could all put this far behind us. This was the last remnants of what Lewis’s selfishness had done to us, and I couldn’t wait for it to be done.
I fired up my computer quickly, knowing that I would have to make notes about absolutely everything, not just for myself, but for the courts, too. I needed to have it all laid out in the clearest way possible to ensure that I could recall everything at a later date.
“Right,” I muttered to myself with a determination in my tone. “Let’s get this done.”
But I got distracted almost instantly. Turning on my computer was a big mistake! Not only did emails keep firing through at every second, that noise driving me insane, but I also kept looking up the details of Lewis’s case online. I couldn’t seem to stop myself from knowing every damn detail, however painful it was.
I just kept trying to replace the image of the guy I knew with the one that I was now discovering, but I couldn’t quite do it. It was such a shame that someone with so much potential, so much to offer the world had thrown his life away in such a silly way. Of course, I didn’t fully understand addiction, it wasn’t something that I’d ever experienced myself, but I did get sadness and the way that things could grip your heart. I’d done some stupid stuff when I was depressed, but nothing like any of that!
As my eyes drifted over the screen, I suddenly spotted something else, something that had my heart racing and my mind fluttering with ideas.
Never having kids was something that I’d come to terms with a long time ago, or at least when I lost Shelley. But now, with June in my life, things were different. She might not have been able to see it herself, but she had a maternal side, one that was screaming out to be a mother. It killed me that there wasn’t anything that I could do to satisfy that need. It had been the one thing that had made me want to hold back, just a little bit.
But maybe I’d been thinking too closely to the box all the time; maybe I hadn't wanted to see any other options; maybe there was another way to make both of our dreams come true, even if it wasn’t exactly in the way that either of us had planned.
I found my finger edging towards the mouse, and it clicking on the advert before I could fully think it through, intrigue gripping too tightly to me.
Adoption…change someone’s life today.
Adoption – a way to have a child that wouldn’t need me to be fertile. A way to give someone the life that they deserved, even if they weren’t conceived naturally. It hadn't been something that had ever crossed my mind before, but now it was all that I could think about.
We knew a child who needed a good home, and we had a good home to offer.
Sure, things were relatively new between me and June, but we were smart enough to know that we were in love and that it was going to last. I didn’t have any worries in that department, and I was sure that she didn’t, either. We could make this work, we really could, however crazy it was. All we needed to do was make the people in charge of the adoption aware that we were in it for the long haul, and that we had the right qualities to be the best parents that we could do.
Maybe there was a way that June and I could be parents, after all.
Maybe Ali could have a home, after all. Maybe we could heal all the holes in her heart, to help her to recover from trauma, to help her finally have the life that she deserves.
Thump, thump…
Thump, thump…
Thump, thump…
My heart began to beat with joy, proving to me that this was the right thing to do. My instincts were screaming at me, gnawing in my stomach, pleading with me to carry on. This would be good for all of us: I just knew it.