CHAPTER 16

 

Cate rang the doorbell at Jean’s house.  She was incredibly nervous; it was the first time she was going to see Jean since The Story had been published.  She’d begged Liv to drop Lola off this morning on her way to work.

  “Cate?” Jean pulled open the front door.  “My goodness, what are you doing standing out there in the rain?”

  “I…” Cate shifted awkwardly.  Would Jean believe that she’d been so cold-hearted as to seduce Kian the night of his Dad’s funeral?  It was so humiliating that the night she’d lost her virginity, a night that was supposed to be private between her and Kian, had been dissected in a national newspaper.

  “Mummy,” Lola wrapped herself around Cate’s leg.  “You’re all wet.”

  “Why don’t you get Mummy one of those nice, fluffy towels we’ve just put away?” Jean said to Lola.  “Come on; let’s go through to the kitchen.” 

  While Lola ran upstairs, Jean gestured for Cate to follow her into the kitchen.  She poured her a mug of tea and they sat at the kitchen table.  “Is this because of that story in the newspaper?”

  Cate nodded, “I’m so sorry.  I know it must have brought things back.”

  Tears pricked the corners of Jean’s beautiful blue eyes.  She wrapped her fingers around the necklace she always wore, which held Eamon’s wedding ring.  “I think about him every single day, sweetheart, there’s nothing new there.  You have nothing to apologise for, absolutely nothing.”

  “But they said I…”

  “I’ve known you since you were a tiny baby, Cate.  I’ve watched you grow up into a beautiful young woman.  You’re everything I could want in a daughter-in-law; I’ve never once doubted the trueness of your love for my son.”

  Cate felt tears pricking at the corners of her eyes, “I’m sorry.”

  “Mummy,” Lola came charging in, carrying a bundle of towels.  “Can I do it?”  Cate lifted Lola up on to her knee and she set to work drying Cate’s hair.

  They had just got back home when the doorbell rang.  “I want to answer it,” Lola yelled.  She dropped her stuff on the floor and ran towards the front door.

  “No,” Cate said, “we don’t know who it is.”

  “Yes,” Lola reached for the door handle.

  “I said no,” Cate stepped between Lola and the door.  “Pick your stuff up off the floor.”

  As Cate turned around to unlock the door, she felt Lola’s hands grab on to her ankles.  “Mummy, I want to answer it.”

  The doorbell rang again.

  “Lola, I said no.  Get up off the floor.”

  Lola didn’t listen.  She wriggled closer so that her arms were wrapped tightly around Cate’s ankles, which meant that Cate had to manoeuvre very carefully to be able to open the front door.

  “Fine,” Cate said, losing her temper a little.  “But if I stand on you, it’s your own fault.”

  She opened the front door and it was a delivery man.  “Hi,” Cate said brightly, trying hard not to look flustered.

  “I’ve got a delivery for Cate Warner.”

  “That’s me.”

  “Sign here,” he said, thrusting a clipboard and pen in front of her.  After she handed them back, he went to his truck and came back with a huge bouquet of flowers.

  Cate took them from him and brought them close to her face.  They were gorgeous and so sweet-smelling.  She could see freesias, which were her favourite flower.  Her heart lifted a little as she thought maybe Kian had sent them.  He’d never sent her flowers before.

  As she closed the front door, she noticed that there was a card attached to the stalks.  She opened it and the disappointment took her breath away.  The flowers weren’t from Kian.  They were from Lauren.  She must have seen The Story and wanted Cate to know that she was thinking of her and Lola.

  She struggled down the hallway from the front door to the kitchen with Lola still holding on to her ankles.

  “Lola, you need to get up,” Cate said, trying not to shout.  “I mean it, get up right this second.”

  Lola looked up at her Mum and stuck her tongue out.

  Cate laid the flowers down carefully on the kitchen table and bent down to where Lola was lying on the kitchen floor.

  “Enough,” she said, prising her little hands from around her ankles.  “Go and pick up your stuff from the hallway before someone trips over it.”

  “Now,” Cate said sharply.  Lola quickly got up off the floor and ran down the hall.

  Cate looked in the kitchen cupboards for a vase for the flowers.  She couldn’t find one.  Then she looked in the cupboard above the oven.  She opened the door and there on the top shelf was a vase.  It was a stretch to reach the top shelf but she was impatient and didn’t want to go and get the small ladders so she reached up as high as she could standing on her tiptoes and was able to reach the base of the vase with her fingertips.  She gradually nudged it forward until it was just a fingertip away from where she would be able to pick it up.

  She was almost there when Lola suddenly came running into the kitchen, “Mummy, look.”

  Cate turned for a second to look at Lola and suddenly the vase was off the shelf and heading for the kitchen floor.

  “Lola, get back,” Cate screamed, which made Lola start crying.

  As the vase hit the kitchen floor, Cate threw herself on top of it, to stop the glass flying up and hitting Lola.  She put her hands out to save herself but they slipped and the whole of her upper body fell on top of the smashed vase.

  She didn’t feel any pain at first.  She turned her head to check on her daughter, “Lola honey, are you okay?”

  Lola was stood on the threshold of the kitchen, she was still crying but she didn’t look hurt, which was a relief.

  Cate lifted herself up a little and when she looked down at the floor, she noticed that there was a lot of red on the floor, mixed in with all the glass.  She looked down at herself and her chest and arms were covered in blood.  That was when she started to feel pain.

  “Honey, can you go in the lounge for me?” Cate asked, trying to keep her voice soft.  “Not through here, use the other door.  Mummy needs to clean this up.”

  As she put her hands down to push herself up off the floor, she felt sharp pains in both of her hands.  She turned her palms over and looked at them.  There were lots of little shards of glass digging into the palms of her hand but it was her wrists that really drew her attention.  From what she could tell, they must have taken most of the impact.  There were bigger pieces of glass in there and that was where most of the blood was coming from.  Cate knew straight away that this was serious.

  She tried to stand up but felt light-headed.  She would have to start cleaning up from right here on the floor.  She gritted her teeth and began pulling out the more obvious pieces of glass from her wrists.  It hurt like a bitch and made her wrists bleed even more without the glass to cork the blood flow.  She grabbed the dish towel from the side of the sink and pressed down, trying to stop the bleeding.  The towel immediately turned red with blood and she was starting to feel dizzy.

  She didn’t want Lola to panic but was just about to call her and ask if she could bring her phone when Irene came home.  Cate had never been more relieved to see her Mum.

  “Hello, anybody home?” Irene called, hanging her coat up on the hook.

  “In here,” Cate said, her voice sounded weak.

  “Hey,” Irene said, cheerfully.  When she saw Cate sat on the floor covered in blood, surrounded by glass, the smile dropped from her face.  “My God, what happened?”

  Cate lifted up her wrists, “I can’t stop the bleeding.”

  “Okay,” Irene gulped.  “Okay, let me have a look.” 

  Irene knelt down on the floor and removed the towel from Cate’s wrists.  “Wow, we need to take you to A&E.”

  “No,” Cate shook her head.  “People will think I did this on purpose.”

  Irene stopped and looked at her for a second, “you didn’t, did you?”

  “No,” Cate said.  “No, I promise.”

  She suddenly felt really sleepy.  “I’m going to close my eyes for a second.”

  “No,” Irene said, slapping her face.  “Come on, let’s get you up off this floor.”

  Irene lifted her up and sat her on one of the chairs at the kitchen table.  She put on the kitchen light and her glasses and using tweezers, she removed all of the shards of glass that she could see embedded in Cate’s wrists.  Then Irene went and got the medicine box and after wiping her wrists with TCP, she wrapped them up in thick, white bandages.

  After she’d finished, she said, “are you hurt anywhere else?”

  Cate looked down at her hands and chest, which were covered in lots of little cuts.  “I’ll do the rest, thanks Mum.”

  “I’m just glad my last meeting got cancelled.  I dread to think what would have happened if I hadn’t come home.”

  Cate got up slowly from the kitchen table.

  “Where are you going?” Irene asked.

  “To get the dustpan and brush and the mop, I need to clean this up.”

  “No,” Irene said.  “I’ll do it.  You go and sit in the lounge with your daughter.”

  “I can’t see Lo like this, I’ll give her nightmares for weeks,” Cate looked down at herself covered in blood.

  “Fine, take off your clothes and put these on,” Irene said, handing her a jumper and some pyjama bottoms from the laundry basket.

  “I can’t get changed here,” Cate said wide-eyed.

  “Cate, just do it, okay,” Irene said, looking tired.  “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before, I gave birth to you remember?”

  Cate got changed and went in to the lounge, where Lola was sitting quietly watching TV.  “Are you okay, sweetie?” Cate asked, sitting down beside her.

  “Mummy hurt?” Lola asked, looking really scared.

  “Mummy’s fine,” Cate lied.  “Come here, it’s okay.”