Cathy Kelly 6-Book Collection: Someone Like You, What She Wants, Just Between Us, Best of Friends, Always and Forever, Past Secrets

‘It’s not cheap,’ Emma said.

‘If I have to sell my body to finance it, I will,’ joked Pete. ‘Seriously, love, we’ll manage. This is the most important thing in the world. We’ll borrow the money if we have to, I don’t care.’

‘You’re wonderful, do you know that?’ Emma said.

‘Ditto. Come home soon and we can practise getting my specimen in the paper cup!’

It was well after seven before Jimmy came home. Emma was exhausted and longed to go home to Pete so they could make plans. She was eager for it to be Monday morning so she could start on her quest to discover what was wrong with her. Whatever it was, she was sure they’d overcome it. She and Pete were going to be parents, that was definite.

Jimmy was in a foul mood. ‘Did you not make any dinner for me?’ he demanded as soon as he realized that there was nothing inviting waiting in the oven for him.

Emma stared at him. He was unbelievable.

‘No,’ she said coolly. ‘I didn’t make any dinner for you because I assumed you’d be home long before this.’

‘That’s marvellous. I reared you and you can’t even make me a bit of dinner. Listen to me, my girl…’

‘No,’ Emma said sharply. ‘You listen to me. I have been here all afternoon on my day off looking after Mum and the first thing you do when you get back is shout at me. It’s just not good enough.’

‘Don’t take that tone with me, young lady!’ Jimmy roared.

For once in her life, Emma didn’t quail. This was a day for firsts. She’d made a momentous decision to do something about a baby, now she needed another momentous event.

‘Don’t talk to me like that,’ she said, ice in every word. ‘Because if you do, I’m walking out that door and I’m not coming back, and then you’re going to find out exactly how much I do for you.’

‘Rubbish,’ he shouted at her.

‘When you have to look after Mum full-time without my back-up, when you have to clean this house for yourself and wash and iron your own clothes, perhaps then you’ll be sorry, Dad.’

‘Kirsten would do it in a flash,’ he snapped.

‘Kirsten wouldn’t be bothered,’ she replied witheringly. ‘She has her own life and she figured out how to say no to you years ago. I’ve only just learned.’

She picked up her handbag. ‘I won’t be back until you’ve apologized,’ she said.

Jimmy’s face lost some of its bluster. ‘What about your mother?’

‘We need to discuss nursing care, whether you like it or not.’

‘I don’t like it,’ growled her father, ‘and it’s my decision.’

‘I’m afraid it’s not your decision alone. It’s mine and Kirsten’s too. It’s getting to the point where we can’t look after Mum on our own. Either you get carers to come to the house, or she needs to go to a nursing home where she’ll get specialized care. And you can stop the bullying, Dad, it doesn’t work any more.’ She ignored her father’s furious mouthing. ‘And never talk to me like that again. I’m looking after Mum because I love her, not because of you.’

She drove home fast, pushing her foot to the floor in an attempt to get rid of the nervous energy she was experiencing.

She waited for the guilt to come, the overwhelming sense that she’d failed everyone who loved her by giving in to an appalling display of temper and ungratefulness. Nice girls didn’t fight with their fathers. But it didn’t happen; she didn’t feel any guilt, only a glorious sense of release.

She’d been seething with anger and resentment for all her life but had kept it to herself. Anger was bad, unfemi-nine, destined to make people hate you. Or so she’d thought.

Today, she’d discovered that wasn’t true at all. Pete, whom she loved, would be delighted with her for standing up to their father. Did it matter if her father was angry with her? He’d been angry with her since the day she was born, for no apparent reason. She’d given him a valid one, that was all. And he needed her more than she needed him. She didn’t need him at all. It was a heady feeling.

She found Pete making dinner and she ran to him, throwing her arms around him.

‘You haven’t changed your mind, have you?’ he asked anxiously.

‘Far from it,’ Emma said. ‘It’s been quite a day.’

The next day, they lazed late in bed.

‘It’s nice to have you to myself,’ Pete said, wrapping his body around hers.

‘I suppose I have been spending a lot of time with Mum,’ Emma sighed. ‘I hope she’s OK. It’s her I feel guilty about.’

‘Your father is the one responsible for all this,’ Pete said. ‘He’s abused you and the only way to teach him a lesson is to be tough. Tough love.’

‘He can’t cope and he can’t admit it,’ Emma said.

‘That’s his problem. You can’t take the troubles of the world on your shoulders, Emma. You’ve been at his beck and call since you were born. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad daughter just because you need your own life away from that bully.’

She snuggled against him, enjoying the feel of his body against hers.

‘It’s sad,’ she explained. ‘I’d have sympathy for anyone in Dad’s situation but I can’t reach him. Our relationship is so bad, I’ll never be able to do that.’

‘You look after your mother,’ Pete pointed out. ‘Making sure that she’s well taken care of is the most important thing. Don’t let him use that to manipulate you.’

‘I won’t.’

In the end, Kirsten got involved.

‘I can’t believe you’re doing this,’ Emma said a week later as they drove to the hotel where they were going to meet their father and the carers they were to interview for the position of looking after Anne-Marie.

‘He’s never off the phone to me,’ Kirsten complained. ‘He can’t use the washing machine, that was the first problem. He broke the Hoover yesterday and, as for the microwave, forget it. I told him I wasn’t his bloody slave and he could learn how to do it himself. And,’ she smirked, ‘I gave him a piece of my mind for being so nasty to you. Told him you’d been a far better daughter to him than I ever had and that he didn’t deserve to see you ever again.’

‘You didn’t!’ Emma was lost in admiration. ‘That was sweet of you.’

‘Well, if he’s got you to lean on, he won’t be on the phone to me all the time, so there was a certain personal motive behind my sweetness,’ she admitted.

Emma laughed. Kirsten never changed.

‘It’s been an awful week,’ Kirsten protested. ‘I had to get him off my back somehow. Still, it worked. He’s finally realized that he can’t look after Mum on his own, mainly because you did so much.’

Jimmy seemed to have diminished when they saw him standing in the hotel lobby. He looked smaller, thinner. Emma felt the old guilt that she shouldn’t have left him on his own to look after Anne-Marie.

Kirsten poked her in the ribs. ‘No getting all maudlin and apologetic,’ she warned. ‘Dad has to apologize to you, not the other way round. Mum’s illness doesn’t allow him to be an even worse bastard than he already is.’

Apologies weren’t Jimmy’s forte.

‘Hello, girls,’ he muttered. ‘I said I’d meet them in the bar. We should go in.’