If I Let You Go

“Yes,” she said, eventually. “That’s alright.”

“Would you like me to make you something to eat before we go out?”

She shook her head. “No thank you.”

I rose from my seat and went to the fridge to pour her a glass of milk, which I placed in front of her.

“At least drink this,” I said. “Then we can go.”

She drank it down without question, but as she put her glass down, she eyed me suspiciously as if I’d pulled some kind of Jedi mind trick on her. I figured it couldn’t hurt to take advantage of her being distracted to make sure she had something inside her.

For the first time in days, Tilly was interested in something other than re-arranging her doll’s house furniture. We drove to the local craft store and bought many different coloured paints, some straws, and just because we were there, I grabbed some glitter pens, coloured paper, and a few other essential kid craft supplies.

Back at the flat, Tilly helped me spread newspaper all over the kitchen table to keep it clean, and we set out the paper, paint and straws on the table.

“So, what do we have to do?” Tilly asked, looking up at me expectantly.

I sat down beside her, and said, “Choose a colour.”

After careful deliberation, she selected the bottle of blue paint, and I instructed her to squeeze a little bit onto her paper, before handing her a straw.

“Now blow it,” I said.

Her blue eyes lit up, and she giggled. “Really?”

I nodded, and she put the straw to her lips and blew on the paint. As it flicked across the page in a random pattern, she burst out laughing.

God, I’d missed that sound.

“You have a go,” she said.

Being the big kid that I am, I reached for three different coloured paint bottles, and squeezed them along my page in a line. When I blew on them, the colours all mixed in together, and Tilly giggled louder.

We spent well over an hour creating blow paint masterpieces, and by the time we were done, the newspaper on the table was covered in stray blobs and streaks of paint, and we had paint on our hands and up our arms. It was worth the mess to see Tilly smiling again, and she even ate some of the picnic lunch I’d made earlier.

Later, while we were snuggled up watching Beauty and the Beast, Dominic phoned. I left Tilly in the living room and went into my room to take the call.

“Hi,” he said. “I’m just calling to let you know that I have to go to New York tonight.”

“Tonight?” I asked. “Oh God, does that mean you’re going to be away for longer?”

“No, no. Actually, I should be home on Friday instead of Saturday. But I got called over to do some stuff for work, and because I’ll be on holiday next week, I thought I should go and deal with it now.”

I breathed a silent sigh of relief. “Okay.”

“How’s Tilly?”

“Up and down. Getting her out of bed was a challenge, but we did some painting this morning and we’re watching a movie now.”

“Has she eaten today?”

“Yeah. She had a couple of sandwiches and a packet of crisps. Not great, but better than nothing. Hopefully she’ll eat again later.

“That’s a relief. Can I talk to her? I’ll ring you again when I get to New York, but Tilly will be in bed by then.”

“Yeah, just a sec,” I said, making my way back to the living room. I paused the DVD, and handed the phone to Tilly. “Daddy wants to talk to you.”

She took my mobile and pressed it against her ear. She told Dominic all about the paintings we’d done, making sure to lay it on thick about how much mess we’d made. The conversation went well for the most part, but suddenly, she fell silent. The face that had been smiling seconds before clouded over. Her eyes darkened, and she said, “I thought you were in France?”