Leave Me Breathless

‘You tell me.’

I love how smart my girl is. Ten years old and leaving other students of her age for dust in the grades department, but as well as that, she’s life-smart. Observant. Skilled. The private education is thanks to her mother’s stuck-up family. The life knowledge and skills are thanks to me. At this moment in time, I’m regretting making her so smart. Nothing gets past her. ‘They weren’t knickers.’ I have nothing else.

‘You lie,’ she mumbles. ‘You got a girlfriend?’

I laugh, answering without answering. ‘There’s only one woman I need in my life.’

‘Really, Dad?’ Alex leans her shoulder against the side of the truck while I continue blindly rummaging for her other shoe. ‘You’re getting old.’

I cough on nothing. ‘I’m thirty-nine, for Christ’s sake. There’s years left in me yet.’

‘And you’ll be spending them all alone at this rate.’

I lay my hand on something that feels like a shoe and pray to every god that there’s no knickers attached to this one as I pull it free. There’s not. ‘I won’t be alone because I have you.’

‘What happens when I grow up and meet a boy? What if I move away?’

‘Whoa, easy, girl.’ I stare at her in horror. She’s thought about that? Because I sure as shit haven’t. ‘You’d leave me?’ I untangle my body from the back of the truck and join her on the roadside.

Alex rolls her eyes dramatically. ‘You need someone to love other than me.’

Where the hell is this coming from? ‘I like being on my own. Besides, I’m too grouchy and set in my ways. Relationships require compromise.’ I drop her Van to the ground. ‘They hardly match the fetching dress.’ Let’s redirect the conversation quickly.

She slips her feet in the shoes and rearranges her baseball cap, her long hair splaying over her shoulders, and my mind wanders once again. To how impressed Hannah was with my cabin. To how bright her face was when she smiled, taking it all in. She wasn’t appalled. Quite the opposite, in fact. What was she thinking when she left my place? What’s she doing for the rest of the day?

‘Dad, you look troubled.’

I blink and find my daughter frowning at me. ‘I am.’ I sling my arm around her shoulder and walk us to the shop. ‘My little Cabbage is growing up way too fast.’

She bumps into my side and collects a basket. ‘What do we need?’

‘A chisel.’

‘We have a chisel.’

‘A bigger chisel.’ I head to the hardware aisle and scan the tool section. ‘You go find something for dinner. Burgers?’

‘Yes!’ She dances off, and I watch her go in that stupid dress with Vans and a cap. My ten-year-old little girl. How the hell did that happen? I grin and get back to finding supplies.

Half an hour later, I have a basket full of everything we need and I’m wandering up and down the aisles looking for my wayward daughter. ‘Cabbage,’ I call.

‘Second aisle on the left,’ Mr Chaps says from behind the counter, so I head that way. But I don’t find my daughter, just a mountain of leafy green vegetables. ‘I didn’t mean cabbages, I meant . . .’ I fade off, shaking my head. ‘Never mind. Have you seen Alex?’

‘Only when you came in,’ Mr Chaps tells me, starting to scan the basket of items that’s been placed in front of him by Father Fitzroy.

‘Alex,’ I call, making tracks to the hardware aisle. No Alex. The pang of worry is unstoppable, albeit silly. She doesn’t talk to strangers. She’s streetwise. I’ve taught her to be, not that there’s much call for it in Hampton, nor at that godforsaken boarding school she’s held prisoner in. But still . . . ‘Where the hell is she?’ I mutter, traipsing up and down every aisle until I find myself back at the checkout. Still no Alex. Dumping my basket on the counter, I head out of the shop, my worry getting the better of me. ‘Alex,’ I yell, looking up and down the high street.

‘She went that way.’ Brianna, the shop assistant, points down the street, smiling at me coyly as she shifts firewood onto the cart outside the shop.

‘Thanks,’ I say with a frown, following my feet down the street. ‘Alex?’

‘I saw her go into the arts-and-crafts shop,’ Bob calls from outside his pub, rolling a barrel of beer toward the cellar hatch.

My eyes swing toward Hannah’s little shop.

And some strange shit happens in my chest.Chapter 6HANNAH

I’m checking my online shop when I hear the door open, and I look up from my place behind the counter, smiling at the sight of a girl who’s wearing the most hideous frilly dress teamed with a baseball cap and a pair of chequered Vans. I close my laptop, watching as she walks slowly around my shop.