A Brighter Spark (Xcite Romance) Read online

  Steven told Suzy all about the new game he was playing, the plot of which was incomprehensible to her but which Steve was so earnestly invested in that she couldn’t help but get drawn into his attempts to explain it.

  ‘So it works kind of like the Invincibility Lollipop did in Kirby, or I guess it’s really more like the stars in Mario Kart, since it’s in a car in this game too, only the time-based stuff is weird in this one because the glitched players don’t have a clock in the same way, but that’s OK because I totally worked out the pattern they run on and I know how to exploit it …’ He chattered on cheerfully, clearly not bothered by the fact that if Suzy herself had been a video game character in that moment, she would have had a giant glowing question mark flashing above her head.

  After dinner they all watched a DVD of the most recent Batman movie until it was time for the kids to go to bed.

  Suzy poured herself and Drew each a glass of wine and they sat out in the crisp, fresh air of the back garden, the sounds of the world distant and muted in the background, a scatter of stars visible overhead.

  ‘So, what’s up?’ Drew asked her, taking a swallow of wine. ‘Not that I don’t appreciate the dinner and the hanging out time, but you’re obviously worried to hell about something. Spill.’

  Suzy took a long drink, to give herself a moment’s delay before she had to work out the best way to start.

  ‘I’ve seen someone a couple of times –’

  ‘A male someone? And is “seen” a euphemism here?’

  ‘Yes, God, shut up and let me talk, asshole,’ Suzy answered, bumping her shoulder hard against his own in chastisement. ‘His name’s Daniel. He’s … I don’t know, Drew, I feel like I’m in love with him already. Is that even possible? Can it happen that fast?’

  ‘Beats me. But it’s what poems and songs and shit say, right? Love at first sight? That sounds pretty fast to me.’

  ‘That’s not even the problem, not really.’ Suzy sighed, shoulders slumped. ‘I like him, I love him, whatever. He’s – wonderful. He’s really wonderful. And he’s got two kids, and they’re wonderful too. His daughter’s 16 and she’s the cutest thing, totally earnest and enthusiastic and she’s so young, Drew. She’s a baby.

  ‘But we were only a little older than her when I got pregnant. We thought we were old enough to handle it, but we were children ourselves.’

  Drew looked sceptical. ‘I think we did pretty great at it, actually, whether we were young for it or not. They’ve both got all their limbs, all their teeth, and they know how to tie their own shoelaces. From what I’ve seen of the world, all that puts us pretty high on the parenting curve.’

  ‘Maybe you,’ Suzy conceded, drinking the rest of her wine and lying on her back, staring up at the sky. ‘But I’m a fucking disaster. My son’s an adorable, awkward little nerd, and I can’t follow even a tenth of the stuff he tries to explain to me. My daughter thinks I’m the Antichrist, only for her being the Antichrist would be an actual cool thing. I’m some sort of special uncool Antichrist in her eyes. I’m a complete fuck-up of a mom, and even my terrible sub-par attempt at parenting is so exhausting that I feel more like I’m 60 than 30. No, more than 60, because my own mom is sixtry and she’s –’

  ‘Sixtry?’ Drew cut her off, laughing. ‘Oh my God, you’re tipsy and moping. This is so sad, Suze. You are being genuinely pathetic right now. I can’t even tell what it is that you’re actually miserable about.’

  ‘I’m miserable because I’m not good enough for him. He deserves someone perfect, and I’m … I’m a Suzy. He deserves a Susan, or at least a Suzanne. You know?’

  ‘That is the lamest thing I have ever heard anybody say. Ever. About anything,’ Drew told her flatly.

  ‘No, shut up. When it happened the first time I was so down with it, because I was like, maybe all I need is this distraction from my life, right? This awesome hot guy rocking my world in bed, making me feel all pretty and special and stuff. But now – now he’s in my life and I’m thinking about him all the time. And Lil’s gonna hate him. His son hates me and Lily’s going to hate him.’

  ‘Of course she is. Nothing you do is right. That’s what puberty is about; little girls rejecting everything about their mothers, and thereby forming their own identities as independent human beings.’

  ‘Stop being logical while I’m trying to have a rant,’ Suzy grumbled. ‘And what about Steven? You and him have such a great relationship. What if having this new older guy around makes him withdraw? He’s already so quiet, you know? In a way that’s almost harder than the tantrums and arguments, because at least I know what’s going on with Lily. And you all drive me insane, but you’re my family, and I’d never, ever do anything to hurt you, not for anything. Not even for an amazing lover.’

  ‘Oh no, I’m not letting you rationalise yourself into dumping a guy because of some hypothetical situation which could only possibly take place in Crazy Town.’ Drew shook his head. ‘Nope, nope, nope. For starters, you do remember that Joseph is my – to use what I believe was your exact phrasing on the subject – “silver fox hotass sugar daddy”, right? Yet somehow the presence of his dad’s older boyfriend has completely failed to give Steven any kind of weird masculinity complex. So that’s out as an excuse.

  ‘It won’t hurt Lily, it won’t hurt Steven, and unless this new dude has a heretofore unmentioned intention to take over my role as your longsuffering confidant for drunken existential bullshit, it won’t hurt me. Therefore, the only conclusion I can draw is that you’re afraid that this is going to hurt you.’

  Suzy rolled over and smushed her face into the grass. ‘I hate you. Go away.’

  ‘Nah.’ Drew patted her on the back of the head. ‘You’re stuck with me. We bred.’

  ‘So? Lots of people breed and don’t have anything to do with each other ever again.’

  ‘Well I guess I must like you for your personality or some horseshit, then.’

  ‘I love you too, Drew,’ Suzy mumbled. ‘And I am. I’m scared. How the fuck did I get to be a grown-up when I’m still scared of going steady with a guy?’

  ‘I think a better question to ask yourself is how anyone can say “going steady” without a trace of irony in their voice in this day and age,’ he retorted. ‘Look, Joseph promised Steven and Lil that he’d take them out on the boat. What if this Daniel guy’s kids come too? They can all get to know each other without feeling like they have to have their guard up or their good manners on or anything.’

  ‘Lily has a “good manners” setting? Are you sure? Also, hold up, your silver fox hotass sugar daddy has a boat? For real? Is it awesome? Can I ride in it sometime? Is he looking for any ladies to lie around in bikinis and bring him martinis? I make a mean martini, you know.’

  ‘Getting off the topic, Suze.’

  ‘The topic of how I’m totally not good enough for my boyfriend? Thanks for the reminder,’ Suzy said dryly. ‘I just feel like shit, because you’ve always been there for me, and he’s had to do this all on his own, and yet I’m the one who feels like there’s too much on my plate all the time.’

  ‘No, that was not the topic; that was you being whiny and self-indulgent. The topic is that you’re going to invite his apparently perfect little rugrats to be exposed to the bad influence of our less-perfect little rugrats, so that you and Daniel-the-perfect-guy can go hang out and be in love at first sight and other fairy tale nonsense. OK?’

  Suzy had learnt long ago that life was generally easier if she listened to Drew’s ideas when he first had them, instead of grudgingly agreeing to them later when it would involve him saying “I told you so” several times and her having to do the same thing that he’d suggested in the first place anyway. But before any plans for a fairy tale evening could be put into motion, one of the small everyday disasters of ordinary life got in the way.

  A few hours after Drew left, Suzy was shaken out of sleep by Steven. He was standing beside her bed, his eyes very wide in the dim light, a worried expression o
n his face.

  ‘Lily’s sick,’ he said.

  Suzy didn’t bother to ask how Steven knew that his sister was ill. Her kids had never had the kind of freaky connection so common to twins in movies and books, but there’d certainly been a few instances over the years of one knowing when the other was miserable or in pain. Usually that had just translated to having two miserable kids at the same time instead of one, but Suzy had never minded that. It comforted her to know that whatever happened, her children were looking out for each other.

  Lily was allowed to keep her door shut at night on the condition that she didn’t lock it. Suzy knocked, and got a miserable rasp of a “come in” a few seconds later.

  ‘Your ears?’ Suzy asked. Lily had been plagued with infections since infancy; getting her tonsils out when she was seven had helped a little but nothing seemed to do away with the problem completely. Steven’s weakness was his vision, but that was more about management with the right prescription of glasses than it was about antibiotics and weeks off from school.

  Lily nodded miserably, clearly feeling too terrible to bother with even a token level of antagonising her mother.

  ‘Bad enough to go to the late-night clinic, or do you want a couple of aspirin for now and a visit to the doctor in the morning?’

  Lily’s lip trembled as the girl tried to put on a brave face, but after a moment it crumbled and she burst into tears. ‘Clinic.’

  ‘OK. C’mon, kiddo,’ Suzy said gently, helping Lily up out of bed and slipping the girl’s dressing gown around her shoulders. ‘Steve, you’re old enough to just stay here and go back to bed. Try to get some rest. We might be a while.’

  The thought of a long wait to see a doctor made Lily cry harder, and Suzy’s heart broke a little bit. All her daughter’s bravado and grown-up snideness had fallen away, leaving nothing but a little person in pain, still much closer to childhood than adulthood.

  The drive to the all-night clinic made Suzy feel as if she was inside a time capsule, transported back to a world of years ago, when the kids were smaller and they’d made this trek across town for emergency antibiotics a number of times. It felt strange to be back here, now accompanied by a thorny, adolescent Lily who was so fraught to be around, to herself be 30 years old instead of 23.

  It was weird, but as well as weird it was surprisingly comforting. Even though Lily was unhappy and in pain, she seemed to feel it too, curled up on the front passenger seat and staring out at the wash of streetlights over the windscreen.

  ‘Some stuff still makes sense,’ Lily said quietly, almost as if she was talking to herself. After she’d spoken she glanced over at her mother, so Suzy figured it was probably safe to say something in reply without getting her head bitten off.

  ‘You can always count on me, baby. Always. No matter what we say to each other when we’re angry. No matter how much you don’t need me most of the time … And that’s good, it really is. I’m so proud of how independent and clever you’re turning out to be. But no matter how grown-up and independent and clever you become, you’re always going to be my little girl. I will always, always help you when you need it.’

  Lily rolled her eyes at the sincerity, but Suzy didn’t mind.

  Eventually they were done with the doctor and dispatched home again, armed with a bottle of extra-strength eardrops and a new bottle of painkillers.

  ‘You can stay home from school, of course,’ Suzy promised. ‘Steven can pick up your homework for you, if you feel up to doing it.’

  She braced herself for the conversation she knew would follow: Lily would beg for Steven to be allowed to stay home too, complaining that it was boring being home alone. Suzy would counter by pointing out that Lily wasn’t staying home in order to be entertained, and then Lily would call Suzy a tyrant, and they’d end up giving each other high blood pressure and stress headaches by the time the car pulled into the driveway at home.

  But all Lily actually said was, ‘OK,’ and she sounded so wrung-out and diminished as she said it that Suzy felt absolutely rotten for assuming there was going to be an argument about it. Usually it was Lily who saw passive-aggressive motives behind everything and manufactured drama where none had existed.

  For the thousandth time, Suzy reminded herself not to fall to the same level of argument that her adolescent child typically occupied. Somebody had to be the grown-up in the household, after all.

  She was surprised at how comfortable that designation felt. Grown-up. Huh. Who’d have expected it to start feeling natural, after so many years of being such a poor fit within her sense of herself?

  ‘Steven can stay home too, if you like. I know you like watching him play the Xbox when you’re feeling lousy,’ she told Lily. ‘Oh hey, I know something that might cheer you up. I heard about this horrible thing called a stargazy pie. Have you ever heard of it?’

  Lily just shook her head, too exhausted to answer with words.

  ‘It’s made out of fish, but instead of throwing the heads and tails away, they’re stuck into the pastry on top of the pie, so it looks like the fish are, you know, star-gazing, I guess. Fish heads! Can you imagine how disturbing and gross that would look?’

  ‘That’s awesome,’ Lily said, weariness momentarily overcome by amazement. ‘That’s so disgusting. I bet it’s the kind of thing people would eat in Lovecraft stories.’

  ‘Can you imagine sitting down to dinner and your dinner looking back at you? And not just looking back at you, but looking back at you from decapitated fish heads sticking up out of your pie?’ Suzy enthused. If it took a situation and subject like this to give her a bonding moment with her daughter – well, she’d take what she could get.

  Lily giggled a little bit. ‘Ewww. So gross,’ she said appreciatively. ‘Can I have one on my birthday?’

  ‘If you never want any of your friends, or your brother, to ever speak to you again, then sure,’ Suzy answered wryly. ‘Maybe we could make your cake in the shape of it, out of fondant or something, instead. That’s a more acceptable level of gross for a teenage birthday, don’t you think?’

  ‘Thanks, Mom,’ Lily said, resting her head against the window of the passenger door as they drove home quietly.

  Chapter Five

  Daniel phoned her in the evening.

  ‘What’re you up to?’

  ‘Sitting in my favourite spot in my garden,’ she answered. ‘Vaguely wishing I had a glass of wine, because I feel like relaxing. But I had a little more than I should have last night – Drew teased me, said I was drunk, but I wasn’t really. And thank God I wasn’t, because later I had to drive Lil to the 24-hour medical centre with a bad earache. I’ve spent the day fussing over her and making sure she gets the drops administered at the right time.’

  ‘Is she ready to kill you for daring to force that much attention on her yet?’ Daniel asked. Suzy laughed, a little sadly.

  ‘Not yet. She still feels too wretched to be properly antagonistic. Poor kid. Drew’s going to come around and spend time with her tomorrow, so I can go back to work. So what about you, what’s your day been like?’

  ‘Not nearly so dramatic as yours. Hannah wants to dye her hair pink. I’m in two minds about whether it’s a good idea to let her. On the one hand, the school might object and I don’t want to give her teachers reason to make life difficult for her, but on the other hand I feel a certain amount of responsibility has been entrusted to me through the fact of her even asking my permission in the first place,’ Daniel explained. ‘If I discuss it with her and we reach a satisfactory outcome, rather than me just saying “no”, then she’ll know she can approach me with more serious problems and expect to be treated with respect and seriousness.’

  That made Suzy give a gentle, sympathetic laugh. ‘I miss the days when the most serious dilemma involved in parenting a daughter was whether to let her spend all of her allowance on My Little Ponies or to try to teach her about saving.’

  ‘The ponies always won with me,’ Daniel confessed.


  ‘Me too,’ Suzy agreed. Then, changing the subject, she told him, ‘Drew wants the two of us – you and me, I mean, obviously – to go on a … A fairy tale evening, I think he called it. Something along those lines, anyway. A romantic night out. Though that’ll have to wait until Lily’s on the mend, I guess.’

  ‘Yes, it wouldn’t be fair to her or to you for you to be otherwise occupied while she needs you,’ Daniel replied immediately. ‘We can plan it for a later date.’

  Suzy was touched by the words, said so unguardedly and automatically. More than one of the short, non-serious relationships she’d had in her 20s had fallen apart largely because her lovers had expected more of her heart and attention than she’d ever be able to give them. No matter how much she liked somebody and wanted to spend time with them, she’d always be a parent first and a girlfriend second. Nothing could change that.

  But Daniel got it. He’d always be a parent first too. He might not particularly like it when Suzy was unavailable because of teen-related disasters, but he’d understand. There would never be any fights over her attention, fights that no lover, no matter how perfect, could ever win against her children.

  ‘When everyone’s back on the mend, we should all go to a drive-in sometime,’ she said, remembering trips she’d taken as a child, the excitement of sitting in her family’s own car to watch a movie. ‘There’s still one operating a few suburbs away from here.’