All the Little Things Sarah Lawton (red white royal blue TXT) 📖

‘Nothing, I’m sorry,’ she said, pulling away and scrubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands. ‘I’m just a bit hungover. I think I need to go home and sleep it off.’ She looked so sad, I had to try and not laugh at her woebegone expression.

‘I’m not very sympathetic if it’s self-inflicted, Molly’ I told her, and she managed a small, tight smile. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to stay for breakfast? I can make pancakes?’

‘I’m sure.’ She sniffed. ‘Can I have another hug?’ I obliged, happily. I never got any affection from Vivian, and often worried that Molly didn’t get enough from her mother. She spent so much time at our house I did wonder if she saw me as a substitute in some way. As she left I glanced up at Vivian’s window and saw a flash of her pale face looking out at us, and my stomach dropped. I knew she would be jealous, and I didn’t want that.

Molly left using the back gate and I went back to the house. I put more bread in to toast and flicked the kettle back on, calling to Vivian as I did. She eventually slouched down the stairs, but didn’t come into the kitchen. I took her breakfast into the front room instead, where she scowled at me.

‘I’m not hungry.’

‘Fine, I’ll eat it,’ I replied, sitting down on the armchair and tucking a leg up. ‘What’s up with you this morning? Are you feeling hungover, too?’

‘No.’

I ate the toast as slowly and loudly as I could manage, watching Vivian. She was deliberately staring out of the window but I could see a small muscle twitching in the soft skin under her jaw.

‘Do you have to make so much noise? You’re a grown woman.’

‘I can do what I like in my own house, Vivian. Are you going to tell me what was wrong with Molly this morning? Have you had a row? You know you’re supposed to tell me if you’re feeling out of sorts about anything.’ I watched her breathing steadily, exactingly. Controlled and even, in and out.

‘No, we didn’t have a row. She just got really drunk yesterday. It was gross.’

‘Was she ill?’

‘No.’

‘So, what happened? What was gross?’

‘Nothing, Mum! For god’s sake not everything is a massive issue. Just leave me alone for once.’

It was like getting blood from a stone. Feeling my own frustration bubbling up, I left her to it, resolving to keep a close eye on her in the coming days, monitor her moods.

I spent the rest of the weekend pottering around in the garden being ignored by my daughter, as usual, trying to rescue my poor plants from the heat. There was a hosepipe ban, so I put a bucket in the shower and collected what I could from there and other waste water, and I was fairly pleased with my efforts – everything seemed to be alive and still thriving despite the drought. I knew I’d need to keep on top of it, though; last summer, the heat was a killer.

Vivian

As soon as I wake up a black mood envelops me. I don’t want to go to school today. I don’t know what to do about Molly. I saw her, out in the garden with my mother on Saturday. She thinks she can have her, too. Does she want everything that doesn’t belong to her? Maybe Serena was right about her. Maybe I have been blind.

Our phone chat was completely dead the whole weekend and that’s never happened before. It always annoyed me, pinging all the time, never leaving me alone, demanding my time, but now it’s silent I miss it: absence leaves a hole.

I get ready for school slowly; I’ve been awake for hours already. Mum is already pottering about – she gets up stupidly early, too – I can hear her making tea, the roil of the kettle. Why is she drinking tea when it’s already boiling outside? I feel like we’ve been transported to some Louisiana swamp. There’s probably an alligator at the bottom of the garden. With any luck it will eat me on the way to school. I imagine it slithering out of the undergrowth to snap me in its mouth, crunch my bones, make me bleed red rivers into dying grass.

‘Viv, do you want a cup of tea, babe?’ her voice echoes up the stairs as she hears me come out of my room.

‘No.’

‘Have you got time for breakfast? I’ve made some porridge if you want some?’

Porridge? Is she mental? It’s about eighty degrees already; I don’t want bloody tea and porridge. I walk into the kitchen and grab cereal instead, to have with icy cold milk like any normal person. I can feel my mother’s eyes on me, tracking my movements. I sit opposite her at the table, our actions in tandem, spoon to mouth to bowl to mouth. Her brain is ticking over, I can see it. I’ve been too moody this weekend, she’s going all suspicious.

‘You feeling a bit better today?’

‘I was fine yesterday.’

‘It’s hard to tell when you ignore me so thoroughly.’

‘Whatever.’ I know I shouldn’t wind her up because she could really make things difficult for me if she wanted to, like she used to; demanding all my passwords, searching my room, just watching me all the time, but I can’t help it when she’s just so bloody annoying. I’ll be nice to her later and she’ll forget about it with any luck. I never understand why the girls always row with their parents – all you need to do is pretend you like them and you’ll get away with everything. It’s not hard. Well, usually it’s not hard, but I am in a bad mood today. Just want to have finished school already so I can go to university and leave her here and never come back. She picks up the breakfast things and plonks them noisily in the sink. I leave without