T.J. Lebbon - The Family Man - An edge-of-your-seat read that you won’t be able to put down

‘What?’ Daisy asked as she hurried downstairs.

‘You’re gorgeous.’

‘Like a princess?’

‘Gorgeouser.’

‘That’s not a word.’

‘It is. I’m your mummy and I say so.’

‘Mu-um!’ Daisy rolled her eyes. She hardly ever called Emma “mummy” any more, another milestone that had drifted by without them really noticing.

‘Got your homework and stuff for your art project?’

‘Yep.’

‘And you’ll walk straight home from school.’

‘No, I’ll go to town and go to the pub then go to the nightclub.’

‘And where’s my invitation?’

Daisy rolled her big blue eyes again. ‘Mu-um!’

‘Love you.’ Emma kissed her, opened the door, and watched the most precious thing in her world leave. She often watched Daisy down the driveway and along the street, knew she was embarrassed by it, but guessed that deep inside she also quite liked it.

Even so young, Daisy was quickly becoming her own person. She was growing into someone who made her parents intensely proud, but that couldn’t camouflage the sense that she was already leaving them.

Sometimes when Emma watched Daisy walking away, her heart ached.

She closed the front door and sighed. The house was suddenly silent, with no blaring music, hassled husband or singing daughter to stir the air. Emma didn’t really like the house this quiet. It sang with the ghosts of children unknown.

She had always wanted more than one child. It had taken three years of trying before Daisy was conceived, after being told by doctors that she would probably never have babies. They’d tried for another without success, and now in their early forties she and Dom were still leaving things to chance. But she felt her clock rapidly ticking, and she was resigned to their daughter being an only child.

Secretly, she was sure that Dom blamed her, probably because in her darkest moments she blamed herself. She hadn’t even known Dom in those wild few years she’d spent with Genghis Cant and Max Mort. He had been the steady rock further downstream in her future.

At the age of eighteen she’d fallen so easily into that life, attracted by the glamour of a touring band, the charisma of its lead singer, the carefree atmosphere and sense of freedom that came from being in a different town every week and a different country every couple of months. They’d never been huge, but they’d built a large enough fan base to enable them to tour constantly, make reasonable money from their regular albums, and buy and maintain a small tour bus.

This had been in a time before music was so easy to download for free, and album sales had been much healthier. Genghis Cant had played regular festivals in Germany, Holland and Denmark, and their touring had taken them as far afield as Greece.

Their bus had been called Valhalla. It became the centre of her life. She’d shared one of its bunks with Max for two years which she could now barely remember, and he had been more than willing to share his drink and drugs.

She’d once asked her doctor whether such intense substance abuse could have damaged her chances of motherhood. The doctor had only stared at her. She’d wanted to strike him, curse at him, because she didn’t believe it was his place to judge, however silently. He couldn’t acknowledge the way she’d pulled herself back up and out of that life. As quickly as she’d fallen she had risen again, hauled back home by her parents and then saved by Dom.

Those years were a blur now, a poor copy of a movie of someone else’s life. She still caught occasional glimpses, and sometimes in dreams she was there again, although viewed from the perspective of comfortable middle-age those times were more nightmarish than daring and revelatory.

She was happy to leave them as little more than vague memories. While she acknowledged that she was a product of her experiences, there were plenty she preferred not to dwell upon.

One thing she hadn’t lost, however, was her taste for guitar music.

After Dom left for work around seven thirty and Daisy was out of the door by eight fifteen she always had half an hour to herself to get ready for work. Today she chose Pearl Jam, washing and dressing to the evocative strains of Eddie Vedder. It was at these times, when she was alone listening to music, that she came closest to missing those old wild times.

After she locked the back door and went out to her car, she saw a Jeep blocking the end of the driveway. It was several years old, a Cherokee, white and mud-spattered, tinted windows. She didn’t recognise it, and she stared for a while, passing her keys from hand to hand and wondering what to do.

She pressed the button that unlocked her car. She could get in and reverse down the driveway, hoping that the driver would see and move aside. Or perhaps she should walk to the Jeep and knock on the window.

The tinted glass made it difficult to tell whether there was even anyone inside. The vehicle hadn’t been there when Daisy had left for school, so it must have pulled up while she was showering and dressing.

I left the back door unlocked , she thought, mildly troubled.

As she started striding along the driveway, the Jeep pulled smoothly away. Emma frowned, shrugged, jumped in her car and reversed out onto the road.

She waved to a couple of people she knew in the village as she passed by, then hit the main road. The radio news came on, and she was shocked once more by the post office slayings headline. Police were appealing for witnesses. A silver BMW had been found several miles away, but they were still searching for a white van and a red Ford. Narrows it down to about a million vehicles , she thought.

By the time Emma reached the college ten minutes later she’d forgotten all about the Jeep.

Emma enjoyed her job. It wasn’t a traditional career choice, and when some people heard what she did they occasionally frowned, as if wondering why anyone would actually want to be a Student Welfare Officer. But she loved people. She interacted with dozens each day, and she was well liked by the college staff and pupil population alike.

She had her own office with a small desk, a laptop, and a comfortable and informal area for when students wanted a heart-to-heart. She spent most of her time whilst in the office seated here, whether with a student or on her own. She even got to choose the furniture herself.

Dom earned more then her. But he worked far longer hours, and some days it was just him and Davey. He was a nice enough kid, but hardly a conversationalist.

Sometimes that suited Dom, because he was at home with his own company, but to Emma that was the idea of a nightmare. She was a sociable creature. Added to that the pressure exerted on Dom from running his own business – the invoicing, estimating, and other admin tasks that went with it – and her job was a breeze.

Emma spent that morning speaking with a couple of students who’d fallen heavily for each other and had an accident. Got carried away, forgot a condom. The boy seemed more embarrassed than the girl, but Emma had shrugged and said, That can happen to anyone . She was good at putting students at ease, however difficult the situation they brought to her, and her conversational manner always put them on the same level.