Helping Sarah

Chapter 31

Sarah

"No, don't wake him. He can sleep here tonight, and you can come for him tomorrow."

I looked back at my mother-in-law in the doorway, then brushed Charlie's soft hair away from his forehead. He was lying on his back in his dinosaur pyjamas, one arm over his head and the other flung out to the side in the bed that would soon be too small for him. "Are you sure?"

Helen gently pushed me out of Charlie's room and pulled the door closed again until it stood only an inch ajar, and smiled at me. "Of course I am, dearest."

It was late. Charlie had been asleep for hours, and she was right. It would be cruel to wake him now and disturb his sleep when he was comfortable in his room here.

It had taken all through dinner and coffee afterwards to explain the entire story about Lenny to Helen and Benji and all that had happened.

Had anyone asked me before I'd told them, I would have scoffed at the idea of either of my in-laws blaming me for Andrew's debt and Lenny's threats, but I had still felt the weight of an elephant lift from my shoulders when Benji had muttered several expletives under his breath and all of them had been aimed at Andrew and Lenny.

Tears had shimmered in Helen's eyes when I told them the truth about the fire and who we believed had started it, and I'd been out of my chair and around the dining table to envelope my mother-in-law, the only real mother I truly knew, in a tight hug before the first could fall.

"I'm so sorry, Helen," I had whispered.

She tutted and hugged me back, then wiped both our cheeks and clasped my face, looked into my eyes. "You have nothing to be sorry for, my darling girl."

In the dim light outside Charlie's room, she nodded once to me. "That's settled then. You go home with Michael and enjoy your free night."

My cheeks instantly heated. "Oh, but we're not–"

She patted my hand. "I like him, by the way. As do Charlie. He didn't stop talking about Migal all afternoon."

"I do too," I said in a low voice, following Helen as she started back towards the stairs, but she still heard me.

"I can see that." She smiled over her shoulder. "You're smiling more and you're less tense than I've seen you in a long time. And you're in a dress."

I chuckled. Wearing a dress three days in the same week was something of a record, but when we reached the bottom of the stairs I halted her with a hand on her arm. "Helen." I chewed my lip for second, but there was nothing in my mother-in-law's expression that held me back from asking, "Is it weird for you and Benji that I'm seeing someone?"

I might only have called Michael my friend, but we all knew there was more to it. Even Michael and I. The pretending to be my boyfriend part was lacking pretence. The kisses had evaporated every bit of it.

She turned fully to look at me, her smile losing a little of its brilliance. I recognized the grief in her gaze. It had faded over the last three years, but would never go completely away. "It is, if I'm to be honest. We all thought you and Andrew would grow old together." She cradled my cheek. "But it's good too, Sarah. We will always miss Andrew, but we also want to see you happy again. It's been three years. You deserve to be happy."

I searched her gaze, recognized her sincerity, and then hugged her tight. Whispered, "Thank you."

It wasn't that I needed her and Benji's approval, but I never wanted to do something that would hurt them after all they had done for Charlie and me.

Helen's words played on repeat in my mind as Michael and I said goodbye and he drove us back to his house. I missed Andrew too, the carefree, laughing man he'd been before the drugs and the lies, the man I had loved with all my heart.