Redemption

~28~

Sally arrived and for the life of her Issy couldn't understand her daughter's fascination,  and downright nosy interrogation, of her own mother.

Didn't she want her mother happy.

Was it so odd that a woman wanted to have love, be loved, give love.

Issy chucked the mother of all hissy fits and locked herself in the office.

Stumbling around she tried to deal with the notion her relationship with John was now being deemed unworthy, by the one person she counted on for approval, her own daughter.

John was knocking, the timber now shaking as he kept banging on the door, the reverberation ratcheting through the walls.

Issy really wasn't the best, the pain was settling over her, layering in waves as the clock ticked past dosage time. Stress pressed upon her shoulders too. Ohhh, and the way Sally had looked down upon her made her worry that a huge chasm of a rift would settle over them all.

It was all too much.

"Please go away John. I just need to finish typing my book" Issy shot the words out in the hope he would wander off.

"Your typewriters downstairs luv" John retorted gently through the door.

Issy spun away from her blind gaze out of the window and yes, he was indeed right, there was a big hole on her desk where the bloody thing had been sat.

"I'm handwriting then. Just give me some room to, to think ..... Please John" Issy heard John slide down the door to the floor and felt so guilty. Obviously it wasn't his fault. The last few days had been so good,  wonderful in fact. It wasn't his doing that Sally upset Issy's apple cart so easily.

Creeping open the door Issy watched John act the fool and tumble into the room; arms astray, glasses askew. Issy giggled and pulled him to his feet and slammed the door, finding his fingers and treading her own with them. "I'm so sorry. I don't know what's gotten in to me"

"To be truthful it was amusing at first. Sally throwing a wobbly, throwing you through a loop, doing exactly what you had worried about. You the teen, her the mum" John grasped Issy's chin and held her, kissing her lips wrapping her up in his arms.

"Then I realised- it's me isn't it... She sees me as the bad influence on her mum. The drunk, the slob, the bloke that hasn't his shit altogether" John dropped Issy's chin, his fingers left hers and he walked with his hands deep in his pockets to the window "Especially the drunk she sees. She sees her father's faults in me Isabelle. She sees mine too"

"But you have been clean and going to AA and we have fun, don't we?" Issy tried to rationalise "Sally has to see you've improved, as must Julian" John turned around and the look on his face made her want to find the wall to brace herself for what was next.

"She wants me to leave, give you some ... space. I've agreed-"John shushed Issy, a finger across her lips "Lets give Sally what she wants and lets you and I prove we both want this- us, more"

"Of course, I want- "Issy grumbled as John hugged her, burying his face in her neck, letting the sweet fragrance of shampoo she washed her beautiful hair with, flood his senses one more time.

"I know that, I think you're the best thing to happen to me in a long, long time Isabelle, but just to be sure.. a few months-"

"Months, what the hell!" Issy pulled away and smacked at the only thing within her reach, the teen romance manuscript that lay loosely stacked on the corner of the desk. Pages of work fell around her feet, others flipping and dancing further across the room "Don't you think-"