Their Lives In Her Hands

1) A Birthday To Remember. *Part One*

A Birthday To Remember.

Part One:

Tuesday, 14th January, 12.30pm

      Andrew Devall was decorating the front room of his parents house with brightly coloured birthday banners with huge lettering, balloons, some filled with helium, setting a table with cakes and sandwiches, ready to celebrate his eldest daughter's birthday when she got home from school in three hours.

He shared a flat with his daughter Mikaela and had a big family, so his parents' four bedroom house was the perfect place for a party. 

Mikaela was turning fourteen today and since her last birthday had been pretty much cancelled due to her mothers' sudden death, Andrew wanted to try and make this one as special as possible.

Andrew's late wife, Martha, had been in a car accident on her way home from work five days before Mikaela's thirteenth birthday, and had spent a week in intensive care, until she unfortunately, and prematurely, slipped away.

Andrew knew that Martha would have wanted him to move on, and, as she would say 'Stop moping around', but he just wasn't ready. Even when he was ready, he would just feel guilty, like he was betraying her. 

So he had stayed clear of any woman since Martha's untimely death. She was only thirty-five at the time. What would have been her thirty-sixth birthday was only a week away.

Anyway, being aged thirty-nine with a fourteen year old child, he thought, would be enough to scare any woman away. His sister, Katerina always told him otherwise. 

She had been married to a man for five years now, who already had a son from a previous marriage, and it had never bothered her at all.

Just as he was thinking that, thirty-three year old Katerina entered the house with her husband Luke, who was thirty-five, and her six year old step-son, Marshall. She put the young boy's bag down on the table, he always insisted on bringing a bag of his toys with him everywhere he went.

He'd been slightly ill over the weekend, so Luke had decided not to send him to school for these two days. He was a little soft with Marshall since he had been dragged through a nasty custody battle between Luke and his ex, Sharon.

Luke had been awarded full custody of Marshall and Sharon was only allowed to see Marshall in a contact centre because of her drug and anger issues. 

That, of course, caused a lot of stress for Katerina when Sharon decided to take the anger of losing her son out on her. Threatening texts, phone calls. In the end the police were called and they'd had a restraining order put on Sharon.

The threats soon stopped, but it didn't stop Sharon telling Marshall things she shouldn't while she was at contact with him. The staff there had told Luke that Sharon had been warned about telling lies to Marshall. 

When Luke asked what was said, the lady took him to one side, away from Marshall and told him Sharon had been telling her son that Luke used to hit her and throw her around. All of it totally untrue though.

"How's the birthday girl?" Katerina asked as she went over to her brother and helped put up a sparkly pink banner with the words, 'Birthday Girl!' sprawled across it in large purple writing, and stars and hearts decorating the rest of the banner.

"She seemed all right this morning when I dropped her off at school. She's good at putting on a brave face though." Andrew replied as he climbed up onto a stool to pin the banner to the wall. "I know it's still eating her up inside, though."

"And how about you?" Katerina asked.

"I'm actually okay. I've been taking my mind off things by concentrating on today." Andrew said, when he had finished and stepped down off the stool.

Marshall ran up to Andrew holding a Spider-man figurine and said, "look! Spider-man!" Beaming, he thrust the figurine at Andrew, who took it and started playing with it, chasing Marshall around the living room.

When Marshall had decided he'd had enough of playing, he took the Spider-man back, sat on the sofa and pulled a comic book out of his bag. He wasn't a great reader, being only six, but he just loved to look at the pictures.

Luke came over to join his wife and brother-in-law, as they blew up balloons for the party. "So..." Andrew said, trying to catch his breath. "How did contact with the witch go yesterday?"

"We didn't take him. He was ill over the weekend so I've kept him at home. He seems better now, though." Luke said, as he tied an inflated balloon at the bottom and threw it at his son, who kicked it high into the air, hit a vase on the fireplace and slowly fell to the floor.

Luke managed to stop the vase from falling and smashing, then glanced up sheepishly, looking from his son to his wife.

"Sometimes I feel like I'm babysitting for two children." Katerina said to Andrew, who laughed lightly, and finished blowing up a purple balloon.

The main birthday cake was fresh out of the oven as Katerina's mother, Pearl, brought it through to place on the large table they had brought into the front room. 

Pearl always loved baking, and thanks to having a large family, she always had plenty of reason to. There was always a birthday, anniversary or some kind of family celebration to bake for.

She put the cake down before giving her daughter a hug, "How was the journey here?"

"Fine. Don't forget we moved closer now."

"Oh, yes of course. Sorry, I'm being forgetful. It's hard to keep track of all of you lot." Pearl smiled.

She had in her hand a roll of cling film. "You thinking of suffocating us with that?" Andrew asked, pointing at the roll.

"No, don't be so silly, Andrew." Pearl lightly slapped him in the arm. "I'm putting it over the sandwiches to keep them fresh." She jabbed the roll of cling film into his stomach, a little harder than intended.

After covering the sandwiches and small cupcakes in cling film, Pearl went back into the kitchen, where she spent most of her time. Her husband sat quietly at the kitchen table, reading a newspaper, which is what he spent most of his time doing.

"Some woman's gone missing a few towns over." He mumbled. "Forty-one year old Charlotte Lewis... last seen on Friday the 10th of January. Pretty recent." He wasn't even sure Pearl was listening, but he said it anyway.

"Oh." Pearl put down the cake tin she was about to wash and walked over to her husband. "Is there a picture?" She looked at the newspaper over his shoulder as he pointed to a small square, black and white picture of the missing woman. "Right... Well -"

"Are you all right, love? You're shaking."

"Uh, Yes, I am fine. Just..." She paused. "It's just a little bit chilly in here. I'll put the heating on."

Pearl hurried from the room, leaving her husband, Harvey, sitting wondering what was wrong with his wife. The heating was already on; he had put it on half an hour ago, and the kitchen was warm from all the baking.

Carry on to Part Two 

A Birthday To Remember.

*****

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~Ginni~

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