Endless Love

Chapter Thirty

Sarah

The baby was making everything very uncomfortable for me. She would sit on my bladder and make me need to urgently pee, or sit underneath my ribs. It hurt, like hell.

To cap everything off, Grace was acting like a brat.

She had frightened me to death when she went gallivanting off with Rachel into the water with no sun protection on and although I may have overreacted a little, she didn't realise how serious cancer was.

I knew that I had to get her eating habits under control from the moment she found out that I had swapped all of her swimsuits for bikinis because I knew she would stop eating to look thin in them. I just wished that one day she would look at herself in the mirror and realise that she was still underweight and so tiny, not fat.

She looked tired as we walked back to the villa and all I wanted to do was scoop her up and tuck her into bed, but I thought it was horrendously rude for her to just exclude herself from the evening drinks to watch tv. I couldn't believe how badly she had acted all of that day and she was thoroughly annoying me.

As I came out of the bathroom from peeing for what felt like the millionth time, Liz was standing waiting for me

"Hey" she took me by the arm and sat me on the bed

"Hey, what's up?" I asked, I was always happy to see Liz

"We need to talk"

"Are you breaking up with me?" I made a joke, but she didn't laugh like she normally would at my humour

"Sarah, I know you think that Grace acted out of line a few times today, but I think you need to cut her some slack"

I was shocked by what she was saying "I'm sorry, what?"

"Come on Sarah." She was dead serious "You've been mean to her today, she didn't deserve being shouted at like that"

"Liz, she's acting like a brat" I raised my voice

"No, you're just hormonal and pregnant. Everything is annoying you right now"

"Liz, I appreciate you trying to be a good aunt, but why don't you stick to parenting your own children and leave me to parent mine?" I snapped at her which was unusual because in the 39 years that she had been alive, I think I could count on one hand the amount of times we had argued.

I got up to walk away but she grabbed my arm "Don't do this to her, don't start pushing her away now because you have Holland and a new baby. She was there when they weren't and she's a good kid and you know it"

I raised my eyebrows at her bluntness "I am not pushing her away, in fact last week I couldn't get enough of her, all I wanted was to have her close to me"

"Well maybe you should think about that next time before you make her hate you and not want to be around you. That kid thinks the world of you, she always has and she's always suffered because of it. The least you could do is acknowledge that although you weren't always around that much, her love was constant for you"

"And my love continues to be constant for her, but I cannot let her run riot she'll be an adult in a few years. She needs to start taking responsibility for herself and her actions" 

"Have it your way, Sarah, but remember that deep down she's still that little girl who looked up at you with those wide eyes in admiration like you were some God and that same little girl who saw all of the goodness in you even when you had to leave her to go away to work. No matter what, that little girl has never stopped loving you, most other kids would have given up by now."