Holding Hands Won't Be Enough

”No.” she mouthed, her eyes creased with sadness and wet with tumbling tears. His heart sank, he couldn’t bare seeing her hurting. She held onto his hand unfaltering, as she bowed her head slightly to wipe her eyes with her free hand before turning back to the carolers. Slowly, as the song changed to ’The First Noel’, her thumb wrapped over his, holding his hand snugger against hers. He couldn’t see anything but the small droplets of water trickling down her cold cheeks; she stared forward intently, subtly wiping the tears away with her finger tips by disguising it as moving hair from her face. He didn’t know if she would tell him what was wrong, but he knew that holding his hand was a big step in letting him back into her life, and he would wait a thousand years, just holding her hand, if it meant it helped her. He didn’t want to pry, so he stood, his stomach in knots, holding her hand as he had wanted to do for years... Oscar charged into her legs and she let go, to crouch down to him; he reached his arm out and grabbed Ville’s pant leg, looking up cheekily. Milly turned her attention upwards also, both sets of large eyes dazzled him with their glow. As much as he had always wanted to be a father, fathering Jonna’s child didn’t seem right; this is what a child should experience, a large extended family enjoying outings and love.. He just didn’t see any of that in the future he had with Jonna and as much as it killed him to think it, it was the truth.

”Why is Mum crying?” he asked loudly, causing Missy, Ape and Bam to turn. Milly stood quickly and held him close to her leg, stopping him from speaking out again.

”I’m not crying.” she insisted to her friends, ”Osi, I’m not crying... See!” she grinned down at Oscar who giggled and buried his face in her leg again. ”Come on, watch the carols..” she laughed, turning him around. He watched for all of one minute before he started clambering around Ville’s legs. ”Can you lift me up?” he asked insistently causing Ville to chuckle and pick him up from under the arms.

”Ville doesn’t want to pick you up..” Milly discouraged, reaching to take him from Ville.

”It’s fine. I like to. Really, he’s no bother.” Ville smiled, swaying to the music gently, much to Oscar’s amusement. She could feel her wind pipe tighten, threatening tears; she was about to burst when she felt an arm wrap around her, Bam’s. She looked up at him and he kissed her forehead.

”It’ll all be okay babe. Relax.”

”But, it won’t. Se-”

”I know,” he interrupted, ”Ape just told me.” Milly went to speak, but he started over her, ”Only me. She’s not stupid, she saw you crying.. Just, enjoy this. Worry about life when we get back to the hotel, I’ll take Oscar for a while and you can tear Seth a new fucking ass hole before I get the fucking cha-”

”Bam.”

”Sorry.. You know what I- Just- Fuck. I’m no good at this shit. But it will be okay, okay?” she looked over to Ville and Oscar giggling, Ville deeply signing along to the child-happy tempo of ’I Saw Three Ships’ in Oscar’s ear.

”Okay...”



Obviously, she thought, he wouldn’t be answering his phone, which is probably why she called without hesitation – because she didn’t expect him to pick up. So when he did, she almost threw up instantly.

”Mal.. I-”

”Nora..” was all she managed to let escape her shaking body.

”About-”

”This whole time..” she spluttered, ”I haven’t seen my family in two years because of your ’fear’ of flying.” she spat resentfully.

”Ma-”

”I built us a life.. A home, the studio. For my family.”

”I’m sorry.”

”You had your own family before I even existed to you.” she stated, disbelievingly. ”You could have told me.. Why didn’t you tell me?” she breathed, cupping her head in her hand as she sat at the foot of her bed, her knees curled tight up to her chest.

”I don’t know.. Because I loved you, and then Nora came and slowly this past year, I’ve just..”

”Loved her more?” she questioned, softly, bitterly.

”You can’t be angry about this, it’s not as if your slate is clean?” he rebutted insensitively.

”Excuse me?”

”You didn’t tell me about you and Ville.”

”That’s hardly on the same scale as hiding a fucking family from me.”

”Really? Because it doesn’t take a DNA expert to work out where Osi’s genes come from Mal.” he argued, ”Who’s hiding a fucking family from who now?” she was lost for words, he was right. He was absolutely right.

”But I neve-”

”Lied?” he questioned, ”You didn’t tell me you and Ville had been a couple - for years, I might add! You lied about Oscar’s paternity.. Unless I missed the part where Ville was a French one night stand and in your world years and years is one fucking drunken night in Paris!”

”How dare you make this about me. How dare you try and pin the end of our relationship on me; you have been carrying this on for longer than we’ve known each other. You had a family and let me invest my heart and my money into you, into us and our life.. Two and a half years of deceit, lying, bare faced lying... You brought her into our home, sat her down at our dinner table and let me feed and talk to her, I leant her clothes when Oscar threw up on her when he was two.. You let her hold my son. You let her touch my child...” she sobbed.

”Ville’s child.” he said quietly, Milly’s words obviously ringing harsh in his ears.

”Seth!” she shouted, wanting to scream, ”It doesn’t cancel out what you’ve done. No, I didn’t tell you the true paternity of Oscar, but why would it matter? I wasn’t planning on ever seeing Ville again. But you have carried this relationship on behind my back for two and a half years, Seth..” she sighed, composing herself slightly, ”You asked me to marry you, you wanted to adopt Oscar. Why?”

”Don’t make me tell you why..” he whispered, uncomfortably. She wasn’t stupid and it only took her a minute to think. Her mouth dropped and her brow furrowed.

”You bastard.” she whispered to herself, ”You absolute bastard...”

”Mal-”

”What? Did you go out for a nice cosy dinner and think up a grand scheme to get everything I’ve given you?” she scoffed, ”Or where you cosied up in bed on a morning I’ve thought you’d pulled an all nighter, at work, and decided to take me for whatever you can? Has it been your plan the whole time?”

”No.”

”Then what?”

”Since I knew that you still loved Ville.” he said simply. ”It made everything clear. I don’t love you, you don’t love me.. We both met at incredibly shitty times in our lives and we thought we made it better for each other, but we were just pushing the troubles away.” he sniffed and exhaled heavily, ”I think that’s why we get along so well, you know, because we’re so a like. Tell ourselves every day that life is perfect, everything is perfect, we are perfect, life is perfect... but it’s not. It hurts, the pain it just eats a way at you every day, you can’t forget it, it’s always there itching away at you – ’I wonder what they’re doing?’, ’I wonder if they miss me?’, ’Could I have done something different?’, guess, guess, guess.. Wonder, wonder, wonder.. Think, think, think.. It monopolises your thoughts.. Up until Nora was 1, I could only see her by meeting Katia’s mother, and picking her up, then dropping her off. I was barely a figure in her life other than a play date. I know what it’s like, I know regret when I see it, and I’ve been seeing it all over your face for many, many weeks now.. I know what the hurt and pain of love looks like, and it hurt me to see that on you because I wasn’t there to see it on Katia. She left me.. I didn’t have that from her, I just got the call one day saying, ’I’m sorry, I miss you’, and I did exactly what you would have done if Ville had called you, I ran back to her, because not matter what she did, I love her.”

”Then why say you wanted to marry me?” she cried, this conversation hitting home a lot harder than she’d anticipated.

”Security for my daughter. Hell, once you found out I didn’t, and still don’t, know what will happen. That studio is my life, and my life is my daughter.. I’m so sorry Mal. I’m sorry.” she pulled the phone away from her face so he couldn’t hear her cry, she pressed the back of her hands to her hot face, clammy from tears.

”Keep the studio.. Have it.. For her, not for you.” she spoke softly, ”But move out of my house.. Everything, move it all before I come home. Could you please?”

”Sure..”

”And it's Milly...” she ended the call and tossed her phone far away from her, it scattering under a sofa in the distance. She pulled her jumper sleeves over her hands, curled into the fetal position on the patch of floor she was sitting on and cried.