Then Old Chestnut appeared in the doorway.
“Lachlan Lockhart?” he boomed.
Lachlan froze. Oh no. What had he done?
He dropped the lion on his bed and stood at attention.
The other boys watched him, not daring to make a sound this time.
“Come with me,” Old Chestnut said, beckoning him with the crook of his finger.
Lachlan’s heart started racing. This didn’t sound good.
He walked past Davie, eying him nervously, but Davie only smiled at him. “Good luck,” he whispered.
Good luck? Good luck?
Lachlan looked up at Old Chestnut, hope rising in his chest. The old man was giving nothing back.
“Follow me,” he grumbled, walking down the hall.
Lachlan quickly followed him as fast as his little legs would carry him.
Down, down, down the hall, down the stairs, all the way to Mr. Ratchet’s office.
“Now Lachlan,” Old Chestnut said to him as he opened the door. “There’s someone here to see you, someone that you—”
He stopped talking as they entered the room.
Ratchet was sitting there at his desk but the chairs across from him were empty. The air carried a familiar smell, a wash of cigarette smoke and something else.
Lachlan’s heart lurched.
“Where did she go?” Old Chestnut said.
Ratchet barely looked up over the papers. “She just left. Changed her mind. Said something about the boy being more trouble than he’s worth.” He eyed Lachlan. “I hate to say it but she might be right.”
“Who left?” Lachlan asked, amazed he found his voice to speak. “Who?”
“Your mother,” Ratchet said, sorted out some papers. “She was going to take you back. But if you ask me, I’m not sure that would have worked out for the best. If she took him back, perhaps child services would have looked into it. I’m not sure she’s all there in the head.”
But Lachlan stopped hearing what Ratchet was saying.
His mother?
His mother!
Before he could process any other thought, any other feeling aside from pure desperation, he turned and ran through the open door and out into the hall.
“Lachlan!” Old Chestnut yelled after him and he knew the old man was hot on his trail, his footsteps echoing down the hall.
But he didn’t care.
His mother was here.
He had to stop her from leaving.
He had to convince her to take him.
Lachlan ran all the way to the front door and pulled at it. It was really heavy so he heaved and pulled with all his might, finally getting it open.
Just in time to see his mother about to step inside a cab.
“Mum!” Lachlan screamed.
He lifted his foot, about to run down the steps.
But then Old Chestnut’s arms wrapped around him, holding him back.
“No!” Lachlan screamed, squirming in Chestnut’s grasp, his own little arms reaching out for his mother. He was wild, he was desperate, he would do anything to escape, to have someone love him, to have his mother back, as awful as that life before was.
But his mother looked Lachlan dead in the eye.
And her face said nothing at all.
She did nothing at all.
Except get in the cab.
“No!” Lachlan cried out, tears pouring down his hot face. “No, no, no! Please come back! I’ll be good, I’ll be good. Don’t leave me! Mum! Please!”
But the cries would do Lachlan no good.
She did leave him.
Again.
The cab puttered down the road, leaving Lachlan behind with a ravaged heart and a sunken soul
He knew she would never come back.
One
Kayla
“Oh my god, it’s fucking snowing,” I exclaim, my eyes glued to the window watching the fat flakes fall from a blurry sky.
“It’s what?” Lachlan shouts from the bathroom where he’s attempting to shave, trying to be heard over the running water.
“It’s snowing,” I say again, turning around as he comes out of the bathroom, half his face covered in shaving foam. I love me a stubbly Lachlan (something about the way his facial hair gives me just the right friction when he’s going down on me), but every so often he shaves and it’s like I have a whole other husband.
He glances out the window at the falling flakes that are starting to stick to the ground, and grunts. “Looks like practice shall be a wee bit chilly this morning,” he says, heading back to the bathroom.
I take a brief moment to admire the massive muscles and intricate tattoos of his back.
“It’s not going to get cancelled?” I ask.
“Not a chance,” he replies.
I let out a sigh of relief.
The thing that my dear husband doesn’t know is that I have spent the last few months planning the biggest surprise for him, and it all starts today. I need him to be at rugby practice in order for this thing to go off without a hitch.
You see tomorrow is Valentine’s Day.
Which is usually a special day for most couples but for us it’s even more so because it’s Lachlan’s birthday. Now, one would think that being born on Valentine’s Day would be a fun occasion, but it’s not the case with him.
Lachlan was given away to an orphanage on his birthday.
He rarely talks about it and I don’t blame him, but it’s one of the many reasons why he’s very raw and sensitive about that day. Not that you’d know it, Lachlan does tend to brush off things like that. But I know him enough to know how much that day matters, how every year it brings up the same pain and rejection.
Sooooo this year, I decided to do something different.
Something that would make him immensely happy.
His cousin Keir lives here in Edinburgh and we hang out with him and his fiancé Jessica all the time (she owns a really awesome yoga studio that focuses on people with disabilities, and she lets me drop in for free when I feel like getting “centered”). Lachlan thinks that we’re going out for dinner tomorrow, just the four of us.
But that’s a lie.
Tomorrow we’re having a party here at the flat.
He doesn’t know about that.
He also doesn’t know about the guest
