Count On Me

Part Twelve

Chapter Eleven

Exhaustion. Lizzie realised she'd never known the true meaning of the word until she got home. The funeral had been whilst Nate was at school. There was no need to complicate his life with it; a funeral wasn't a place for someone so young. Marcus her neighbour had collected him from school, and he'd taken him to the local soft play afterwards.

She'd been in the house after the funeral and several glasses of wine when they got home. Oscar was there too, he'd been a bit of a limpet to her side all day. Not that she meant that as a complaint. He had been amazing, supporting her emotionally and often physically until her parents had got into their car and headed back to their bubble. They hadn't suggested seeing Nate, and hadn't enquired what was happening now his mother was gone. But she hadn't expected anything else.

"Hey champ, how was your day?"

Oscar's question dragged the youngster's attention off of her, which had to be a good thing as she knew she looked like death. She mentally pardoned the pun, then after hugging Marcus and thanking him for his invaluable help, she headed to the kitchen to make coffee. She needed something.

She could hear Nate out in the garden, whooping and laughing with Oscar. For someone who had no experience as a father, he was doing great. Janis would be pleased.

She groaned, that would be true if her sister hadn't purposely avoided including the man in her son's future. Legally he'd been excluded, ignored, and until Janis died no one knew that she actually knew the identity of his father. If Lizzie had heard the directions in the will before she'd found Oscar's name, then things could have been so different.

But she didn't want that, it was right for Nate to have Oscar in his life, and he was proving to be a good choice. Maybe she should call the solicitor on Monday, start the ball rolling in recognising Oscar as Nate's father.

But that caused a lance of pain to her chest. She would lose him, Nate, and she wasn't ready for that, not yet.

It was dark early, so the two males couldn't spend that long outside, by the time they came in, she'd made food for Nate, and had drunk several mugs of coffee, which was helping.

The next hour was spent talking about Nate's day at preschool and what their plans were for the weekend. Oscar was there, part of these conversations, but not overtaking or dominating, she was grateful for that. Saturday morning was swimming lessons for Nate, and she still intended to take him to that. Otherwise there was very little else in the diary. They could relax a little, take stock, and for Lizzie, try to plan what the future would bring.

Oscar appeared from Nate's bedroom, he was the go-to bedtime story reader these days, and smiled at her.

"You were great today Lizzie, hope you realised that."

She grimaced at that, "cos I didn't breakdown in public?"

He shook his head, "you made the funeral a reflection of your sister...her life, her spirit...when others would feel resentful you pulled it out of the bag. I may have only known you a couple of weeks, but I can't tell you how proud I felt today."

These weren't words or sentiments that she wanted to hear, she needed to keep her distance, push him away, that was how she was going to survive. Instead, he was burrowing under her skin, saying and doing things that no one had ever graced her with before.

Stepping back she gave an awkward smile, "you flatter me, I'm thinking of myself really in all this."

He shook his head, "that's not true."