Read Online Another Love by Amanda Prowse - Free Book Online

happiness that her new friend was only a couple of doors away and dread at the showdown she felt would inevitably come when David got back with Celeste. She decided to set the table for them, as a way of making amends. Wandering back into the kitchen, she gathered two white dinner plates from the cupboard. As she carried them across the room one of them slipped from her hand and shattered into tiny pieces on the ceramic floor tiles. Her grip loosened and the other quickly followed with a loud smash.
    Romilly knelt down to retrieve the bigger shards and winced at the sharp bite of pain in her knees. It threw her forward, causing her to place her palms on the floor, and she instantly felt a similar sting in them too. Sitting back against the cupboard door, she stared at her palms; they were bloody, with fragments of white crockery embedded in her skin. Her knees were the same.
    Without thinking, she ran her hand over her face and felt the slivers stuck in her hand scrape her cheek. She started to cry. Her hands and knees hurt, her face throbbed and her palms pulsed. She could feel the warm trickle of blood over her arm and wrist.
    With her head hung forward, she sat on the floor and waited for David to come home. David, who could make everything better. A small part of her figured that if he found her tearful and bleeding, then he wouldn’t be quite so cross about her and Sara getting tipsy and forgetting to feed Celeste and put her to bed. At least that was what she hoped. She didn’t have to wait long; it was less than ten minutes before she heard the car pull into the driveway.
    ‘Mummy! We’ve got chips!’ Celeste yelled excitedly from the hallway.
    ‘David!’ Romilly called out weakly.
    Her daughter appeared in the doorway and seemed to freeze. Her little chest heaved and she looked scared.
    ‘It’s okay, Celeste.’ Romilly smiled through her tears. ‘Can you get Daddy?’
    Celeste didn’t move. Rooted to the spot, her eyes scanned the mess on the floor, darting between the broken china and her mum, who had blood streaked across her face and running from her knees where her tights were ripped.
    ‘What the f—’ David yelled over his daughter’s shoulder, remembering she was present before he swore. ‘Hey, Celeste, I tell you what, sweetheart, you go and eat your nuggets and chips in front of the telly, while I help Mummy, who has had a little fall. But she’s okay, aren’t you, Mum?’ He did his best to sound jovial, like it was all some sort of a game.
    Romilly nodded her head. ‘I’m fine.’
    ‘Come on.’ David guided their daughter from the room.
    ‘I… I need tomato sauce, Daddy,’ Celeste murmured as she made her way to the sitting room, clutching her paper-wrapped supper and glancing back towards the open kitchen door at her mum, who sat slumped with her head on her chest.
    David darted back into the kitchen. ‘For God’s sake, Romilly!’ he whispered through gritted teeth as he opened the cupboard by the kettle and pulled out the ketchup. ‘What on earth happened?’
    ‘I fell over,’ she managed.
    ‘Don’t move, love. I’ll be back in two secs.’ He rushed from the room, ignoring the crunch of their best china beneath the sole of his brogues.
    Romilly began crying again. Sad that he had sounded mad but happy and guilty that he had called her ‘love’.
    David switched on the other main light and bent down next to her. ‘What on earth have you done?’ He touched the point on her cheek where a scratch was bleeding.
    ‘I dropped the plates and they smashed and then I knelt on them and I’ve cut myself.’ Her tears came afresh.
    ‘Okay. Don’t cry, darling. It’s okay. Let’s try and get you cleaned up.’ His tone was level, kind.
    He grabbed the dustpan and brush from the cupboard under the stairs and cleared the space around her. Then he filled the mixing bowl with hot water and a dash of Dettol. Setting it on the floor, he took off his suit jacket, looped it over the