Read Online Can't Live Without by Joanne Phillips - Free Book Online Page A

(to stop my daughter falling into a pit of teenage sex and depravity). Not bad going for one week.
    What I don’t have, however, is a scrap of spare cash, and at least two of the above require stacks of it. Or possibly all three, as my daughter is as susceptible to being bought as any sixteen-year-old. What I need is money. Money for paint and rollers and carpets and kitchen units. Money for my ever-increasing debts and my drastically decreased wardrobe. Money, money, money.
    What I need is a miracle.
    What I need is a second job!
    I’m about to pay for my coffee when I notice the sign above the till. “Friendly, outgoing staff wanted for evenings and weekends. Apply within.”
    Yes! That is it. I will get a job here, at my favourite coffee shop. It won’t solve all my problems immediately but it has to be a start. And it also has to be fate – I didn’t notice the sign the first time I was at the till because I had been trying to get Paul’s attention. And if he hadn’t left me here all alone I wouldn’t have come back to the counter and I wouldn’t have seen the sign. Fate.
    Funny thing, fate. I’ve never really believed in it before. But I guess when you’ve got virtually nothing left and your life is pretty much in tatters, even the most random thing can seem to have a special meaning. I put on my most engaging smile and ask to see the manager.

Chapter 6
    As I’m creeping down the stairs on Monday morning, trying to get out of the house without being noticed, I hear my mum crying in the kitchen. I pause, freeze-frame style, one hand resting lightly on the banister, all my weight balanced on my left leg. A memory from childhood reminds me that two of the stair treads creak near the bottom, so when I move forward I do so even more carefully. Down the hall, past the dining room, holding my breath and tiptoeing, I try hard to block out the sound of low sobbing.
    You may think it heartless, ignoring someone so obviously upset. But I have to. I can’t afford to let her into my head at the moment. This very morning I made the mistake of looking at myself in the mirror while I cleaned my teeth (usually I do it by feel alone), and the sight was really quite disturbing. Familiar but strange, like a friend who suddenly reinvents herself and you know she’s different but you can’t quite work out how.
    But in my case it was the opposite – like being un -invented.
    I concluded, after much scrutiny, that my life-long policy of trying to avoid emotional problems at all costs was definitely better for my looks and I vowed to return to it immediately. So, you understand, my looks, my health – my entire future happiness – prevent me from going to my mum at this moment.
    And I nearly make it out of the house with this intention intact.
    Nearly, but not quite.
    When I reach the front door I catch an extra loud sob and an involuntary hiccup. Silently cursing my weakness, I turn on my heel and walk calmly back towards the drama.
    The kitchen in my parents’ house is an overly large farmhouse-style indulgence. My mother sits at the enormous wooden table with her head bowed low, arms stretched in a wide circle as though hugging something. She is dwarfed by the oversized ladder-back chair and looks early-morning rough in her favourite fluffy dressing gown.
    She doesn’t notice me at first, which gives me time to take in the source of her anguish. As if I didn’t know already. She has surrounded herself with photographs: images of the family, staged scenes from long-ago holidays, awkwardly posed pictures of Billy and me as children with fake smiles or genuine frowns. But most of the photographs, unsurprisingly, are of my father.
    One picture in particular I have seen her crying over many times before. This one has him frozen in time on the day they met. It is a story she loved to tell us when we were kids, and I remember the faraway glaze that would mist her eyes when she got to her favourite part.
    Margaret Foster –