The Finite

THE

FINITE

The Finite

Kit Power

Black Shuck Books

First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Black Shuck Books

All content © Kit Power 2019

Cover design and interior layout © WHITEspace, 2019

The moral right of Kit Power to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

This one’s for Scarlet. Thank you.

I’ve loved every second of being your dad.

It’s all for you.

1

My daughter’s screams woke me. “Daddy Luke! Daddy Luke!”

I remember looking over at the empty patch of bed, where ‘Daddy Luke’ would normally be sleeping. I remember cursing him for not being here, for that bastard overnight training course taking him to London. Away from us.

“Daddy Luke!”

Fuck off, kid, you’re stuck with me tonight. “Daddy Rob is coming, sweetheart!”

I was already stumbling out of bed as I said that, glancing back at the digital clock display: 3:48. I remember thinking Christ, this fucking kid. Is she trying to kill me?

Five minutes before the end of the world, I thought that.

She didn’t protest my appearance; at least there was that. Luke and I had been trying to wean her off her dependency on him, her favouritism, but it had been hard work. Stubborn kid. She wanted what she wanted. She just clung to him. It was always Daddy Luke that got the teary hugs, the midnight calls. I envied him it, but secretly, I didn’t always mind. Especially at times like this.

“What’s the matter, princess?”

She lay in her bed, growling rather than crying, clutching her foot. “My foot has belly ache!”

“Aw, sweetheart. This foot?”

“Yeh.” She held it up for me, and I sat on the pink chair next to her bed, rubbing it. Poor kid – growing pains were really getting bad lately. I looked at her clock as my thumbs started to move gently over the soles of her feet.

3:50

“It hurts, Daddy Rob.”

“I know sweetheart, I’m sorry. Does this help?”

“Yeh.”

“Okay.”

I yawned, hard enough to make my jaw crackle a little. “It’s late! So late for a little girl to be awake.”

“Yeh.”

“Do you need some medicine, do you think? Some Calpol?”

No reply. She was already drifting off again, eyes glazing over, lips drooping. I checked the clock again.

3:51