‘I’m going with Uncle Tony,’ Tara said firmly.

‘So am I,’ said Callie.

‘But what about driving?’ said Mimi, in a final desperate attempt to get Callie to stay with them.

‘Why don’t you grab your learner plates,’ said Tony, tossing the keys to Callie. ‘You can drive my car instead.’

Chapter Seventeen

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Same day — Christmas Eve

Andrea

Andrea had attempted to make conversation with Violet for the first fifteen minutes of the trip, but eventually she’d lapsed into silence — it was far too hard to chat properly with the combination of Violet’s tiny voice trying to reach her from the back seat and the roar of the wind with the roof down. Anyway, Violet seemed content to sit quietly and watch the darkening world go by.

The problem with the silence though, was that it was giving Andrea too much time to think. Tony and that damned stolen book. The same question had been running through her mind for the past several days: How could he do that? To his own father? And if he could do something like that, what else was he capable of?

This was the man she’d asked to have a child with her. And in a few months’ time, they were meant to be revisiting that conversation. If he came back to her and said, yes, let’s do this, would she still want to? Should she be considering bringing a baby into this relationship?

Then there was her own guilty conscience. But she quickly brushed that away. It was a mistake. Best to pretend it never happened.

Finally, Violet. The line she was crossing by taking her up the coast. The more she thought, the more she was realising that she’d done a very, very stupid thing. You could be arrested. You could lose your job. The job that you love.

She should have forgotten about the holiday and simply stayed with Violet in her apartment. That way the child still wouldn’t have been alone for Christmas but Andrea wouldn’t have been breaking the law.

She was probably going to have to turn around. She wished she’d come to her senses before getting on the freeway. Now she’d have to wait until the next exit before she could turn back. The hard part was going to be explaining to Violet that she couldn’t take her on a fun Christmas holiday after all; that instead she was taking her back to her cold, unwelcoming apartment. Back to her cruel, uncaring mother.

Just picturing spending Christmas Eve in Heather’s apartment, waiting for her to stumble in drunk or high the next morning and kick her out, made Andrea’s skin crawl. She pictured Violet waking up on Christmas morning hoping for love and gifts and festivities. Saw her disappointment when her mother instead gave her nothing but snipes and jibes.