Page 124 of Hexed Up

“I’m sorry about the cupcake thing.”

She dismisses it with her hand.

“You know,” she says, “your dad lied to me when we first got together.”

“He did?”

My mum lowers her cup and smiles at me. “Yes. He told me he could play the guitar and was the lead singer in a rock band.”

“Dad!” I say. Dad is the least rock and roll person I know. I mean, he’s out fishing at this very moment, most likely dressed in thigh-high waders.

“Yes,” she says. “You see, at the time, I was desperate to date a rockstar.” Her gaze drifts off somewhere into the past.

“You wanted to date a rockstar?” I say, peering across the table at my mother, her perfectly coiffed hair, her immaculately pressed blouse, and her hygienically sparkling kitchen. I can’t picture my mum as a groupie. I can’t picture her as a groupie at all.

“Yes,” she says. “I had big ideas about marrying a rockstar and running away with him. But…”

“But?”

Her eyes find mine again.

“I fell in love with your dad. And then I discovered the truth.”

“Weren’t you mad at him?”

“Yes. But I understood. He’d done it to try and impress me. And there was something very flattering about that.”

I nod in agreement.

“So you think I should forgive Horatio?”

“That’s not up to me,” my mum says.

My grandma lowers her cloth to the table and reaches over to take my hand in both of hers. She squeezes it and lifts it to her chest. Her eyes lock on mine.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to say, Grandma,” I whisper.

“She’s saying, Molly,” my mum explains, “that love is rare and precious and often pretty messy. And if we find it, we should hold it dear.”

My grandma smiles at me as if confirming my mum’s interpretation of her gesture.

I peer back into her green eyes. They’re the same colour as my mum’s. The same colour as mine.

I see the deep wrinkles in her face, testament to a lifetime of experience, to a treasure chest of wisdom.

I think of my dad fibbing to my mum about being a rockstar. I think of the way I’ve been lying to my whole family about my job.

Gently, I pull my hand from my grandma’s grasp, lean forward to kiss her, and then I jump up onto my feet.

“I have to talk to him.”

“Horatio?” my mum asks, and I nod fiercely.

“I have to talk to him now!” I push back my chair. Then I halt. “It might mean I’m late for dinner.”

“Never mind about that,” my mum says, also standing up and following me out of the kitchen into the hallway.

I’m already calling McGruff’s name and I can hear him pounding through bushes in the distance.