Reset

“I don’t think I’ll be up to cooking, maybe you could bring something from the diner?” Regina asked, “and then we can speak to Henry about our plans?”

Emma nodded slowly as she stared at Grace, “sure, sounds like a plan.”

Regina smiled at the way Emma was looking at Grace, “and I’d love some help getting Grace to bed this evening, I’m sure I’ll be exhausted by then. That’s if you don’t mind, of course?”

Emma looked up at Regina’s face and nodded, “sure, I can help out,” she shrugged lightly, “shall we come over around six?”

Regina nodded, “sounds perfect, I’ll see you then.”

Emma quickly turned and made her way out of the house without another word. She kept reminded herself that this was just temporary until Regina was feeling better and that she owed the woman the help considering what she had done for her.

She was glad she could tell Henry about their plans sooner rather than later, she had a feeling that Henry would push to stay over at Regina’s as soon as possible and the sooner that happened the sooner Emma could leave.

Chapter 47

Emma rushed into the apartment and closed the door behind her and leaned heavily on the door, she raised her hand and looked at her watch and calculated that she had just over an hour until Henry got home from school.

Her eyes darted around the apartment as she mentally calculated what she had to do and in what order. She assigned timescales to each task and then got her mobile phone out of her pocket and called the physical therapy department at the hospital and cancelled her appointment for that afternoon and rescheduled it for the next week. She didn’t have time to waste with the therapy and rearranging it for next week wouldn’t seem as suspicious as not booking in a new appointment.

She leant heavily on her crutch as she made her way to her bedroom as she approached the bed she used the foot of the crutch to hook out the suitcase that was stored under her bed by the handle. It scraped noisily across the floor and she kicked the lid open and looked around the room with a thoughtful gaze.

Opening her closet and her drawers she debated what she would need for wherever she was going, which was something that hadn’t been decided on yet. Away was as much as Emma had currently decided so she knew she had to pack for all eventualities. Tank tops, jeans, jeggings, smart clothes and dresses made their way into the case before sleepwear and a couple of photo albums were added to the top. A couple of books and her laptop completed that case and she closed the lid and put the case by the door.

Using the crutch again she hooked the handles of a sports holdall from the top of her wardrobe and packed a few more items of clothing and other personal effects into that. In the bathroom she took a few supplies but left enough that it didn’t look empty. On the top she put her baby blanket and zipped up the bag.

She picked up the suitcase and hooked the handles of the sports holdall with her crutch and dragged both into the living room before picking up a couple of items in there as well and putting them in the sports holdall as well.

By the time Henry got home Emma had managed to put both bags in the front compartment of the Bug and was grateful, not for the first time, that the storage space was in the front of the vehicle and couldn’t be seen from the outside. Of course it meant sacrificing her spare wheel but it was a small price to pay for the extra privacy.

“How’s Mom?” Henry asked as soon as he got home.

“She’s good,” Emma said with a smile as she sat in the living room reading her book and watched as Henry helped himself to juice, “don’t have too big a snack, we’re heading to Granny’s in half an hour to pick up take out.”

Henry frowned, “take out?”

“Yep, Regina invited us to dinner tonight,” she smiled as a big grin overtook his face.

“Cool!”

“We also wanted to talk to you about something,” Emma began the speech she had been preparing in her mind for the last twenty minutes.

Henry looked worried and came and sat in the living room with her, “am I in trouble?”

“No, nothing like that,” Emma shook her head, “we wanted to talk to you about you maybe splitting your time between staying here with me and staying with Regina.”

As she suspected, Henry looked at her in happy amazement, “really? You both want that?”

“Yes, we think it’s what you want.. is that right?” Emma questioned him but she could already see in his face how happy he was.

“Yes! That would be amazing, then I could spend time with Mom and Grace and I can still see you!”

Emma gave a quick inhalation of breath at the way Henry casually added her on the end of the sentence, like an afterthought. She knew in her heart he didn’t mean it like that, he was a kid and wasn’t great at finessing a thought before saying it but she knew that his heart lay with Regina and Grace and that he’d be happier there.

“Will I have my own room there?” Henry asked with a confused frown.