Duplicity (Seraph)

by Elodie Hart

‘One more thing. You harm my friend, physically or emotionally, and I will take great pleasure in skinning your balls with a rusty butter knife. Do I make myself clear?’

I have to attract her and impress her and make her trust me and desist from freaking her out, and as I stare at her, that all seems like a pretty tall order.

Every CEO should think about hiring the mother of a sick child—we’re resilient as fuck and tough as old boots and we don’t take no for an answer, because we’ve fought every fight and challenged every no and hustled every single medical body with laser focus and indefatigable commitment to a single cause.

My email strategy centres around deleting everything possible and shooting back replies to everything else. It’s an endless game of tennis, and as we approach Butler’s Wharf, every single ball I had is now littering someone else’s court.

My beautiful Marlowe is mother to a gravely ill eight-year-old little girl, and I didn’t know a damn thing about it.

I take them both in, and I know for certain that I will never be the same again.

Whatever fuckwittery he’s been guilty of recently, right now he’s undoubtedly my safe space, my port in a storm.

‘I’m good for absolutely nothing in this life but making you happy. Nothing. So let me do that for you. Because I’m yours.’