Chapter 8

“Happy birthday princess” I say as I stroke Rosie’s soft hair, she opens her sleepy eyes and wraps her little arms around my neck. We have a cuddle in her bed for a few minutes until she remembers it’s her party today. “Party time! It’s my party today!” she kicks her duvet off and jumps out of bed, doing a funky dance around her room and wiggling her bum. She slips straight into her Cinderella dress without taking her pyjamas off and runs downstairs.

I spent the evening decorating the house and I can hear her excited squeals as she takes everything in “wow mummy this is amazing!”

I join her downstairs and she gives me a big hug. “Thank you Mummy”

“You’re welcome my darling, let’s go and get your brothers up”.

 

                                                                      *

 

The house is filling up with Rosie’s school friends. I still haven’t told her about Cinderella coming as I wanted it to be a huge surprise. My tummy gets butterflies with the excitement of seeing Rosie’s face when she arrives. Joshua and Harry are dressed as pirates and are joining in the fun with Rosie and her friends. Liana came over early with Kristian and Luna to help prepare the party food and help with the chaos of looking after fifteen five-year-olds, I am incredibly grateful for their help.

There’s a knock at the door, Rosie looks out of the window, “Izzy! Mummy, Izzy’s here!”

She rushes over to the door, jumping up and down until I open it. Standing there is a sweet little girl with curly brown hair, dressed as Anna from Frozen, and next to her, is Daniel! Rosie’s best friend is Daniel’s daughter! Rosie and Izzy jump around together and give each other a hug.

“Hi, come in” I say. Daniel hands Rosie her presents, “thank you” she says with a huge smile on her face, she takes Izzy by her hand, and they run off together.

“Are you happy for me to stay?” asks Daniel

“Yes of course, most parents dropped and ran, would you like a drink?” I try to speak cooly and not show the excitement and nervousness I feel as Daniel steps into my house. We walk through to the kitchen, “Could I get a cup of tea please?” Daniels asks “yes, I’ll pop the kettle on. This is Liana and her husband Kristian” I gesture to my friends plating up finger sandwiches, “this is Daniel”. Liana whizzes round, “Oh this is Daniel!” she says eyeing him up, I shoot her a look as if to say, ‘shut up Liana’. She catches my glimpse, shakes his hand and says, “nice to meet you”.

“How do you take your tea?” I ask, “white with one sugar please” he replies. I nervously make his tea and notice my hand is shaking as I pour the hot water into the cup. Pull yourself together Alice for goodness’ sake.

Kristian and Daniel start up a conversation and after I’ve passed Daniel his tea I grab Liana, “We’ll be back in a sec” I say to the men “Just checking on the children”. As I pull Liana out of the kitchen into the dining room, I do a little tippy tappy dance “oh my god, Daniel is in my house! He’s Rosie’s best friend’s dad!”

“No way, what are the odds? Do you know if he’s with anyone?” she asks

“No, I wasn’t thinking about that, I was too excited, anyway, how am I meant to ask? Oh, hi I think you’re really fit, is Izzy’s mum in the picture?” Liana laughs at me, “I think there may be a more subtle way of asking” she says.

Just then there’s another knock at the door, in the excitement of Daniel turning up at my house I’d completely forgotten about Cinderella!

“Rosie, someone’s here, come and open the door with me” I call out. Liana gets her phone out ready to record Rosie’s reaction. Rosie runs over to me, still hand in hand with Izzy and I open the door. Rosie’s face lights up and I can see tears filling her eyes “Cinderella!” Rosie cries and jumps straight into the princesses’ arms. Cinderella looks like the real deal with her sparkly blue ball gown, black choker necklace and blonde hair scraped back into a perfect ballerina bun.

“Hello there Rosie” Cinderella says in the sweetest, slightly annoying princess voice as she’s still being hugged by Rosie “I’ve come to spend your birthday with you, is that ok?” “Oh yes please” says Rosie in excitement. I show Cinderella into the living room where the children are all playing. Cinderella looks to me and says, “go and get yourself a drink, I’ve got it from here”.

I walk into the kitchen and make myself a coffee. The men are still chatting, I hear them mention superheroes and Daniel mentions his favourite is the green arrow. I take a sip of coffee as Liana says “So Daniel, where’s Izzy’s mum? Is she at work orrrrr….” I choke on my coffee, and it starts dripping out of my nose “Oh my god, I’m sorry, excuse me” I run off to the toilet to grab a tissue. Why would she ask him that, and in front of me? I’m going to kill her! As I make my way back into the kitchen, Daniel is explaining how Izzy’s mum had an affair when Izzy was a baby, she left him and Izzy when Izzy was only a year old, and they haven’t heard from her since. “The last I heard she started a new family with the bloke she had an affair with, but we don’t have any contact with her” he says looking down at his shoes. This poor man. “I’m so sorry” I say, I go to put my hand on his arm but change my mind. “I’ll make you another tea?”. Daniel looks up and gives me a nod and a thankful smile.

 

                                                                     *

 

Cinderella spends two hours telling the children stories, painting the girls’ nails (and the boys if they wanted it), singing songs and playing party games. When it was time to do the cake, she exclaimed “Oh, it’s me!” we all sang ‘Happy birthday’ to Rosie and then it was time for Cinderella to go. “Please may you meet me out the back” she asks me, “yes of course, I’ll see you in a minute”.

I pop out of the back gate to where Cinderella is waiting next to a clapped-out red fiesta and to my surprise, she speaks in her ‘real’ quite common voice, “That’s £250 then yeah”. “Yes, here you go, thank you so much, you were amazing”, I hand her the money, “Thanks” she says as she hops into her car, pulling the ballgown in after her and drives off.

As I step back into the house, Daniel is sat at my dining table and all the little girls are giggling as they paint his nails sparkly pink and use Rosie’s hair chalk to colour his hair in green, most of it is on his scalp as he looks as though he has a number one all over. Liana is taking photos, and everyone is having a wonderful time.

 

                                                                       *

 

When the party is over, all the children have left, including Daniel. Kristian has taken Luna home and Liana has stayed to help me clear up.

“Thank you so much for all your help today” I say as I give Liana a hug, “of course, anytime” she says, “sorry about asking Daniel about his relationship status, I didn’t realise it would be so sad”, “I know right, I feel so sad for him, honestly, what sort of mother leaves their baby? He looked really down when he spoke about it, but he also seems like an amazing Dad”

“Absolutely” Liana agrees, he was amazing with all the kids today, they were clambering all over him, such a good sport”.

 

Liana leaves as I’m putting the last dishes away. Joshua, Rosie and Harry have been playing together in Rosie’s room with her new toys while we had been cleaning away. I go upstairs and start to run them a bath, thinking about what Daniel had said. I’m surprised he opened up like that in front of new people. I could never imagine leaving my children. Poor Izzy growing up without her mum in her life.

I peek into Rosie’s room and happily watch my children playing so nicely together. I’m blessed to have this life.