I called the hairdresser's first thing in the morning. After a long, unsuccessful conversation with at least three different members of staff, I was told there was nothing they could do for Emma's hair. No matter how much I offered to pay them, they said that any hairdresser would be very reluctant to strip permanent black hair dye from a child's hair. And they were certainly not willing to do it. Instead, I would have to wait for the dye to grow out, taking Emma to the hairdresser's at least once a term to have her soon-to-be white-blonde roots semi-permanently dyed brown, to prevent her from looking semi-permanently ridiculous.
And all because of some stupid spur-of-the-moment decision that had driven her to turn her hair black behind our backs.
So Emma was stuck with black hair. It was such an unnatural colour against her pale skin that it almost looked like a wig. If I wasn't so annoyed at the situation, it would have been laughable.
She appeared to be ill. Her eyebrows looked almost invisible.
And I looked like the worst mother in the world.
The kids only had one week off school. After that time, I was going to have to face disapproving looks from every direction and gossip behind my back as I waved them off from the school gates every morning. And, worst of all, I was worried Emma would get teased, or even bullied, by the other kids, because, to be completely, brutally honest, her hair looked horrendous.
Emma began to withdraw herself from daily life, and Luke was acting strangely quieter and edgier than usual. I couldn't really understand why. I mean, I know he was a bit shocked about Emma's hair colour, but it's not as if he was in trouble for anything.
The happy, carefree existence I had been enjoying only a couple of days ago was gone. I missed it terribly with every hour that passed.
"Lukey, what's the matter?" I asked him every night as I tucked him up in bed.
"Nothing," was always the answer. It was blank, emotionless, removed and so unlike my son that it worried me immensely.
"You're going to have to tell me what's up some time," I tried the night before school. "Are you worried about school? Is that was this is about?"
"No."
I was getting quite frustrated, fed up of trying to no avail, so I eventually gave up asking. The days, weeks and months passed by, each as monotonous as the last and I never made my son tell me what was wrong.
That was my fatal error.
* * *
For Christmas, I was going to buy the children a puppy. In my head, I had decided that Luke's strange behaviour was partially down to the recent loss of Barney, so the only way to fix this would be to buy a new dog to fill his place.
Simon and I went "dog shopping" a couple of weeks before Christmas Day. As soon as I laid eyes on an adorable King Charles spaniel puppy, I was in love. We arranged to collect her on Christmas Eve, smuggling her into the house at night when the children were fast asleep, so the dog would be the last thing they'd expect to see on Christmas morning.
By the time Christmas Eve arrived, I think Simon and I were as excited, if not more so, than the children. We had planned everything weeks in advance; I would put the children to bed, whilst Simon would sneak out of the house to collect the puppy. When she came home, we would hide her in our bedroom for the night, where we prayed she would remain quiet, so as not to foil our plan. In the morning, we would keep her upstairs, let Luke and Emma open all their presents, then call them into our room for a last-minute surprise.
I desperately hoped Luke would be happy again when he met her.
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