Boon's Bookcase

The Mum Who'd Had Enough

by

Fiona Gibson

Blog Tour

I love Fiona Gibson's books and so am delighted to be a part of the Blog Tour for The Mum Who'd Had Enough (what a fabulous title!). I have an extract for you today, so sit back with a cuppa (or something stronger if you prefer!) and enjoy.....

Extract

The trouble with being left a note like that is that you need time to figure out what the hell’s going on. Ideally, you also want access to the person who wrote it to see if they really meant it, or just lost their mind temporarily.

I mean, my record collection! Is it Springsteen that’s tipped her over the edge? One too many playings of Born to Run? I need to know as a matter of urgency, but it seems that Sinead’s phone is turned off.

The other trouble with this whole list business is that real life must continue, which means putting on a great show of everything being normal. It’s 7.46 on a bleary Thursday morning, and our son must still go to school, even if he does have a selfish incompetent father, and I need to go to work – plus, obviously, track down my wife.

While Flynn showers, I try to keep calm and not overreact, and only call her mobile eleven times.

Hi, you’ve reached Sinead. Please leave your number and I’ll call you right back … 

Such a warm, cheery voice, husky with a soft Yorkshire lilt; the voice of a woman who has always embraced life, who has reams of friends – from childhood and her art school days, and even more through being Flynn’s mum. Everyone knows her as being supremely capable, great fun, delightful company and, of course, a fantastic mother. We’d have had more babies – a whole gang – if we’d managed to conceive after having Flynn, but it only happened once. Sinead miscarried at ten weeks, when Flynn was three, and after that it just didn’t happen at all. We’re not really into ‘signs’, the two of us, but we consoled ourselves that this was probably nature’s way of urging us to count our blessings and focus fully on our son. So we didn’t go down the IVF route. Our friend Abby did, and she reckons the stress and disappointment killed off her marriage. Plus, with Flynn’s condition, Sinead and I spent enough time in clinics and hospitals as it was.

I hear Flynn emerging from the bathroom. Once he’s back in his room, I dive in, turn on the shower and take another look at the list, as apparently I hadn’t quite got to the end.