Every Monday Morning Comes

  **EVERY  MONDAY  MORNING  COMES**

📞Daylight - if not sanity - slowly returned. Every Monday morning comes, but today wasn't a simple return to work downer after the weekend, it was virtually a where the fuck do our lives go from here? agita.  

     Hauling themselves from bed, the bitter taste of yesterday still clouded their thoughts and the hope of feeling better after a sleep reboot had been destroyed by poor quality for any real benefit. On top of this, Saskia was extremely distant, short and snappy when she spoke, and now insisting that she faced her mother by herself - the antithesis to how she was last night - concurring not to any of Neil's behests.  Strangely, she didn't even want to discuss the best approach to the iniquitous impact such a revelation could play on a mother's mind. But she insisted that she would sort her out  (like it was some kind of physical fight that needed knuckle dusters) herself.  So they parted to their cars, one to work, the other to face the music - chamber, of sorts, it may seem. To take on Beverly unaided initially stumped him. Ultimately, he supposed, she knew her mother better. 

Neil was willing his phone to ring, tempted to break his promise of letting her call first. Desperate for an update, his concentration for work waned, focus wandering to Saskia and how the nitty-gritty with her mother was going; the longer she held off calling him, the bigger the possibility that she'd buckled and confessed. 

   Her conduct this morning concerned him. She was trying to get over as doughty, but floated off in thought and speech, like there was something else booting about in her head that she was afraid to disclose - lay bare even. But he didn't want to press her about it at the time, they were both too drained and this morning's attempt to ask would have been fruitless considering her mood.  Call, girl, just call.

    Jacqueline noticed in less than no time that he was subjectively occupied elsewhere. Usually he had umpteen coffees downed by now, but the first one still sat on his desk, cold and scummy, and he was more or less stewing away in the greenhouse, with no office mingling or input from him. So his seclusion suggested that he may already know.  As his P.A. and trustee, even she was not brave enough to ask outright if he had any idea what was being bandied about. She had a professional duty to do so, but the subject matter was too grotesque.  God forbid the news of such ignominy having to come from her. 

After several pleading voicemails, her phone call came that night. The police visit had left her mother rattled and keyed up, but Saskia seemed to have smoothed her over with constant denial of any maleficence. While Neil had expected bombardment with calls and lawyer threats from Beverly, he'd been fearing the worst by the absence of not hearing from her until now. 

   There was the element of both good news and bad from Saskia. Firstly, Beverly had been given the all-clear from cancer and were getting cover at the café to take a girly mum-and-daughter-break for the rest of the week. While this disappointed Neil, disheartened him even, he reckoned under the circumstances, it was perfectly understandable after what she had had to endure. That was not too much of a sacrifice for something that could have turned out worse; it may even be helping to extenuate the seriousness of the police visits. Then again, it worried him that it may be Beverly's way of sugar-coating her daughter to keep them apart. No. He had to trust what Saskia had conveyed. Her absence, he told himself, would give him the chance to tie up shipment loose ends the company needed done. 

   Neither was prepared, however, for the odious events about to happen. Other more pressing matters would soon trample and ride roughshod over them. His millions would play no part in helping him through. Paying the price for love would show him that money is no respecter of prejudice and ridicule.  

  

end *EVERY MONDAY MORNING COMES**