“Emme! For God’s sakes Emmeline, answer me!” Tom slapped the banister. There was no stirring from upstairs. He muttered furiously and stomped off to the garden. 

Ever since Sarah had died seven months ago Emme’s behaviour had deteriorated into tantrums and sulks. Everyone said it was her way of coping, she was only ten; how could she begin to make sense of it all if he couldn’t? She would come out of it eventually, she just needed time and comforting. 

Tom knew there was a grieving process to get through, followed by a healing process, but he wished to God there was also a forgetting process, something to wipe away the hurt left after Sarah’s death. He had wanted to shut himself away from everything but he had Emme to look after and deal with her version of healing, which meant goading him at every opportunity. 

He sliced into the soil, jabbing and cursing. He wasn’t planting anything, just ‘making mud pies’ as Emme called it. 

At dinner Tom and Emme ate scrambled eggs on toast. Cooking was another skill he should learn sharpish, if his tongue wasn’t going to revolt in boredom. Yesterday’s exciting fare had been beans on toast and the day before was pasta and shop-bought sauce, his speciality. Sarah had been a wonderful cook who tried her hand at weird and exotic dishes.  

“What ingredients can you taste?” she would ask and invariably he would succeed in describing only half. She would giggle and reel off an enormous list which he had no hope of remembering. 

He looked over at his daughter, picking at her food and sighed. He didn’t fancy the food either, just choked it down because it was part of the routine. 

Emme caught the sigh and looked up. She wondered what went on behind her father’s blank eyes. When he had announced two months after her mother’s death his intention of working from home to spare her from going to a childminder, she had been glad. Glad to keep an eye on him and make sure he too wasn’t going to disappear out of her life. But now his sombre face made her miserable. He mooched around the house like some ready-made ghost, destined to haunt the place.  

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “I don’t think you’re a rubbish cook.” She should have answered him when he asked what she wanted for dinner. She should have said, “Oh, let’s go out to a super-dooper restaurant and eat three desserts each.” But she knew he didn’t leave the house unless for shopping or visiting head office.  

“But not the best either, eh?” He gave off a skewed smile. “Well, that’s something we’ll have to work on.”  

He pursed his lips in the direction of a sheaf of paper. “Another drawing?” 

Emme swivelled the picture round to face him. It was a sketch of Sarah, with the word ‘Mummy’ scrawled underneath. Emme’s walls were flooded with drawings featuring mummy of the orange hair, loud clothes and crazy smile. This picture showed Mummy digging in the garden, smiling widely at Emme flying high on the swing. It was completely Tom-less. 

“I miss her,” whispered Emme. 

Tom laid down his cutlery and swallowed the aching lump in his throat. He excused himself from the table and made for his bed where he stretched out and tried to think of nothing.  

A few moments later he heard Emme sniffling in the dining room, probably into the dinner he had made a hash of. She would be sitting alone, weeping, because he had deserted her, and still he couldn’t make an effort to move. Then, through the gulping and tears, came the word ‘daddy’. Always he heard her call ‘mummy’ or ‘mum’, but this time she cried out for him. What if she had called out for him before and he hadn’t heard, or chosen to hear?  

Tom sat upright. He had lost Sarah and if he didn’t stop nursing his self-pity he would lose Emme too. He strode through to the dining room and lifted up Emme’s teary face with a finger. As he hugged her he tried to remember the last time he had held her close. 

“It’s me that should be sorry, Emme. And I am.” He clasped her shaking body for what seemed like forever. 

* * * 

Two days later it was Emme’s birthday and Tom was determined to make it special. He unplugged himself from the computer, switched off the phone and set to work on a cake recipe. He followed it to the letter, attending to the egg cracking, tin greasing and even managed the elaborate fairy design. The bike was wrapped in pink paper and the house tidied before Emme returned with Gran and Gramps. 

“Great,” said Emme flatly on seeing the bike.

Gramps and Gran smiled nervously through lunch and when the flaming cake was placed in the centre of the table they really hammed it up with the singing and the hip, hip hoorays.

‘Heck,’ thought Emme, ‘a fairy cake. Like I’m six or something.’ 

Her petted lip was on display and Tom, trying to ignore it, laid a slab of cake in front of her.

Emme tapped at it with her fork while the adults trumpeted its tastiness. Gramps manfully asked for seconds and Gran encouraged Emme to talk about school, but still Emme played with the cake. 

“What’s wrong with the cake, Emme?” asked Tom in what he thought was a level tone. 

Emme noted the red sheen to his face. ‘He’s going to explode any minute.’ 

“It tastes of farts.”

Tom breathed deeply, his mind saying ‘don’t take the bait’. But as he scrutinized Emme’s taunting eyes something popped in his head. Paying no heed to Gran’s placating remarks, he picked up Emme’s cake and pushed it plumb into her face. 

Emme straightened up at once, trying to gouge out a breathing hole. Through her coughs she heard Gran begin a ‘let’s all calm down’ speech. She looked at her father through smeary eyes, noting he seemed entranced at his handiwork. She took advantage of this daze to scoop two handfuls of cake and fling them at him. Her aim was good; she caught him square in the face.  

Tom gulped and shook his head. His first impulse was to give her a stinging slap across the face. Instead, he held his hands down and gritted out staccato fashion, “What the blazes would your mother say?” 

Emme thought about this as the cream slid down her cheek and plopped onto the yellow party dress Gran had forced her to wear. What would her mother say? 

She looked at her father and then laughed. It just burst out by itself. Her mother would think it hilarious, seeing those two idiots having a cake fight. Tom snorted and joined in, surprising himself as much as the others. Laughing at the absurdness of it all; at Gran’s tut of horror and Gramp’s look of concern that his son had finally gone loopy. He laughed through his tears because it was a funny situation and that’s what normal, emotional people do; they laugh. 

After the hysterics ebbed and the tears and cake were wiped away, Emme hugged Tom.

“I love the bike, Dad. My knees were up to my chin on the other one.” 

Later, while Gran brewed tea, Gramps helped Tom and Emme plant the tree that Sarah had been growing in a small pot. Sarah had loved planting seeds and watching them grow into strong saplings. Sometimes she would spend all day busy with the garden and then test Tom. 

“What’s different about it today?” And Tom, in his work suit and weary, would say the first thing in his head. It was usually wrong but Sarah would laugh at his attempts.  

The tree was placed in the border, in the soil conveniently dug over by Tom during his frantic, maudlin moods. Emme watered it thoroughly. Sarah had cherished her garden and Tom was determined to bring the shine back; to trim the hedges, deadhead the flowers, cut the grass which had been neglected for months and stop the place being a contender for Dumpsite of the Year.  

After Gran and Gramps left with hugs all round, Emme busied herself upstairs. Later, Tom thought it would be an idea to finish the day with them watching a film together. He paused in the hall ready to shout up, but his words wisped away as he saw a huge piece of paper floating down from the upstairs landing. He caught it. It was a drawing. A felt-tipped, colour blast extravaganza depicting a brown haired man with a small smile, posing next to a girl in a sunshine yellow dress. They were holding hands around a tree.  

Underneath the script read: To the worst cook but the best Daddy in the world. Love, Emme.