I own none of LwD as usual. I've missed you and I've missed writing. Nice to be back and again, thank you so much for all the kind feedback and nice PMs after the last chapter.

Chapter Twelve - It Gets Worse

After Derek carried Callum home, I fell into the deepest, most satisfying sleep I'd had in days only to be woken jerkily by the sound of my cell phone ringing. It was still semi-dark, so I stumbled out of bed and tried to find it by touch, knocking over one of my smaller potted plants and finally locating the glowing, buzzing object, which had buzzed its way off the bedside table and onto the floor.

'Hello', I coughed. I'd had four hours sleep.

'Caseeey – you have to help me!'

'What is it, my darling?' Callum's voice was so heavy with anxiety that I almost shouted my question.

'Shhh! Don't shout. Casey, I left Dad's letter with you. What shall I do? He's going to wake up any minute now and I'm gonna' get busted. And so are you… Think of something.' His voice was a whisper but managed to convey all the urgency of the situation. I looked at my watch – a quarter past six.

'Hold tight, buddy. I'll be round with the letter in ten minutes. Your dad isn't going to be up at this unearthly hour on a Sunday, so try to calm down and get ready to open the door for me. Okay?'

'Okay, Casey. But hurry.'

'I will, my pet.' I made sure he'd hung up before I switched off my phone. I was in jogging shorts and a t-shirt inside of thirty seconds, with the letter stowed snugly in my pocket. A cold dawn breeze and a few surprised dawn birds greeted me when my feet hit the sidewalk.

An hour later, I was back in bed, trying to get back to sleep. It was Sunday after all. I should have been able to relax.

I'd dropped off the letter, had a whispered conversation with Callum outside the front door and told him to go back to bed after replacing the letter on Derek's desk.

The dark circles around his eyes might not be a matter of comment for his father, but Sandy was picking him up that afternoon to drive him back to Quebec city in time for school and she would certainly wonder why her son had been getting so little sleep. I didn't want her to have an argument with Derek in front of Theodora. I didn't want anyone asking questions. I didn't want Derek to suspect Callum. What I wanted was…

Derek.

Argh! I had a sudden flash of his eyes and hands, and the lingering feel of his fingertips on my cheek. I'd wanted ALL of him, the strong arms and the quirked eye-brows and the teasing lips and the boy I remembered and the man he was for the rest of our lives. And now - all I would ever get were these absolutely contained but sensual gestures, so subtle that to anyone else they would look like the family affection we had failed to mime so long ago.

Did he think I was made of ice? All these years, I'd waited. I should just quit my job, sell my apartment and disappear. Somewhere far away from him and all the trouble he brought me.

Beset by bitterness, I tossed and turned. Finally, around eight, I managed to doze off and that's when the nightmare engulfed me.

--

When Callum was nearly three - and believe me, he was chubby, cute and incredibly energetic - Derek and I took him to 'Hoopland' in Toronto. It was one of those places that had ceiling-high soft play areas cordoned off with hanging curtains of tattered plastic, bright colourful balls galore and a screaming mass of parents, nannies and children all drinking soda, eating fries or sliding and slipping up and down mountains of plastic-covered foam-rubber.

Derek took one look and said, 'Oh No! We're NOT going in there!' Shaking his tousled hair at me, giving me THAT LOOK.

But by the time I'd decided he was right, Callum had found a tiny friend, a pig-tailed tomboy about a year older than him, and they were off, laughing crazily and throwing small plastic balls at each other in a pit full of plastic balls.

He'd looked so happy.

We'd sighed and seated ourselves ringside, to get the best possible view of the kids. (Little girl's mother turned out to have two others, both under four, and was somewhat preoccupied with feeding her baby.)

We bought coffee and cookies; then orangeade and a cup cake. Derek started to text someone on his mobile, then thought better of it and just stared moodily at me, flicking crumbs from the table in my direction.

Callum sweated and ran and panted and giggled as he slipped under and over the swinging plastic barriers, up and down rubber ladders, following his new friend round and round the huge in-door play arena.

We were meeting up after a gap of three months. I was studying for my Masters and had tried to work without obsessing about Derek. I hardly knew what he was doing any more. I wanted to talk, but there was almost too much to say. So I kept quiet. Then he told me that Sandy had decided to leave Toronto with Callum. So he was going to have to move and leave the school where he'd just got a job. It was going to be the pattern of the next few years of his life and he was less than pleased.

'First I give up all my bloody prospects in hockey for her, and get a steady job, and now she wants to make something of herself and I'm supposed to just drop it all, no please or thank you, and go zooming round the country after her. It stinks.'

Derek was on a roll now and needed to vent about Sandy and her selfish decision to move.

Callum galloped past and I winked at him, ignoring his father. I noticed he'd lost his socks but didn't say anything.

Then I turned and gave Derek warm sympathy and plenty of cookies.

Finally, he took my hand and laced his fingers through mine, saying that at least she might move them closer to me - already up in Montreal by then - so that we'd get to see more of each other. I muttered that then I needed to move as well so we could stay the same distance away, because I needed to see more of them like I needed a hole in the head. Soon we were joking and teasing like we always used to; he actually smiled, and I actually felt joyous and childishly pleased. I hadn't yet met James, all that misery was still to come, and Derek was the shining centre of my universe.

And then it hit us.

We'd taken our eyes off the kids – for at least two minutes, and neither of us had been paying attention.

As if with one breath, we both jumped up and went to look in opposite directions, calling out to Callum.

The next ten minutes passed in a blur of hysteria. By minute three, we were shrieking Callum's name, and the little girl's mother was weeping and calling softly to her daughter. The play-scheme staff were talking to each other on little radios and asking us for descriptions of Callum, his clothing, particularly, how tall he was.

My knees had gone weak; yet, compared to Derek, I was calm. I bit my lip until it split. Then, methodically, I went from area to area, checking in all the darkest corners, climbing all the equipment, the bouncy castles, the slides, going through into hoops and tunnels that only toddlers could crawl.

That was how I spotted them. Right up at the top of the largest of the slides, where only eight and nine year olds were supposed to go. They were too far above to hear us, but I could tell that Callum was distressed. I hardly remember now what route I took, but I didn't listen to the staff telling me not to, I just swung myself up from place to place until I was with the little boy and girl, then I hugged them both and brought them down.

Derek didn't let go of Callum for the rest of the day, and the little girl's mom was pathetically grateful. We didn't discuss what had happened, and we didn't go to soft play ever again.

In my nightmare, it was endlessly that minute, the one when we realised that Callum was missing and I could feel Derek staring at me, in his eyes the accusation that I had made him forget his son, that it was me, Casey McDonald, who had distracted him so much, usurped his mind and his heart so thoroughly, that we had lost his little boy.

The double pain (of guilt and distress) was so excruciating that I felt it tingling in the tips of my fingers, even eight years later, as I slept in my comfy bed.

--

Forcing myself awake, I realised that I'd only ever had this terrible dream when I was worried that Derek might be separated from Callum.

Four times in all, though the last eight years, I'd had it. Usually when Derek was on the verge of refusing to follow Sandy somewhere, or when she was murmuring about leaving Canada for good. Each time, it was my intervention which had finally averted any disaster, changed Sandy's mind, calmed Derek down, brought about reconciliation. But today I felt different: powerless. This time, the nightmare didn't recede, things were far more serious and might be past changing.

I'm not, in general, a superstitious person. But this time, despite the pretty September sunlight streaming through my windows, the birds calling from tree to tree, the lovely breeze, I could not shake off the night's worries.

If Derek didn't call me soon and have that promised conversation, I was going to have to take matters into my own hands. And that meant I be taking two trips – one to London, Ontario, to gather information from George, and another much longer one to a posh Estate across the ocean in green middle England. Casey McDonald does not give up on people she loves.

I just realised that nothing good ever seems to happen to this pair without something equally awful coming along to spoil it! I'm following some strange pattern. Please do review and say how it's going for you! Your words are always much appreciated, and new readers, welcome.