Chapter 21

Sian pov

Since the Thailand trip wasn't really discussed and happened a little too quickly we decided to wait a couple of weeks to discuss it more and also to give Tong and I some time to figure out how to handle the shop, we don't know if we're going to close it or attempt to hire temporary staff to look after it for us while we're away. Right now we're just trying to get through the day because we've fallen behind a bit due to a nervous rescue dog that wasn't to impressed with being groomed for the first time, we're just doing the last two dogs now and we were supposed to close fifteen minutes ago so we had to phone the two owners to let them know it would be slightly later before their dogs are finished.

Finally both dogs are done and the owners come to pick them up, we start closing the shop up and head home for the night. As we head out the door I notice that the building across the street that was for sale now has a sold sign outside of it, it looks like we're going to have some new neighbours I wonder what it's going to become.

"It's a pretty big building so it's possibly a retail company that's bought it" Tong says doing that weird ability he has to read my thoughts.

"It's possibly but the huge field behind it is part of it so however owns that owns the field too what would a retail place do with that" I ask.

"Well they could remove the greenery and put concrete down so they would have their own private car park which would make sense because the one around the corner is always full and there'll be more customers coming to go there for whatever they sell so it would make sense to open their own car park" He suggests.

"That's a good point well I guess we just have to wait and see" I say.

He agrees and takes my hand in his as we walk to the car, I'm used to doing full days now and very rarely feel tired after work now. However since today was a bit hectic I do feel a bit more sleepier than usual and the motion of the car soothing me isn't helping, I manage to fight and stay awake until we get home but when we get home we're met with our families grave faces.

"What's the matter" I ask.

"The news just finished and there's an arsonist targetting shops, they've burnt three down to the ground already but there's no sign of the person doing it anywhere" Dad explains.

"Why would someone decide to target shops" I ask.

"I don't know but I hope they find them quickly before someone gets hurt" Mum says.

"PAPA" We hear a tiny squeal and then running feet.

Tong chuckles and kneels down with his arms open just in time for Kanda to crash into them, he scoops her up into his arms and holds her close. I watch their interaction with a smile on my face as Kanda snuggles up to him, although she's close with both of us she's always been a daddy's girl since the day she was born and I know that's not going to change any time soon. She turns her head and spots me standing beside them, and holds her hands out to me.

"Mama" She says and leans over.

Tong hands her to me and I hug her close as well, she snuggles up to me and I kiss her head lovingly. She keeps her eyes on Tong watching what he's doing and making sure he doesn't go out of her sight, she does the same thing with both of us and she gets a little upset when we leave for work in the mornings.

"How was your day with nana and grandpa" I ask her.

"It was fun" She says.

"It was fun wasn't it we did lots of activities together so we could take your mind off missing mama and papa didn't we" Mum says to her.

"Yeah but I still missed you" Kanda says.

"We missed you too didn't we papa bear" I say.

"Of course how could we not miss our little princess" He says and tickles her under her chin.

She giggles and squirms in my arms then leans towards him for another cuddle, we sit down on the chairs to watch some TV with them until it's dinner time. Mum and dad got something quick to cook for tonight when it was discovered the four of us would be late home, since it won't take long to cook it's too early to start it so we continue watching TV for an hour before Tong and I go into the kitchen with mum and dad to help them cook the meal.

With the four of us working together the meal is ready and being served up in no time, I serve Kanda's portion on her very own plastic plate with her own plastic cutlery. Her hands are still slightly too small to hold our cutlery and even with the plastic ones she still struggles a bit, Tong and I sit her in between us at the table and help her to eat her dinner. I love the kitchens atmosphere at dinner time it's so loving and fun with laughter floating around, Kanda giggles to herself as she eats her dinner and Tong and I work together so we can help her eat but also eat our own meal as well.

As we eat my mobile starts to ring and I pull it out my pocket to check it, I frown in confusion as I see it's one of our clients from the shop. I hit the answer button and put the phone to my ear, the first thing I hear on the other end is a fire engine siren then Mrs Adam's voice. I can't understand a word she's saying though because she's speaking too fast and her voice is frantic, I need to calm her down if I have any hope of understanding her.

"Mrs Adams please take a deep breath and slow down I can't understand anything you're saying" I explain.

She goes quiet and all I can hear is the sirens in the background, I can hear her taking a couple of deep breaths and I wait patiently. Everyone in the room have gone quiet and they're watching me to see what's going on, I shrug my shoulders to show them I don't know what's wrong yet and they wait with me.

"Sian you have to get down here the shop is on fire" She says.

"Wait the shop as in my shop" I ask.

"Yeah the fire brigade is trying to put it out but it's really bad you need to get down here now" She says.

"OK I'll head there now" I say and hang up the phone.

"The shop is on fire we need to get down there right now" I say to Tong.

"We'll stay here with Kanda you go on ahead" Mum says referring to herself and dad.

Mylee, Kurt, Tong and I get up and run out the house, I start running as fast as I can in the direction of the shop and I can hear the others behind me. As we get closer to the shop I see black smoke filling the sky, I keep running and turning the corner the shop comes into view making me stop dead in my tracks. My eyes fill with tears as I see my dream that I had since a kid burn to the ground in front of me, I feel arms wrapping around me and turn to bury my head in Tongs chest because I can't bear to watch everything I worked so hard for get ripped away from me.

"I know it's hard but we need to go ask someone what happened" Tong says.

"I know I just spent so much of my life saving to get the place it was my dream job and now it's gone" I say.

"I know baby they might be able to put it out soon before any serious damage is done lets go see if they know what happened" He says.

We head towards the people standing by and ask them what's going on and what happened but they all tell us the same thing that they don't know what happened yet they just heard it was on fire, we have no other choice but to stand there for what feels like hours until finally the fire is out. As the last flames disappear we can see the extent of the damage and it's really bad I don't even know if the insurance will help us, just when I think it can't get any worse a load creaking noise echoes through the street and the building collapses into a pile of rubble.

"If insurance wouldn't help us before they're definitely not helping us now everything I worked for is gone" I say.

"We'll work it out even if we have to relocate" Tong says.

We go up to one of the fire fighters and ask him what happened explaining that we own the place, he tells us to wait for a second because they need to finish searching the place first to see what happened. He asks us if we switched everything off and I confirm that we did and no electricity was left on, we wait for a few minutes before someone comes out to see us and we listen while they tell us that there's signs of breaking and entering. They also explain that there's evidence inside of it being arson and it looks like the same tools as the ones that were used in the other three arson fires, we thank them and with nothing left to do we have to head home to pass on the news to the rest of the family.

They're all apologetic when we tell them and Kanda gives me a big hug to make me feel better, I tell them I'm OK and we'll figure something out but deep down I'm distraught. I don't know what to do now to fix what's happened.