One Step Closer to You by Alice Peterson

hairband at the end of the plait and swivel Emily round to face me. ‘So pretty.’ She touches the back of her head tentatively, before saying, ‘I like you.’
    My heart melts. ‘Well that’s good news, because I like you too,’ I say. Ben and I swap positions on the sofa, Ben asking Emily to sit down on the floor again, in front of him. He rolls up his sleeves as if he means business. We undo the plait; Ben brushes her hair.
    ‘Ouch!’ she shrieks. ‘Uncle Ben!’
    ‘Wimp,’ he says, and for the first time tonight I think he’s enjoying himself. ‘Like this?’ Ben grabs a section of Emily’s hair.
    I lean towards him. ‘Gently. That’s right, bring it over this strand …’
    ‘It’s coming loose, oh shit, I mean sugar.’
    ‘Oh shit,’ repeats Louis, charging around the house, now with his emergency helicopter.
    ‘Oh shit,’ Emily joins in.
    ‘My fault, sorry,’ murmurs Ben when I tell Louis off for saying the ‘s’ word. ‘There.’ Ben ties the plait together with a bright pink band.
    ‘Not bad,’ I judge. It’s wonky and won’t stay in for long, but, ‘you have potential. Go and have a look in the mirror, Emily.’ She slopes off towards her bedroom. I urge Ben to follow her.
    Emily’s room is smaller than Ben’s, with a single bed, pink-spotted duvet, and a toy sheep on her pillow. There’s another modern painting on the wall, this one with a red splodge in the middle. It looks like a nosebleed.
    ‘It’s nice,’ she says, heading out again, avoiding eye contact. Ben perches on the edge of her bed, sighs as if he has the world on his shoulders.
    I sit down next to him, wishing I knew all the right things to say. I glance around the bare room before Ben tells me, ‘I was close to Grace, we used to talk on the phone most days, she was always nagging me to come and stay.’He smiles sadly. ‘I knew Emily well enough, but I’ve never been that great with kids, as you can probably tell. The idea of having one myself …’ He inhales deeply, as if it were never on the agenda. ‘And now she’s here, it’s like we’re almost strangers.’
    ‘It’s bound to take time,’ I reassure him. ‘Where are her toys?’
    He gestures to the window box at the foot of her bed. I open it, and inside are dolls, a basket filled with wooden fruit and vegetables, a toy till and a pair of wooden stilts, everything heaped up. ‘She doesn’t want to play with them anymore,’ he says.
    I think about this, completely unqualified in this area, but something tells me that Ben needs to try a different tactic, because it can’t get much worse. ‘She probably does, but maybe you need to play with her. Does she have a picture of her mum?’
    ‘I’ve got albums.’ He looks out of the window. ‘I thought it might upset her, you know, seeing photos of Grace. At night I find her looking out into the sky.’ He stares ahead. ‘Asking for her Mummy.’ He turns back to me, panic in his eyes. ‘I’m not sure I’m cut out for this.’
    ‘Yes you are.’ I sit down next to him. ‘You’re all she’s got, Ben. She’s lost the most important person in her world, she can’t lose you too.’
    ‘I know, but …’
    ‘You’re her uncle, her
father
now.’
    We sit silently. I want to ask him about AA. ‘Ben, do you mind me asking but …’
    ‘You saw me.’
    We glance at one another awkwardly again until I say, ‘You didn’t stay long. I wanted to come after you … Was it your first time?’
    ‘No, been to a few. I’m not sure it’s for me, all that sharing stuff, talking about
feelings
.’ He pulls a face. ‘Listening to how old Bob found himself in the dustbin but crawled his way out of it.’
    I find myself smiling. ‘It’s not all like that. I’ve met some incredible people.’ I think of music producer Ryan, lovely old Harry, my sponsor, Neve.
    ‘Why were you there?’ He stares ahead.
    ‘Drink. You?’
    ‘Drink and drugs. Drink
went
with the drugs. A couple of glasses of