will have to pay some sort of child support, won’t he?’ I realised I was asking the woman with the friendly smile on the billboard opposite us as we waited for the traffic light to change.
‘What, Mumma?’ Thomas’s little forehead crumpled into a frown. His floppy brown fringe needed a trim. I met his eyes in the rear-view mirror. ‘Nothing, darling. Sorry. Don’t worry, Mumma’s just having a bit of a rough day today. It’s going to be okay.’
He kept watching me, cracker in one hand, as the traffic light went green and I put my foot on the accelerator. The irony was, I had a tower of parenting books on the table beside my bed. Could any of them tell me how to protect a two-and-a-bit-year-old from a sudden-onset paternal midlife crisis?
What would I do if the baby woke just as Thomas was falling asleep, his little arms wrapped around my neck? And would I ever get another shower again, if I had to coax two of them through breakfast first? Thomas stretched his hand out, making a smeary print on the window. I watched him drag his finger through the crumbs left on the glass.
Back at the house, Thomas splashed in his paddling pool in the late afternoon sunshine. The leaves on the tree in the middle of our lawn had curled prematurely, dropping one by one and forming a mushy brown mulch. The lawn looked exactly as I felt. I propped myself on an outdoor dining chair and tracked back through my missed calls. One number had tried me three times already. I pressed the button to call it back.
A woman’s voice answered on the first ring. ‘Rachel.’ She exhaled my name into the phone. ‘Thanks so much for getting in touch. I just wanted to run a story idea past you. I think it’s pretty neat – one of my clients is launching a new business …’
I yelped as Thomas threw a plastic bucket of water at my legs. I held up a finger.
‘Rachel? Are you okay?’ The PR woman was still talking.
‘Sorry, yes. Just working from home with my son today.’ Thomas frowned and backed up for another attempt.
Her laugh tinkled down the phone. ‘Oh, don’t worry. I know how that is.’
I would have bet anything that she didn’t. I’d heard from a friend that she had employed two nannies, working in tandem, so that she could carry on with her life fairly untroubled, despite the arrival of twins. It had made me question my life choices.
Thomas took aim with his next bucket-load. I grabbed the pail from his clutches, and with a surge of anger shooting through me, threw it to the far corner of the garden. His face fell as he turned away. A twang of remorse tugged at my chest. I reached to pat his shoulder, but he ducked and darted away to the bucket.
‘So it’s ground-breaking, exciting stuff. Was hoping you might like to do an interview? I could set it up for any time that suits you.’
Thomas pumped his fists in the air as I watched him attempt to kick water at me from the far end of his paddling pool. I turned away from him and huddled over the phone. ‘Do you think you could pop the details in an email to me?’
When the water in the pool was evenly spread across the rest of the garden, Thomas moved to his bike and propelled himself along as fast as his lean legs would permit, heading for the gate. When at last I was able to put the phone down, I stumbled after him. ‘Get back here.’
He shook his head. ‘Leaving.’
I dropped to his height and blocked his path. ‘Sorry for throwing your bucket, darling. I was trying to concentrate on my call.’
He kicked at the ground. ‘Hungry.’
I hauled myself to my feet. ‘Okay, let’s go inside and see what we can find, shall we?’
Of all the parenting things at which I was failing, feeding Thomas seemed the most egregious.
When he was first starting to eat solid food, I would spend every other Sunday evening cooking and freezing nutritious meals with a laundry list of clean foods like kale and quinoa. He invariably turned his nose up, and more went on the floor than in his mouth. Defeated, I’d let the most recent freezer stash run out, and now the chances of me producing more than a plate of fish fingers for his dinner were slim. The most I could hope for was that there was a handful of oven chips somewhere in the bottom of the garage chest freezer to accompany them.
I stripped off Thomas’s wet things and positioned him on the couch with my iPad and one of his favourite YouTube clips, of children unwrapping Kinder Surprise eggs. Before I became a parent, I would not have believed such a thing existed, but he would always find them, even if I dutifully set up something like Thomas the Tank Engine. How could a child who could not read, write, or even reliably use the toilet navigate YouTube on an iPad?
I arranged the fish fingers, chips, some carefully sliced carrot and a spoonful of hummus on to one of those plastic platters designed for fussy kids who don’t like their food groups to touch. I had bought a set thinking they might inspire me to serve up interesting antipasto-style meals for Thomas, with morsels of healthy treats for him to select from. Pinterest mums always provided a selection of examples to follow. But the pressure of having to come up with something for each of the spots was intense. Once I had found myself adding a few cornflakes, just so he wouldn’t have an empty platter segment.
The landline phone jingled and startled me; I’d almost forgotten we still had one.
‘Is this Murchison Contracting?’ The man’s voice was gruff. Stephen must have his work phone off. I pushed an image of him in bed with Alexa out of my mind, dabbing at an unidentified splotch on my shirt.
‘Oh sorry.’ I tried to hit the pitch and tone of a cheery receptionist. ‘Stephen Murchison’s gone out of business. Terrible thing.’
There was a pause. ‘Are you sure? Stephen?’
‘Quite. Allegations of poor workmanship. Awful situation. I’m just taking the calls. Should I take a message?’
The man coughed. ‘Never mind. I’ll try someone else.’
Thomas wailed from the lounge. My iPad had run out of battery. I ushered him in to the dinner table, helping him use my bump as a kind of step stool on to his seat. ‘What you eating?’ He looked at me.
I could not respond. My stomach was still doing an impression of the kitchen blender but if I threw our routine off track, I might never get him into bed. It was only the promise of a bath on my own once he was asleep that was getting me through the evening. I half-heartedly picked a limp fish finger from the oven tray and put it on a bread plate. I slid into the chair next to him and gave him what I hoped was an encouraging smile.
He frowned. ‘You sad, Mumma? Daddy home?’
I had to turn my face away and pinch my thigh to stop a surge of tears. ‘I’m fine, darling, don’t worry. I’m not sure what Daddy’s up to, but you’ve got me tonight, okay?’
I clenched his hand, probably a little too tightly. With three of us around the dinner table, the six-person setting had seemed appropriate. With just us two, it seemed empty. Of course, it would not be long before we would have another person with us in her high chair, throwing her own fish fingers on the ground. Somehow the thought did not make me any happier.
It turns out you can share a house with someone for more than a decade and still not really know them.
I
