I’m not that skint. What’s up?’
I watched her lean back in the chair and frown at me, twisting her hair around her fingertips. She had always made fun of Stephen and me for our ‘domestic bliss’. She bought me a copy of The Stepford Wives for Christmas one year, and an apron for my twenty-first birthday. But what would she know? Her longest relationship had lasted two years, with an artist named Frank. I couldn’t even remember his last name. She had always seemed to think that the scruffier he was, the more of a genius he must be. I just thought he needed a shower.
‘Stephen and I are having a few problems,’ I muttered at last. The words seemed to stick in my throat.
She blinked. ‘All is not well in this land of domestic harmony?’
I turned away. She scrambled to her feet and was behind me in seconds, putting her arm around my shoulders. Her skin felt vaguely sticky and she smelled fruity, as if she’d had a drink spilt on her. I wanted to offer her a baby wipe.
‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that,’ she murmured into my hair. ‘Is there anything I can do?’
I flinched as she tried to lay her head against mine and smiled thinly. ‘No. Thanks, though.’ I checked my watch. It was almost 1 p.m. ‘I’ve got to go and pick up Thomas before Dad has a hernia.’ I could still remember my father’s face the last time I’d arrived late and walked in on Thomas. He was face down, spread-eagled on the dining room floor, screaming with every bit of breath in his little lungs, because my mother had suggested he might like to change out of his food-soaked T-shirt. It was at least a twenty-minute drive from my place in the suburbs to my parents’ home by the beach. Amy grabbed my hand, twisting her fingers into mine. ‘I’ll come with you.’
I hesitated. This time, she seemed to read my mind. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t make you talk about it if you don’t want to. I’ll keep you company. Tell you some stories about last night’s sleazeballs to make you feel better. You won’t believe what Heidi had to put up with.’
Thomas was doing circuits of the living room when we arrived. Overtired energy coursing through him, he was busy throwing magazines and television remotes into his favourite plastic trolley. Every time he completed a circuit, he would veer off and collide with the side of the couch. My father sat on said couch, his legs tucked up beneath him to avoid Thomas, focusing on the television, with his index fingers tracing circles on his temples.
‘Hi, Mumma,’ Thomas screamed and dropped his trolley when he noticed me at last. He wrapped his arms around my legs and peered up at me. ‘Hello.’ Then he noticed my sister: ‘Auntie Army!’
It was a sweet mispronunciation that no one had bothered to correct because it was too endearing. She scooped him up and placed an exuberant, wet kiss on his cheek.
I noticed something brown smeared across the side of his face. Had my mother been trying to get him to bake again?
As I was pondering, I noticed both he and my mum were staring at me. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a streak of mascara on the side of my nose. I hadn’t thought I’d cried that much in the car but perhaps I was wrong. Amy kicked off her heels and nudged Thomas towards the living room. ‘Go and find your new trains to show me, buddy.’
He ambled off obediently, and we heard crashing as he upended a toy box and knocked over a makeshift teepee. ‘It must be somewhere,’ he shouted. It was what I said to him every time he asked me to find the latest toy that had gone missing.
‘New trains?’ I forced a high-pitched laugh as I turned to my mother. Thomas would soon be able to curate an exhibition of toys my parents had collected for him.
She wasn’t buying my attempt to change the subject, took me by the wrists and stared at my puffy, itchy eyes. ‘What’s going on? You’ve been crying. Is something wrong at work? Has something happened to Stephen’s business?’
I tried to choke out the words, but they did not make any more sense on the second retelling than they had when I gave Amy an abridged version in the car. Soon the tears were dripping off my chin. Two days ago, everything was normal. Everything was fine. I was boring Rachel, married to a nice but slightly infuriating man with one exuberant son and a daughter on the way. Not exactly living the dream but doing well enough to pass the Christmas card newsletter test. Now I was separating from a cheating husband who had taken up with a B-grade celebrity interior designer.
‘What? Are you sure? I can’t believe …’ My mother placed a perfectly manicured hand over her mouth.
I cut her off. ‘Yes, I know. It was a surprise to me as well.’
‘But … you’re pregnant! He can’t get away with this, surely.’ She pushed her small square glasses up on her nose and stared at me as if being able to see me more clearly might present a different reality.
I rolled my eyes and gestured to my midsection, where my stomach was doing its best impression of a parade float. ‘I’m aware of that, too. Turns out, there’s no law against it. Thomas!’ I shouted over her head. ‘In the car, please.’
She grabbed my hand again. ‘What will you do? A newborn and Thomas on your own … Can you imagine …’ Her eyes were sparking with anger. ‘How dare he? After everything you’ve done for him.’
I rested my hand on her arm in a way I hoped was reassuring. The last thing I needed was her flying off to fight my cause for me. I still hadn’t recovered fully from the email she had sent to one of my university lecturers when I had failed a paper in my final year.
‘I’m sure I’ll be fine.’ I took another deep breath, summoning up an image of my first yoga teacher, who’d spent a full session showing me how to move my diaphragm. ‘Sillier people than me manage it. Thomas! What are you doing in there?’
‘Darling, come and stay with us.’
My father gave up his pretence of ignoring us. ‘What did you say?’
‘I said Rachel must come and stay here if she and Stephen are having problems.’ My mother’s voice was unusually firm. ‘We have the spare rooms upstairs. We can help you with the baby. I can clean out the cupboards down here, so you have room for your things. The rooms aren’t big, but they should be fine for the three of you. It’s quite warm in the evening on that side of the house, but I can get you a fan …’
I bit my lip. Would the things that drove me nuts as a teenager – my mother’s anxiety about every decision I had to make, my father’s need for routine – be even more grating twenty years on? Did they think I couldn’t cope on my own?
I cut her off. ‘I’ll think about it, okay?’ Thomas had appeared at my side, stretching his little fingers around two new train carriages.
In the car on the way back to our house, I replayed my mother’s words in my mind. Amy had dozed off in the passenger seat next to me, her phone clasped in her hand.
Could I manage a newborn and Thomas, alone? There were millions of women around the world functioning perfectly well as single mothers. Should I be offended that my mother deemed me unable do the same? I assumed I would need a little longer off work than the roughly four and a half hours I’d taken with Thomas. But it could be done. Perhaps I could get a flatmate. I drafted the ad in my head: Sunny room for single person to share with professional woman and two others, one prone to stomping about in the middle of the night or waking early with a rousing rendition of ‘Jingle Bells’.
