He scrunches up his nose with a look of disdain.
‘I bet I can count more different fruits in my bowl than yours.’
‘What do I get if I win?’ He folds his arms in front of his rounded tummy and negotiates.
‘How about a trip to the park?’ He considers this.
‘And an ice cream?’
‘Deal.’ I put my hand out and he shakes it.
Hailey joins us just as Oscar identifies a crescent of coconut in his bowl.
‘Hah! Hazelnut!’ I gesture to my spoon where half a hazelnut sits swimming in milk. ‘That’s three all!’
Oscar’s head leans in closer to his bowl of cereal, scrutinising the contents.
‘Hazelnut isn’t a fruit, it’s a nut,’ Hailey quietly admonishes.
‘Three–two!’ Oscar beams.
‘Good morning, sweetheart.’ I smile at her as she pushes her glasses up her nose and tucks her hair behind her ears. ‘Do you want Fruit ’n Fibre?’
She shakes her head. ‘No thanks, I’ll just have an apple. I’m not hungry.’ In contrast to Oscar, my daughter has lost weight. The nightie she is wearing is too short, but it is hanging from her shoulders.
‘OK. Right.’ I clatter my spoon against my cereal bowl and clap my hands. ‘Here is the plan. After I beat Oscar at hunt the fruit . . .’ I wink in his direction, making him dip his head closer to the bowl, his eyes squinting as he searches the milk, ‘we will get dressed, go to the park—’
‘Get ice cream,’ Oscar interrupts. I roll my eyes at Hailey and the corners of her mouth tilt; it’s almost a smile, almost.
‘Get ice cream, and then, Hailey, how about we make Daddy’s favourite dinner?’
‘Ugh, not that horrid canny-whatsit? I hate that, it’s all sludgy.’
I ignore Oscar’s remarks about my spinach and ricotta cannelloni.
‘I agree with squirt . . . it looks like little tubes of grassy poo,’ Kerry had said the first time I made it. I blink and push the memory away; I need to stay in the here and now.
‘And we can make the white chocolate cheesecake.’
This time, Hailey rewards me with a proper smile, dimples forming, eyes creasing at the sides. ‘Can I bash the biscuits?’
‘You certainly can.’
Hailey hops onto her chair and peers over Oscar’s shoulder, whispering into his ear.
‘Banana!’ He scoops a spoonful of cereal so eagerly that the contents of his spoon launch the banana and milk over his shoulder towards Ed, who is walking into the kitchen in just his boxer shorts; eyes half-open, bed hair, stubble and a yawn. The banana slice lands with a slap against the wall.
The kids and I dissolve into a fit of giggles at Ed’s startled look of confusion.
‘Are you coming to the park with us, Daddy?’ Hailey asks, biting into her apple.
‘The park?’ he asks, kissing me on the cheek on the way to the coffee pot.
‘Yes. Mummy says we can have ice cream and then she’s going to make you a disgusting dinner.’
I watch as Ed’s back remains turned toward me. His shoulders are high, tension crawling across his muscles, at odds with his voice, which is enthusiastic and matches his smile as he turns to us.
‘Can we have spaghetti and Marmite instead of horrid canny . . . can-lo-ni?’
‘OK. Disgusting dinner for just me and Daddy then.’
‘Disgusting dinner is my favourite,’ Ed replies.
‘Higher, Mummy!’ Oscar demands from behind the swing. My hands oblige. My eyes are hidden behind my sunglasses as I watch Hailey and Ed. Hailey is climbing her way across some netting towards a red plastic tunnel and they are in deep conversation. Ed occasionally throws a smile in my direction: everything is fine, nothing to see here. My mouth responds appropriately and my hand waves. The day is going well: I haven’t looked at Kerry once, even though right now she is hanging upside down from the monkey bars with a lollipop in her mouth.
Oscar jumps from the swing and runs over to join his sister where she and Ed are giving each other high fives. I follow him nonchalantly, trying not to pay attention to the cautious way that my daughter is watching my approach even though she is grinning proudly.
‘I did it, Mummy!’
The pride in her eyes melts my insides. She’s always been scared to crawl through the tunnel part of the apparatus. Ever since she was little, she’s avoided the tunnels in soft-play areas; she’s never liked to feel closed in. ‘Oh-oh,’ Kerry used to say. ‘She’s coming up to another tunnel of doom.’
‘Nice one, Hailey!! You made it through the tunnel of dooooooom!’ Kerry elongated the ooooh like a ghost. I bat her away as though I’m shooing a bee.
‘You did it!’ I say, stepping in front of my dead sister as I begin to perform the dance of victory that we made up last year. It involves wiggling our bottoms and doing the two-fingers-across-the-eyes dance, like John Travolta and Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction. But the pride in Hailey’s face has fallen away and she looks at me with embarrassment.
‘Silly Mummy,’ Oscar laughs. ‘Can I try?’
I nod and follow him to the beginning of the equipment, helping him up, noticing that the shorts he is wearing are too tight and that his tummy is spilling over the waistband. I glance over to where Ed is kneeling in front of Hailey, rubbing her arms, reassuring her about something. I squint, but I can’t make out what they are saying. Hailey nods at him and runs off towards the big slide. Ed walks towards me, pulling his sunglasses from his head over his eyes and throwing his arm around my shoulder.
‘Don’t you think Oscar is getting a bit chubby?’ I say from the corner of my mouth as I clap him for pulling himself up to the next rung.
‘He’ll grow out of it. But maybe, you should, you know, stop giving him so much chocolate between meals.’
‘You’re the one who always gives them too much choc—’
Our conversation stops as our youngest tumbles to the floor. Crouched knees, kisses, and sentences ending with the word ‘brave’. Oscar rights himself, wipes his snot on his own arm despite me passing him a tissue from the depths of my handbag; quite where all my packets of tissues have disappeared to I don’t know. He runs off, climbing up the slide rather than the net, and does the victory dance, his T-shirt riding up.
Ed squeezes my shoulder, whispering into my ear. ‘Maybe we should cut back on giving him so many treats . . . do you remember that scene from The Goonies?’
I cover my mouth with my hand, trying not to let Oscar see me laughing as I picture ‘the truffle shuffle’. Ed plants a kiss on my head as I lean into him.
Chapter Forty-Two
Ed
I look up to Hailey as she crawls through the red plastic tunnel joining the parts of the play equipment together. She used to be scared of being closed in, but she nailed it a few months ago.
I’m feeling good, happy. I’m mean I’m not deluded, don’t get me wrong. I didn’t expect that Jen would just be better after our tough love chat. Jen is struggling, of that I have no doubt, but walking into the kitchen this morning felt like . . . like I’d been holding my breath without realising it and when I saw them, saw her face, it was like I could exhale, you know? Things feel normal; she seems normal. Take the kitchen, for instance. I know I’d got used to things being different, the coffee not always on like it used to be, the sounds of classical music playing, the smell of the fabric softener coming from the washing machine . . . things that separately don’t mean a thing but all together? It smells and feels like home. Our home.