I follow Mum’s movements as she straightens her shoulders and clears her throat, and I blink back the tears threatening behind my eyelids.
‘Right. I’d best get those jacket potatoes in.’ She gives me a smile, wipes a stray tear from her cheek, smooths down the back of her hair and closes the door softly behind her.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Ed
Jen had a bad day. This is what my mother-in-law explained to me last night.
A bad day.
I’ve been crafting a volcano out of moulding clay for the past two hours with my daughter, who avoids conversations about friends and school like the plague. I’ve tucked the kids in, read out a story to Oscar in my best Captain Underpants voice, all the time questioning what I saw. Is it possible that she is having an affair with Nessa? Because that’s what it looked like. I check in on Hales, who is sleeping soundly, and clear up the detritus that covers the kitchen table. The clay volcano looks somewhat like a giant penis, I can’t help but notice with a sigh, and I worry about how I’m going to fix it.
Jen’s trying to FaceTime me. I take a deep breath, and sit down in the lounge. Jen’s voice is distant and soft around the edges as though it’s hard work to open her mouth. Her phone is propped up beside her, hair messy, no make-up on her face. Not exactly the picture of a woman embarking on her first lesbian affair. I don’t ask her about what I saw. Instead I ask, ‘You OK?’ while I watch her swallow down more pills.
‘Yeah . . . I’ve got a bit of a headache. Me and Nessa had a few drinks after you left yesterday.’
‘So, you had a few drinks with, um, with Nessa?’ I ask oh-so-innocently.
‘Yeah, a few.’
‘It looks like you had more than a few . . .’ My voice is judgemental.
‘It’s not a hangover, Ed. I’ve not slept.’
I swallow down the images of them together in tangled sheets, try to stop the words that want to come out of my mouth. I want to ask, but I also want to give her chance to tell me, because if she doesn’t, I’m scared that I will never be able to trust her again.
‘Kerry is sick, Ed.’
‘What do you mean?’
She’s not real! I want to scream. I’m real, your children are real, your affair—
I stop this train of thought. I can’t talk about this yet.
‘The tablets, Ed. They make her ill, she’s started waking me at night, she has a fever, Kerry—’
‘Well that’s good.’
‘What?’ she asks sleepily, as though I’m speaking another language entirely.
‘I mean, maybe that means the tablets are working. Maybe this is the start of her—’
‘Dying?’ Her voice is a croak, an echo.
‘Moving on,’ I say softly.
‘How are the kids? I’m sorry I missed bedtime.’
‘They’re good,’ I lie. I lie about Hailey becoming more and more impatient with her brother, I lie about Oscar’s night terrors, I lie about how I forgot that it was non-uniform day and didn’t realise until I picked them up, uniforms amid a flood of jeans. ‘Me and Hales are making a volcano.’
She yawns, her eyes unfocused. ‘A what?’ she asks.
‘Never mind, I’ll tell you Wednesday.’
‘Wednesday?’
‘The doctor’s.’
‘Oh yeah. I’ve got to go,’ she yawns. ‘Love you.’
‘Love you too.’
Her hand reaches for the screen and she swipes away my face.
I’m being snippy with the kids and I hate it. I used to love coming home to them, hearing about their day and winding them up before bed. I wish I could feel that way again, that they would look at me when I walk through the door like they used to. Instead, they just look at me the same way as when they see an episode of Go Jetters that’s been on ten times that week already.
‘Can I be excused?’ Hailey asks with a bored tone.
‘Not until you’ve finished your homework. There are four more questions.’
‘Mummy never made me do homework at dinnertime. She let me do it when I came in from school.’
‘Well, when Mummy was here, you were home earlier because you didn’t go to after-school club.’
‘I hate after-school club,’ Oscar sulks. ‘I have to do the afternoon walk and that means three times around the playground. It hurts my throat.’
‘That’s because you’re fat,’ Hailey snaps at him, pulling her book towards her.
‘That’s enough!’ I shout, and both children flinch. I’ve never really been a shouter but lately, I can’t seem to stop myself. ‘Say sorry to your brother.’
Oscar is breathing quickly and his lip is quivering.
Hailey scowls and folds her arms. ‘No. I was only telling the truth. He is fat, Daddy, everyone says so.’
My voice is dangerously low as I respond. ‘You say sorry to your brother right now or—’
‘What? You’ll ground me? Stop me from seeing my friends, tell my MUM?!’ Hailey has tears in her eyes as she stands and pushes her plate away. It slides off the table and crashes onto the floor, peas escaping across the grouting around the floor tiles. Her footsteps reverberate through the staircase as she slams her bedroom door.
‘Take no notice of your sister,’ I say, putting my arms around Oscar’s shoulder and pulling him towards me. ‘You’re just big-boned. It means you’ll be strong when you grow up.’
‘She wasn’t telling the troof, Daddy, they call me chubster and Mr Newton told me that just means that I’m bubbly and happy. Can I have my pudding now? I ate all my fish fingers even though they are yucky and slimy and grey.’
‘Of course, buddy.’ I head over to the fruit bowl. ‘There’s a banana?’ I hold it aloft.
Oscar shakes his head. ‘It’s got brown bits all over the outside.’
‘How about a pear?’
He shakes his head again. ‘Pears feel like sand in your mouth, they’re all stony.’
‘Apple?’ I turn the apple in question and see that a grub has already made a meal out of it. ‘Forget that one.’
‘Can I have a chocolate bar?’
I think of the kids teasing him. ‘No, buddy. Yoghurt?’
‘Does it have bits in?’
‘Bits?’
‘Mummy always gets me ones without bits.’
I search the contents of the fridge and find it lacking. ‘Um . . . cheese slice?’
‘Is cheese slice pudding?’
‘Yeah. And you get to unwrap it just like a chocolate bar.’ I dangle it in front of him like bait.
‘Thanks, Daddy!’ He snatches it. ‘You’re the best.’ He kisses me on the cheek. ‘Except when Mummy’s here. Then she’s the best and you’re just Dad.’
The car is filled with white noise as I drive us to the doctor’s. Jen is looking out of the window; her eyes are bloodshot, her hands twisting and knotting her fingers.
‘So . . .’
‘Hmmm?’
‘What did you and Nessa get up to after your “few drinks”?’
‘What? Oh.’ I notice the glimmer of a smile as I watch her reaction from the corner of my eye.