Page 1 of The Mother-in-Law

1

LUCY

Iam folding laundry at my kitchen table when the police car pulls up. There’s no fanfare—no sirens or flashing lights—yet that little niggle starts in the pit of my stomach, Mother Nature’s warning that all is not well. It’s getting dark outside and the neighbours’ porch lights are starting to come on. It’sdinnertime. Police don’t arrive on your doorstep at dinnertime unless something is wrong.

I glance through the doorway to the living room where my slothful children are stretched across different pieces of furniture, angled toward their respective devices. Alive. Unharmed. In good health, apart from, perhaps, a mild screen addiction. Seven-year-old Archie is watching a family play Wii games on the big iPad. Four-year-old Harriet is watching little girls in America unwrap toys on the little iPad. Even two-year-old Edie is staring, slack-jawed, at the television. I feel some measure of comfort that my family is all under this roof. At least most of them are.Dad, I think suddenly.Oh no, please not Dad.

I look back at the police car. The headlights illuminate a light mist of rain.

At least it’s not the children, a guilty little voice in my head whispers. At least it isn’t Ollie. Ollie is on the back deck, grilling burgers. Safe. He came home from work early today, not feeling well apparently, though he doesn’t seem particularly unwell. In any case, he’s alive and I’m wholeheartedly grateful for that.

The rain has picked up a little now, turning the mist into distinct raindrops. The police kill the engine but don’t get out right away. I ball up a pair of Ollie’s socks and place them on top of his pile and then reach for another pair. I should stand up, go to the door, but my hands continue to fold on autopilot, as if by continuing to act normally I will make the police car disappear. But it doesn’t work. Instead, a uniformed policeman emerges from the driver’s seat.

‘Muuuuum!’ Harriet calls out. ‘Edie is watching the TV!’

Two weeks ago a prominent news journalist spoke out publicly about her ‘revulsion’ that children under the age of three were exposed to TV. Like most Australian mothers I was incensed by this and responded with the predictable diatribe of, ‘What would she know? She probably has a team of nannies and hasn’t looked after her children for a day in her life!’, before swiftly instating the ‘no screens for Edie’ rule, which lasted until twenty minutes ago when, while I was on the phone to the energy company, Edie decided to try the old ‘Mum, muuuum, MUUUUUM . . .’ trick, and I relented, popping on an episode ofPlay Schooland retreating to the bedroom to finish my phone call.

‘It’s all right, Harriet,’ I say, my eyes still on the window.

I hear the thump of her footsteps and then Harriet’s cross little face appears in front of me, her dark brown hair and thick fringe swishing like a mop. ‘But yousaid. . .’

‘Never mind what I said. A few minutes won’t hurt.’

The cop looks to be mid-twenties, thirty at a push. His police hat is in his hand but he wedges it under one arm to tug at the front of his too-tight trousers. A short, rotund policewoman of a similar age gets out of the passenger side, her hat firmly on her head. They start up the path side by side. They are definitely coming to our place.Nettie, I think suddenly.It’s about Nettie.

It’s possible. Ollie’s sister has certainly had her share of health issues lately. Or maybe it’s Patrick? Or is it something else entirely?

The fact is, part of me knows it’s not Nettie or Patrick, or Dad. It’s funny sometimes what you justknow.

‘Burgers are up.’

The flyscreen door scrapes open and Ollie appears holding a plate of meat. The girls flock to him and he snaps his ‘crocodile tongs’ while they jump up and down, squealing loudly enough to nearly drown out the knock at the door.

Nearly.

‘Was that the door?’ Ollie raises an eyebrow, curious rather than concerned. In fact, he looks animated.An unexpected guest on a weeknight!Who could it be?

Ollie is the social one of the two of us, the one who volunteers on the parents and friends’ committee at the kids’ school because ‘it’s a good way to meet people’, who hangs over the back fence to say hi to the neighbours if he hears them talking in the garden, who approaches people who look vaguely familiar and tries to figure out if they know each other. A people person. To Ollie, an unexpected knock on the door during the week signals excitement rather than doom.

But, of course, he hasn’t seen the police car.

Edie tears down the corridor. ‘I get it, I get it.’

‘Hold on a minute, Edie-bug,’ Ollie says, looking for somewhere to put down the tray of burgers. He isn’t fast enough though because by the time he finds some counter space, Edie is already jumping for the doorhandle.

‘Poleeth!’ she says, awed.

This, of course, is the part where I should run after her, intercept the police at the door and apologise, but my feet are concreted to the floor. Luckily Ollie is already jogging up behind Edie, ruffling her hair playfully.

‘G’day,’ he says to the cops. He glances over his shoulder back into the house, his mind caught up in the action of a few seconds ago, perhaps wondering if he remembered to turn off the gas bottle or checking that he’d placed the burger plate securely on the bench. It’s the classic unassuming behaviour of someone about to get bad news. I actually feel like I am watching us all on a TV show—the handsome clueless dad, the cute toddler. The regular suburban family who are about to have their lives turned upside down forever.

‘What can I do for you?’ Ollie says finally, turning his attention back to the cops.

‘I’m Senior Constable Arthur,’ I hear the woman say, though I can’t see her from my vantage point. ‘This is Constable Perkins. Are you Oliver Goodwin?’

‘I am.’ Ollie smiles down at Edie, even throws her a wink. It’s enough to convince me that I’m being overly dramatic. Even if there’s bad news, it may not be that bad. It may not even beourbad news. Perhaps one of the neighbours has been burgled. Police usually canvass the area after something like that, don’t they?

Suddenly I look forward to that moment when I know everything’s fine. I think about how Ollie and I will laugh.You won’t believe what I thought, I’ll say to him, and he’ll roll his eyes and smile.Always worrying, he’ll say.How do you ever get anything done with all that worrying?