Page 34 of The Mother-in-Law

Ollie’s face remains carefully neutral and Jeffrey breaks into a laugh more suited to a five year old. ‘Not that they’d have it any other way, ladies, am I right? It’s primal. A mother just wants to be with her baby. It’s how it should be.’

On the monitor, Archie lets out a short whimper. Diana returns to the kitchen while the rest of us serve ourselves chicken and a variety of interesting salads—ancient grain, couscous, kale and almond. I deduce that Amelia must have brought them as Diana doesn’t do interesting salad.

‘What about you, Nettie?’ Jeffrey asks, his mouth full of couscous. ‘When are you and Patrick going to take the leap? You don’t want all your eggs drying up, do you? Having a career is all well and good, but a job isn’t ever going to love you back, you know.’

Amelia, on the other side of Jeffrey, puts a hand on her husband’s arm. ‘That’s enough, Jeffrey.’

But Jeffrey is unperturbed. ‘What? Everyone wonders why there is a fertility crisis these days. You must be . . . what . . . thirty-five, Nettie? You’d be a grandmother if you were in Africa. You girls just leave your run too late, that’s what it is. You need to get in that saddle, so to speak. Am I right?’

He looks at Tom, then at Ollie for support. They both studiously avoid his gaze.

I visualise shoving a chicken breast directly into Jeffrey’s mouth.

Nettie keeps her gaze forward, on the table. Jeffrey opens his mouth again, and I am about to say something—anything—when Patrick stands.

‘Enough.’

Patrick’s voice is cool, calm. I haven’t seen this side of him before, the protective side. Standing over us like this, he looks quite ominous. In an odd way, I feel quite . . . impressed.

Jeffrey, blessedly, looks a little uncertain. ‘All right, no need to get upset. I was just saying—’

‘Enough.’

Nettie touches Patrick’s arm, while Tom nimbly takes over the conversation, steering it toward football. He and Jeffrey are both mad Hawthorn supporters, so it’s a good choice. Patrick keeps his gaze on Jeffrey for a few moments longer before lowering himself into his seat.

‘Well,’ Amelia says some time later, when the tension seems to have eased somewhat, ‘Archie’s been a good boy, hasn’t he? Is he sleeping through, Lucy?’

‘Not exactly. He tends to be unsettled in the first half of the night, but he usually gets a good stretch in after midnight. It’s actually a miracle we haven’t heard from him tonight.’ I glance at the monitor. ‘Uh oh.’

I walk over to the monitor. The power is off. I look at Diana.

‘Did you turn this off?’

I don’t sound accusing, because I don’t believe it. What kind of grandmother would turn off the baby monitor? But the way she sets her jaw, I start to wonder if she did.

‘I turned itdown,’ she says defensively.

‘Down tooff?’ I twist the dial, increasing the volume until Archie’s hysterical sobs pierce the air. I can tell from the pitch, he’s been crying for a while.

‘Mum!’ Ollie says. ‘Tell me you didn’t—’

But I don’t hear the rest because I’m already running down to get my baby.

It takes me twenty minutes to calm Archie down. When he finally stops crying, he will only sleep in my arms. I pat and soothe him while whispering furiously to Ollie in the dark. ‘We’re leaving tomorrow, Ollie. First thing.’

Ollie stares at me. I know what he’s thinking. For him, this isn’t a big deal. Tomorrow things might be a bit awkward, but then they will go back to normal. After all, Archie is fine. No need to cut the holiday short.

Sure enough he says: ‘Luce, let’s not make a bigger deal of this than it is.’

‘Thisisa big deal. Diana has no respect for me as a mother, so I can’t stay here. How dare she turn off my baby monitor? Howdareshe?’

‘I’m sure she didn’t mean it maliciously. Maybe she thought it was the right thing to do, to give you a little break?’

‘She had no right. No right at all.’

‘But—’

‘If you want to stay, Ollie, knock yourself out. But I’m leaving tomorrow and so is Archie.’