Page 65 of When We Are Old

“Sure.” I cringed though, questions could cover many subjects, many of which I didn’t want to talk about.

“I don’t have that many memories of you and dad together.”

I straightened my back. “It’s been five years.”

“I know. And that’s what I’ve always thought. But in English today we had to write a piece about our earliest memories and how they appeared to us. How come I can remember things from when I was five, but I can’t remember you and dad ever being in the kitchen the way you and Matthew were today?”

A cannonball blasted into my chest, shot from the innocent question of my daughter dressed in Mickey Mouse pyjamas.

I rubbed at my face and blew a breath of air into the palm of my hand. “Maybe it was different. I wasn’t going to work back then. Maybe things… were just different.”

Hannah stared at me long and hard, then she rolled her eyes and flopped back on the cushions giving a sad little shake of her head.

“Anyway.” I clawed to change the subject. “After Jewson ripped me a new one this morning.” This made her lips curve. “He gave me the number for his wife who’s a counsellor.”

Hannah’s eyes flew wide open and I patted her leg. “Not for you; for me.”

“Phew. Good, go, then that way you might stop keeping secrets from everyone.”

“I’m not keeping secrets! Matthew left. I don’t know what I did wrong. Your dad and I were different. I don’t know what else you want me to say, and I’m really worried you’ve inherited all my shit personality traits.”

She opened her mouth wide, her eyes narrowed. Then she closed it, opened it, closed it. Her laugh came from nowhere, a deep belly laugh that made me glow all over.

“What're you doing to do about Matthew, Mum?”

I shrugged. “Stalk him in all the usual places.” I picked up her legs and slid out. “I’ll go and call him again.”

At the door I paused, “You going to be okay going to school tomorrow? You’ve got Annabelle and Jackson, right?”

She shrugged and refocused on the telly.

“Oh, Hannah.” I sighed.

I left the room stabbing at Matthew’s number on my phone.

If he thought he could walk away from me again, well he’d better be prepared. I’d let him do it once, twice, however many times it was… Not again.

It’s a Carling Kind of Friday

Matthew

“You’ve had those boys all week.” Mam tutted down the line while I paced the kitchen like a caged lion, sporadically opening the fridge and staring at a bottle of beer on the shelf.

“It’s fine, Ewan just needed some reassuring.”

“Give me the phone,” Ruth, Liam’s wife, barked in the background. I waited, staring at the silver and red cap of the Bud while a tussle bashed the phone from the other end.

“Right, Matthew.” Ruth had won the battle. “Sort yourself out. Bring the boys here and stop being such a moping fucking arsehole.”

“I’m not moping, I’m parenting. It’s my responsibility.”

“Shut up. You sound like a twat. What have you been doing all week?”

I closed the fridge, leaning my head against the silver surface. “I’ve been trying to give them some normalcy. We’ve been to karate, swimming lessons, football.”

Ruth sighed. “And where is Julie?”

“Her mother is sick, and she’s gone to stay with her parents to help look after her.”