‘No, Mam. You leave it. We’ll tidy up. You and Dad have a chat now,’ says Jasmine.
Since when are the girls so keen to clean up? This is practically unheard of. Even when I was really sick with adult chickenpox, I still had to unload the dishwasher in our old home. I eye them suspiciously.
‘Come on, Poppy.’ I notice how Jasmine nudges Poppy with her elbow. This is something she always does when they have been plotting. The girls did the same when they wanted a stereo in their room when they were nine and ten, respectively, and again when Poppy was the first to want her ears pierced at thirteen.
‘So, ahem. Yeah…’ says Michael, looking at me intensely.
Thankfully, Poppy drops a plate into the sink, and it makes a big crashing noise, which means I can turn away from him.
‘Watch my plates, please.’
‘Sorry, Mam. Slipped out of my hand. We’ll just leave you two alone a minute.’
Jasmine and Poppy walk out of the open kitchen and leave me looking at Michael as he clears his throat and starts giving methatlook once again.
‘What is it, Michael?’ I realise it comes out rather snappily, but I can’t possibly have him thinking that a takeaway container of stir-fried king prawns will be enough to wipe out the last few years and he’ll have me running back to him.
‘I don’t know if Soraya said, but…’
‘Yeah, she told me you swung by the workshop.’
‘Yeah, so the thing is. The thought of you with some guy out on a yacht in the middle of nowhere… Well, it terrified me. You’re my girls’ mam. We need you. We need you here… Do you get what I’m saying?’
‘You need me here. Yeah, I get it. To look after everyone, do the washing for the girls, that sort of thing, is it?’
‘Now, come on. You know what I mean.’
I watch in horror as Michael’s arm reaches closer towards mine and he strokes my wrist. I pull away sharply. He looks at me as if he has been wounded.
‘Look, I’ll just say it. I love you, Lucy. I was a fool. I don’t know what I was thinking. It was a midlife crisis thing. I felt old and decrepit. I wondered if anyone would find me attractive ever again. Like if you died and I wanted to eventually move on… You know, after a long time, like. What if nobody fancied me? I’d passed my prime, and it scared me. Yeah. I was scared, Lucy.’
‘I was scared when Jasmine had to have her appendix out after it ruptured. I was scared when I found out that my husband had some other woman, and she was posting it all over social media. Imagine how scary that was, waking up to see photos of my husband’s car on another woman’s driveway. But not once did I use that fear as an excuse to run off into the arms of another man,’ I say.
‘No, I know, and that’s why I’m sorry. You wouldn’t have done what I did. I’ve realised all the bad things I did to you. I’ve come to my senses, to be honest. You didn’t deserve any of it.’ Michael sounds genuinely sad as he says it and looks as though he wants to cry. I believe that he could well be sorry and has realised that the grass isn’t greener, but still, it changes nothing.
‘It’s a bit late now, Michael. The divorce was finalised over a year ago. Why are you saying this now?’ For once, I am firm with him and realise I probably should have been firmer during our marriage rather than going along with what he wanted half the time.
‘I told you. Because when I thought you were off with the Tinder Swindler dude, my heart broke in two. I thought, what if he swindles you and what if I’d lost you forever? It was the wake-up call I needed.’
‘Wake-up call? Because I’d met someone else?’ My voice is rising higher and higher with every sentence Michael comes out with.
‘And he isnot, repeatnot, a Tinder Swindler!’ I still don’t know that for certain, but I won’t have Michael say that about Elias.
I jump when Jasmine and Poppy burst back into the room.
‘Mam! Daddy’s trying to be nice. He’s trying to apologise. Don’t be so mean to him,’ shouts Poppy.
‘Were you listening to everything? Now, me and your dad need to talk. This is private.’ No matter what Michael does, he can do no wrong in their eyes. I protected them both from the days when I cried non-stop as I accepted our marriage was over. Now that he thinks I have met someone else, he decides his midlife crisis is over. Well, I can’t forgive or forget that fast, even if the girls would do anything to have our family back together again.
‘The thing is, babe, we’ve so many memories of us as a family, when the kids were young, when we went on holiday together and, oh my god, do you remember that time in Majorca, Poppy…’ I look at him in shock as he brings Jasmine and Poppy into the conversation.
‘Yeah! When I fell off the back of the tandem I was on with you, Dad. Oh, remember my knees?’ says Poppy.
‘Yeah, and we had to take you to the hotel to clean you up and—’ says Michael as Jasmine interrupts him excitedly.
‘I was fed up because I thought Poppy was trying to spoil the holiday deliberately. Remember, we were due to get me that massive unicorn rubber ring for the pool once we finished on the bikes? I thought she was jealous, and we had a big falling out.’ Jasmine puts her arm around Poppy. ‘Sorry, I know now that you were hurt and getting you patched up was more important.’
‘Oh, that was a holiday. By dinner time you were the best of friends again. See, even the closest of family fall out with each other sometimes,’ says Michael, looking at me.
