‘Well, okay then.’ He ran off to switch on the TV.
‘Hi, love,’ I heard Jay call out when he came home from work a few minutes later. He hoisted a bag of groceries up onto the countertop and they all spilled out over the top in a messy heap. ‘I was thinking of making a green curry for tonight; what do you reckon?’ he said. Jay was a great cook and loved nothing more than buying the ingredients to create a dish for us to eat that evening.
‘Sounds lovely.’
‘Daddy!’ Finn cried out, hearing his father’s voice entering the room. He ran over and Jay lifted him into his arms and swung him around.
‘How’s my little man? Did you have fun at school today?’
Finn nodded, then Jay made an exaggerated play out of examining Finn’s head. ‘Do you know something? I think it has grown bigger since this morning; you must have been learning lots in school today.’
Finn giggled. I loved the bond between Jay and Finn and how Jay always made everything fun for our son. Jay placed him down again and he ran back to the TV.
He came over and gave me a kiss on the cheek then. ‘So how was your day?’
‘It was good. Guess who I went for coffee with today?’
Jay cocked his head to his shoulder. ‘Your mother?’
‘No.’
‘Linda?’
‘No.’
‘Come on, Liv, help me out here.’
‘Maya Laurence.’
He wrinkled his brow in confusion. ‘Who’s that?’
‘You know, the woman who goes to Julia after us,’ I prompted. ‘Her son is in Finn’s class.’
‘Oh yeah?’ He was taken aback. ‘How come you ended up going for coffee withher?’
‘Well, we both were in the queue to get a takeout coffee at the same time so she suggested we should have it together. At first, I was a bit unsure but I’m so glad I did.’
‘Was it not really awkward, with the fact that you both go to Julia?’
I shook my head. ‘It wasn’t a bit. She’s lovely, actually. I completely misjudged her.’
‘Really?’ His tone was sceptical.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Well, you both seem like totally different people.’
‘I know but she’s not at all like I thought she’d be. She’s invited me and Finn over to her house after school tomorrow.’
‘But I don’t want to go,’ Finn chimed from the sofa, clearly listening in on the conversation. ‘I already tolded you, Mammy that I don’t like Elliot.’
Jay turned to me with a furrowed brow.
‘Apparently, Elliot doesn’t share his toys,’ I said with an eye-roll, before turning to our son. ‘Now come on, Finn,’ I chided. ‘I told you, you just need to get to know one another better. We’ll have fun.’
‘That’s nice, love. It’ll be good to get to know some of the other mums.’
‘I’m looking forward to it.’ I beamed. I found it hard to make friends as an adult; I used to have a small group of friends when I was working in the hospital but I hadn’t seen them in a long time. We lost touch after I became a stay-at-home mum. Since I had become a mother, all my encounters with other women tended to be transactional; when Finn was small, it was the mothers I’d meet at the mother and toddler group, or the mums at the playschool he had attended. We would make polite conversation; the topic was usually something about the kids like weaning or potty training but it never seemed to move from the school gate into something deeper. But with Maya, we had had an instant connection which I hadn’t felt with any other female since I was a teenager.
