I stare into my coffee. “I don’t want help like I’m a manager delegating tasks. I want him to know.”
“To know what?”
“Everything.”
She nods slowly. “Ah.”
“I don’t want to explain the mental load like it’s a presentation,” I say quietly. “I want to feel like I’m not alone in it.”
Hannah reaches across the table and squeezes my hand.
“You’re not alone,” she says.
I smile. But she doesn’t mean what I mean.
When I get home, the house feels different. Quieter. Controlled. Dan has wiped the counters. The dishwasher is running. It should feel like relief. Instead, it feels like evidence. Proof that if he tries, he can. So why am I still carrying it all in my head?
Ruby cries again, hungry and furious and entirely dependent. I sink onto the sofa and lift her, my body responding before my brain catches up.
Through the window, I can see Oakwood Primary in the distance. The brick building. The playground. The invisible web of mothers and expectations and comparisons.
The mums will be at toddler group tomorrow.
Eleanor will probably host something immaculate and exhausting.
There will be birthday parties and bake sales and uniforms that don’t quite fit.
And I will be there. Visible. Present. Essential.
But somewhere along the way, I stopped being chosen. I became required.
Ruby sighs against my chest, milk-drunk and heavy.
“I love you,” I whisper to her. I do. God, I do. But as I sit there in the quiet house, surrounded by clean counters and ticking clocks and invisible lists, I realise something that makes my throat close. Dan is trying. I can see that. But trying to help isn’t the same as trying to understand. And I don’t know how to ask for the second without sounding ungrateful for the first.
Outside, the school bell rings faintly in the distance.
And the day rolls forward.
So do we.
CHAPTER SEVEN
EMMA
Another weekend gone.
That’s the first thought in my head as I lie there staring at the ceiling, the faint sound of the baby monitor hissing like static beside me. It’s 6:03 a.m. and the house is already beginning to stir. Ruby’s little whimpers drifting through the walls, followed by the unmistakable thud of Oscar jumping off his bed. Sophie will be next, probably demanding breakfast before I’ve even sat up.
I blink at the ceiling. How is it Monday again?
It’s like I blink on Friday night and somehow, two whole days evaporate into laundry, crumbs, and CBeebies. Then suddenly it’s Sunday night, and I’m back where I started, staring at a new week like it’s a treadmill I didn’t purchase but apparently have to keep running on forever.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed, rubbing my face. Dan’s still asleep, snoring softly, one arm flung across the duvet like he’s conquered the bed. Typical. He’ll claim he didn’t hear Ruby. He never does. He’s got that selective dad hearing; deaf to babies, ultra-tuned to football commentary.
I stand, grab my dressing gown, and shuffle down the hallway, passing the cluttered landing. There’s a pile of cleanwashing that’s been there since Saturday. Every time I walk past it, I tell myself I’ll “deal with it later.” I think “later” has officially given up hope.
Ruby’s whine turns into a full-blown cry as I open the door. She’s standing in her cot, hair wild, clutching her dummy like a weapon.
