“MUMMY! SHE TOUCHED ME!”
“MUMMY! HE BREATHED ON ME!”
I am a twenty-four-hour all-inclusive resort for tiny, demanding guests. Shoes. Hair. Homework. Snacks. Emotional regulation. Snack retrieval. Again.
I love being a mum. I always wanted this.
But I’ve never felt so lonely in my life.
I used to have friends. Proper ones. Now my phone lights up and it’s the school app reminding me that tomorrow is Wear Yellow for Charity Day, which means I need to locate a yellow top by 8 a.m. or apparently ruin my child’s entire life.
Hannah is the only constant. My sister. Single. No kids. Answers immediately. Everyone else replies six weeks later with, Sorry! Just seeing this!
By the time Ruby’s breathing evens out, I lower her back into her cot and creep out.
Dan is waiting in the hallway, arms crossed.
“Unbelievable.”
“What?”
“That took you five minutes.”
“It’s not a competition, Dan.”
“Oh, I know,” he says. “Because if it were, you’d be winning.”
Something in me snaps.
“Oh, piss off.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “Wow.”
I head for the stairs. He follows.
“I’m sick of this,” he says.
“Sick of what?”
“This. You acting like I’m incompetent.”
I laugh, sharp, brittle. The kind that cracks if you press it too hard.
“Dan. I do everything. And you just…” I gesture vaguely, helplessly.
“That’s not fair.”
“Who sorted school uniform? Who remembered Oscar’s rugby snacks? Who booked Sophie’s dentist? Who remembered Ruby eats three times a day?”
“I work, Emma!”
“And I don’t?”
“You know what I mean.”
Do I?
“The milk,” I say. “Did you get the milk?”
