Lou:Sorry, my little one’s got a temperature.
Freya:Think we’ve caught another bug, maybe next time?
Clara:Mark is stuck at work. Sorry!
Every time, I’d type:
No worries! Honestly! Another time!
And pretend it didn’t sting.
Eventually, the plans got rarer. Not because we didn’t want them. Because it became too exhausting to hope.
The one babysitter we could count on was Hannah.
My sister. Single. No kids. The woman who still books last-minute holidays and can leave the house with nothing but her keys and her eyelashes.
Hannah was solid. Once she said yes, she meant it. It would take something genuinely catastrophic for her to cancel.
She’s brilliant with the kids too; patient and firm in a way that makes them behave like tiny angels, which is both helpful and deeply suspicious.
And she works at Oakwood Primary, which means she has this calm, teacher energy that makes her seem like she has a secret manual I never received.
Sometimes I wonder if looking after thirty children all day is exactly why she hasn’t had her own. But we’ve never talked about that properly.
Mostly I’m just grateful she exists.
I remember one of the rare nights everything aligned.
Hannah was free. Dan and I had booked a table. I had even planned to wash my hair like a woman with a social life.
Getting ready with three kids around, though, was like trying to apply eyeliner in a hurricane.
Dan, of course, managed to shower in complete peace.
He strolled out of the bathroom fresh-faced and smug, towel wrapped low, so very low on his waist, smelling unreal, lookinghot as fuck. The kind hot that used to make me pull him back into the bedroom just to see what happened.
My body noticed. Immediate. Annoyingly alive.
Meanwhile I was holding Ruby on my hip, trying to put mascara on with one hand while Sophie spun around in the dress I’d laid out.
“Mummy,” she announced, inspecting herself in the mirror, “I don’t think you should wear this. It’s mine now.”
“Oscar,” I groaned, “stop licking the…”
“MUM!” he shouted. “If a T-Rex and a Spinosaurus had a fight, who would win?”
“I don’t know!” I snapped, dabbing at my face as Ruby grabbed my shoulder and smeared toothpaste down my top.
Great.
“Dan,” I called, “can you take Ruby for a second?”
Silence.
“Dan!”
He appeared in the doorway fastening his watch like the house wasn’t on fire. “Sorry, what?”
