‘I’m really sorry, darling,’ I say, standing outside her door which was firmly shut when it was time to tell her to get down to the car as we were leaving. ‘I just ...’ I search for how to say this. ‘Mums can overreact too and I was worried about how you looked. I shouldn’t have said what I said.’
From the other side of the door, there is no reply.
I stand outside the door listening, knowing that Lexi can hear me standing there because the landing in the house is very creaky. I’ve just been such a stupid cow, inadvertently hurting one of the people I love most. That’s not normal. Then I think of what Mum always said whenever one of us moaned as teenagers that we weren’t a normal family.
‘Normal’s just a setting on the dryer,’ she’d say calmly.
This might be true but somehow it doesn’t cheer me up as much as it used to when Mum said it.
She wouldn’t have done this: lost the run of herself and let her rage at another woman come out in that way.
Somehow, my mother was always calm and together as if being a mother was the centre of her universe.
At least Mildred is keeping schtum.
Upset, I then shout at the other two for dragging their feet when it comes to brushing their teeth. Liam looks stunned but Teddy blithely ignores me.
‘Mummy cross,’ she says with a sweet smile as if this is ammunition that she is saving up for later. ‘Mummy very cross, I’m going to tell everyone in skool.’
Everyone ‘in skool’ will know that I screamed this morning. I have no idea what the other things are that people hear in there.
Once Babs from Little Darlings confided that she could write several books on the details given out by the small children in her care.
‘I have had children tell me that Mummy hits Daddy with a frying pan regularly and if only for the fact that Daddy generally does the drop off and never seems to have any suspicious dents or bandages on his head, I’d believe it. There’s a fine line betweenmake-believe and the real world with small children.’
Liam is suspiciously quiet, so I go into his room and he says: ‘Are you and Lexi fighting?’
I bite my lip.
‘Yes, and it’s my fault but I have said sorry, and I’ll fix it,’ I say, hoping I can.
‘She’s not coming out of her room,’ he adds, ‘and we’re going to be late, Mum. We do sums first. I can’t miss sums.’
I feel the pang of knowing it’s my fault and there was no need for it. I sit on the bed.
‘I’m really sorry, darling,’ I say. ‘I want to apologise for being so grumpy this morning. There was no need for it and I love you so much and I’m really sorry. I’ve apologised to Lexi. I’m going in to Teddy now.’
At this he giggles.
‘Teddy is going to tell everyone you hit her over the head with something,’ he says, grinning, sounding a bit like his old self.
‘I dare say,’ I agree gravely, ‘or that I locked her up in the dark cupboard with all the spiders.’
‘Oh yes,’ he says, perking up. ‘She’d like that.’
In the car, we go, as usual, to Lexi’s school first and then drop off Liam. I want to go in with Lexi but she’s not talking to me and as far as I know, she hasn’t eaten any breakfast.
At Liam’s school, I womanhandle Teddy out and we go in together because, as we are so late, some explanation has to be given. We get to Liam’s classroom, he goes in and I motion to the teacher that I need to talk to her. Teddy, wandering around beside me, is fascinated with this big school because she both really wants to go to big school and doesn’t want to go to big school.
As she says to herself: ‘Does big school have a kitchen in the corner where I can play?’
Liam always says no, at which point she decides she doesn’t want to go there.
‘Ms O’Reilly,’ I say to the teacher who is young,fresh-faced and looks as if nobody ever threw her to the ground in a horrible garage: ‘I’m really sorry we’re late, it’s my fault, bit of a family emergency and just keep an eye on Liam today to make sure he’s OK. He’s so sensitive.’
‘Of course, Ms Abalone,’ says Ms O’Reilly. She has my phone number, my email, the house number, Dan’s number. I check just to be sure she has all these things.
‘I’ll talk to you if there is anything we need to do and I’ll talk to the headmistress too. But he seems all right.’
