‘It was lovely to see you, all the same,’ he says, offering me another one. ‘I’m going to pretend to be asleep if she comes in here.’
I’m almost at the front door when Dom appears.
‘Sorry,’ he mutters. ‘You didn’t need to get dragged into all of that.’
I hug him and he leans into me.
‘I was thinking,’ he begins. ‘I need to get out of here and, well, the Sue situation ... we need time to work it out. I’ve been investigating flats and I can rent from a pal who’s going away but I’ll need a deposit.’ Dom grins. ‘It’s just I’m a bit strapped, what with paying my half of the mortgage on our house –’
Dom works in software development and while he could probably write code to make ahigh-tech fridge do the salsa across the kitchen floor, he’s hopeless with money.
‘Of course,’ I say automatically. ‘I’ll sell my gold ingots...’
We both laugh.
‘Seriously, let me check. I’m sure I can manage something. Take care, darling.’
‘You’re the best, Marin,’ says Dom, and I feel so sorry for him. He is a lovely man – just caught in a strangeman-child cycle.
I hug him again. ‘Love you.’
‘Love you, big sis,’ he says, and I head off.
When finally I get home, having picked up Joey from the childminder’s, Nate’s already there and Rachel’s left a note on the fridge saying she’s got an evening shift in the pizza restaurant, which is her new job. I examine whether tonight’s dinner has defrosted.
It has, so Ihigh-speed it into the oven, get vegetables ready for the steamer and am ready to race upstairs to change when Nate wanders into the kitchen.
He’s changed out of his suit, is now in jeans and a sweater, and is unruffled because he hasn’t gone eight rounds with my mother and brother. He’s on the phone, chatting happily: something about a football match and I feel a sudden intense blast of irritation.
I am home late, the oven isn’t even turned on, and it would have taken nothing,nothing, for him to open the fridge and bung tonight’s meatballs topped with mozzarella into the oven. But then, I have made myself indispensable to this family the way I did to my family of origin.
Marin will do it.
From purchasing food to cooking dinner, to laying the table and serving up the meal. Fix, fix, fix. There is nothing Nate has to do except arrive home, change and open wine if he feels like it. I’m the one who’s always done the school runs in the morning and picked up the children from childminders: this means Nate has always been free to swim first thing with Steve and Finn.
He’s fighting fit and I struggle to do an online Pilates class once a month.
He idly picks up an apple and bites into it. ‘What’s up?’ he asks, seeing my face.
‘Bad day,’ I mutter, not wanting the fight, but then the irritation refuses to lie buried and squelches out of me, the way my belly does when I wear shaping knickers.
‘You could have put dinner in the oven,’ I say.
‘You should have rung. I would have,’ he says equably. ‘I can lay the table for you,’ he adds.
Lay the tablefor me?It’s like, ‘I can do the shoppingfor youif you’re really stuck.’
It’s for all of us. Not just me.
Me wants to lie in a bubble bath, read a novel and not have to look after everyone.
‘Really bad day?’ he asks, cocking his head to the side.
I have a sudden flashback to the household I have just left where anger ripples through the air.
Taking a deep breath, I say: ‘Yes, but I’m OK. Please, do lay the table. Open wine, maybe?’
‘That I can do,’ says my husband with a charming grin. He kisses me on the cheek, goes to the cupboard in the utility room where he keeps his precious bottles.
