Outside, Jacob is still bouncing. ‘Right, young man. I’m cutting off the Wi-Fi on your iPad for the rest of the day unless you come and do this.’
I hear an amused snort from Leo’s direction.
‘What does that mean?’ I ask.
‘Just that you always say that and never do it.’
My chest inflates with indignation, though that’s partly because I’ve been caught out.
As anyone knows, the number one rule of effective parenting is never to make idle threats that you can’t see through. That’s fine in theory. But the only thing my kids are bothered about is the Wi-Fi and sadly, despite multiple attempts, I still haven’t worked out how to block individual devices without turning the whole system off. Given that I want to watchStrictlytonight – and that both kids seem to have a mystifying talent for getting around any ‘parent safe’ gizmos I attempt to install – the only one who tends to be punished . . . is me.
‘This time I will,’ I declare, with an ominous glare. ‘You just watch.’
I go to the patio door again. ‘Jacob.Nowplease!’
He begrudgingly climbs off the trampoline and trails inside. ‘I don’t know why you always have to shout, Mum.’
I turn around, take a deep breath and see that Leo is gone, having apparently completed the mopping. I know this because the muddy smears he’d left on the tiles are now just as muddy, but also awash with dirty water, the mop is lying on the floor and the bucket is next to it. On top of that, every bit of paraphernalia he’s used to make his cheese sandwich – butter, bread, knife – is spread out across the worktop.
‘LEO!’ I call up the stairs.
‘I’m in the shower!’
Defeated, I start to clear up myself, silently apologising to any future wife of his – if there is one, that is – for failing to raisehim as the feminist ally I always SWORE I would. Am I the only woman in the world whose kids are running rings around me? I am grappling with a sense of my own inadequacy when a text arrives. It’s from Zach.
I have four new tennis balls and nobody to play with. Could you be tempted into a hit? Fully prepared for you to kick my ass.
For a brief moment, I feel a lightness beneath my breastbone. It’s the oddest, stupidest schoolgirlish feeling, like getting a Valentine’s card from a boy in sixth form. I bite the inside of my mouth and type back.
Don’t think you need worry on that front. You should give Nora a ring. She really is an excellent coach.
I might just do that. Either way, I wasn’t lying last night. I really did have fun.
I start writing: Me too, then I stop myself.
What the hell do I think I’m doing? I can’t send something like that. Something . . . flirty.
I remind myself that this man has made life very difficult for me as a result of his ‘reservations’, whether he’s now backtracking or not. More importantly, aren’t my flirting days over? They certainly should be.
I decide not to respond, instead clicking on Instagram. I bypass all the reels it seems to send my way these days. Serums for thinning hair. Interiors accounts featuring women running their fingers along immaculate kitchen tops to a whimsical, acoustic track. And various ADHD accounts which the platform seems to have diagnosed me with all by itself. I search ‘Zach Russo’ and to my astonishment . . . there he is, with a public account. I click on his profile.
There aren’t masses of photos. He’s clearly one of those people that dips in and out of social media without much conviction. The majority are of him and his daughter Mila. He was right about her being adorable, even I’ll concede that,despite my long-held conviction that no child on earth could possibly ever be as cute as my own were.
There aren’t many captions, which usually amount to just one or two words – ‘My Girl’, or ‘In training’, below the selfie of them at a baseball match. I keep scrolling, and there’s a black-and-white photo of him cradling her when she was tiny. It takes me a moment to realise what it reminds me of – that famous old Athena poster, ‘Man and Baby’. Zach isn’t bare-chested; he’s wearing a white T-shirt and his hair is a little longer than now. But she looks so tiny, cradled in his big muscular arms, and the tender look in his eyes would melt anyone’s heart.
I continue down his feed, past a couple of cityscapes of New York and LA, before coming across a clutch of posts from five years ago. They’re photos of an attractive young woman with dark hair and a bright smile, with a charity logo overlaid on top of them with the initials: the Jenna Russo Memorial Fund.
I look more closely and read Zach’s caption.
‘I’ll be running the Boston Marathon this year in memory of my twin sister Jenna, who tragically died aged 27. Please read our JustGiving page and donate if you can.’
The link is still in his biography.
I click on it to find that, over the years, $34,746 has been raised by 431 supporters through a variety of ‘Russo Family Memorial Walks’ and other charity challenges. I continue to read.
Story:
We have decided to raise funds in Jenna’s memory for the NEDA – the National Eating Disorder Association. Their mission is to end the pain and suffering caused by eating disorders, something we know Jenna felt passionately about.
