“Which is about oneroom,”Finlay said. “I think I should mop it—it’s steam, and steam can burn—and Olive should do half the hoovering.”
“I could do the hoovering,” George said. “I like it. It’s like riding a bucking horse. Like it’s trying to run away.”
“You’re too little,” Finlay said. “Itwouldrun away.”
Skylar gazed at Finlay in what she hoped was a penetrating manner. She succeeded, because he wouldn’t quite meet her eyes. “And you’ve been hoovering this entire time,” she said flatly. “While I’ve done the kitchen and bath and stripped all the beds and started the washing.”
“Almost,” he said. “I only stopped for a bit.”
“Mm-hmm. I’ll give you a choice. I’ll do the rest of the hoovering if you like.”
“Yes,”he said. “Please.”
“And you,” she went on, “can finish scrubbing the bath and cleaning the toilet and sink and floor. Also the toilet in the shed, of course.”
“I can’t do all that,” Finlay said, looking truly appalled. “I don’t know how.”
“I’d be happy to teach you. What do you think? Switch up?”
“No,” he said with a martyred sigh. “I don’t think this is fair, that’s all. Especially if we have to help put the sheets back on the beds, too.”
“And fold the washing,” Olive said. “But I like folding. I help Granddad sometimes. It’s very peaceful.”
“I told you,” Skylar said, “that I’ll help you and Olive with the sheets until you know how. After that, you two can do the kids’ beds together.” When Finlay opened his mouth again, she said, “And Granddad and I will each do our own. This is what a family is. A family works together.”
Her phone rang in her back pocket at that moment, and Finlay said, “You should probably let it go to voicemail, since we’re all meant to be working all the time.”
She’d been about to let it do just that, but instead, she pulled it out of her pocket. “Granddad,” she told the kids. “Get back to work, please. We still have the shopping to do, remember.”
“Mum,”Finlay said in a tone of anguish. “Everybody else will be down at the rugby field!”
“In the morning?” she asked.
“Well, after lunch.”
“After lunch,” she said, “we’ll be done with the shopping, and the sheets will take fifteen minutes. After which you’ll be free to go over to the rugby field, no worries.”
The phone, of course,hadgone to voicemail in the meantime. She turned her back on Finlay’s disgruntled face, rang back, and said, “Hi, Granddad. Nice time?” She tried to say it cheerily. Hehadwalked the younger kids to and from school all week and rung the plumber for her, and he’d done a few loads of midweek laundry, too, and hung it out, even though he’d eaten dinner and slept over with Maureen the last three nights. That was because Zane was in Christchurch to play the Crusaders in the semifinal. Which was tonight, and which Skylar would be watching.
She had a crush, and there was no denying it. But then, she hadn’t had a crush of any kind for so long, it seemed like it had happened to a different woman. She’d enjoy her crush. Quietly.
Wait. Granddad hadn’t answered, had he? She said, “Granddad?”
He said, “Have you been to the supermarket yet?”
“Uh … no. Not yet. We’re still cleaning here. Something you need me to pick up for you?” Shedidn’tsay, “Condoms? Pregnancy test? Lube?” It was so hard not to, though. It shouldn’t be funny that her granddad was apparently having the sex of his life—he hadn’t exactlysaidso, but he kept looking annoyingly smug, and every time she saw him and Maureen together, they were touching.
She was jealous of her grandfather, was what it was. Her seventy-seven-year-old grandfather. How pitiful was that?
He said, “You know I don’t like to ask it, love.”
Oh, bugger. What was coming now? “Go ahead,” she said. “Ask.”He’s been here helping you for years,she reminded herself.Time to give back.
“Maureen’s got the bot,” he said. “Flu, I think. Fever, chills, all that. I need to take her to White Cross at Ascot”—the walk-in clinic at the hospital, he meant—“but I can’t take the kids. They’d be sure to pick up something there, and then where would we be? And then there’s tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“Tea for the kids, the rugby, then getting them off to bed. I can’t do all that and care for Maureen, too, not when she’s this crook.”
