the empty seats. I try to apologise to the lady waiting at the end of the row, but Ed steers me slightly away, stepping just in front of me, apologising on my behalf, offering to pay for the woman’s ticket. Her expression softens as she listens to his words. I can’t hear what he is saying; I’m watching the screen instead, wondering if the hero and heroine will finally get their happy ending.
If only mine was as easy as their story.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Ed
A routine has ordered its way into our life over the past few weeks. I get up early, make the kids’ lunches, write in their reading journals, iron their uniforms, take them to school, go to work, smile and shake hands, keep my head down, say the right things at the right times, drink coffee, pick up the kids, worry about why Hailey is so quiet, notice that she is becoming quieter with every day that Jen is away, that she has started to get angry and frustrated with simple things that she used to enjoy. I make the dinner – try not to make the chicken nuggets again, try to stop Oscar from helping himself to the biscuits when I’m not looking – bath them, FaceTime Jen so she can read them a bedtime story, say goodnight, blow them kisses as she goes on with her life without us but still with Kerry. I kiss the kids goodnight, clean up, work from home for another couple of hours to make up the time for leaving early for the school run. I call Jen again before bed. Sometimes we watch TV together, her in her bedroom at her parents, me on our bed at home. We say I love you; we say we miss each other.
She says she’s getting better, but then tells me what Kerry thinks about the show on TV, laughing about how ridiculous her point of view is. I laugh too, as if this is all normal; I even throw in a few one-liners in response to some jibe Kerry has apparently said. I don’t say how every time she says the words ‘Kerry thinks’ or ‘Kerry says’ that it feels like parts of her are falling away from me. I ask if she’s taking her medication and she says she is; I tell her she’ll be home before she knows it. I run my plans for the weekend with the kids by her: the cinema is now a no go, so last weekend we went to the zoo, which was fine, I mean apart from a whispered over-the-shoulder conversation while we waited for the caterpillar ride and an outraged man who thought Jen was referring to him when she told Kerry that she was ‘such a dick’. This weekend we’re just having a day at Nessa’s because Jen says the tablets are making her ill.
Which brings me to Nessa.
Jen and Nessa, Nessa and Jen.
Jen is spending more and more time with Nessa. Lots more time. Judith seems to think it’s a good idea, that Jen has someone to talk to. That is what she said to me. But I’m not so sure; I mean, it’s not as if Nessa is in the best place either, is she? It wasn’t long ago that Jen was the one looking after her.
‘It’s good that she’s got Nessa to talk to.’
‘Why? She’s got me to talk to,’ I retorted. Even to my own ears I sounded snappy and impatient, but in my defence, I was practising a plait with three pieces of rope tied onto the back of a kitchen chair. The chair stays still and doesn’t wriggle around and complain about how I’m hurting its head.
‘Oh you know what I mean, Edward, sometimes you just need a girlfriend to talk to. She’s not only lost her sister, she lost her best friend too.’
‘Daddy. You’re hurting my head.’
‘Sorry.’ I stop the Dutch plait that my fingers have recently learnt to make. Thank the Lord for YouTube. Thanks to the chair and the rope, I’ve become quite proficient at girls’ hairstyles recently. ‘Almost done. Pass me the purple bobble.’
‘But my swimsuit is green.’
‘Oh. Pass me the green one then.’
‘We don’t have any green bobbles.’
‘Yellow?’
‘I have banana ones or lemon. Which do you think, Daddy?’
I look over to where Oscar is listening to our conversation, the scrunch of his nose expressing my own confusion. ‘They’re both yellow. It doesn’t matter, does it?’ I question as Oscar rummages into the hair bobble