her soggy pasta and broccoli—this was all I could cook, vegan-wise, for a good three weeks—and picked up the bowl, plopping both the bowl and its contents on her head like a hat. Maren stood next to me, looking over the scene with her mouth open. It was then that I realized I hadn’t removed the face paints that Gaia and Coco had slathered all over my face during our makeup session, nor had I fixed the bird’s nest they’d made of my hair. Also, Coco’s nappy had exploded—I had forgotten that babies need to be changed regularly—and whilst I had been frantically attempting to change her, Gaia had applied the face paints to her own face. She’d gone for a Halloween look, covering her face entirely in orange and applying white circles around both eyes.
“Sophie?” Maren whispered. There was a whole paragraph inside that word.
But before I could answer, Gaia shouted: “We had so much fun!”
“Ya-ya!” Coco shouted, the bowl still atop her head, and clapped her hands. “Ya-ya!”
Tom came in then, his phone pressed to his ear like a prosthetic. His mud-caked wellies left a trail of leaves and dirt behind him. He told the caller he’d speak to them later and approached the girls, kissing both on the cheek. “Lots of role-playing, I see.”
I hooked on to this. “Yes, yes, we were role-playing.”
Gaia perked up, absorbing this new narrative. “She’s Upsy Daisy from In the Night Garden.”
“Is she?” Tom said. Like me, I don’t think he had the foggiest who Upsy Daisy was. “And who are you meant to be, Gaia? An Oompa Loompa?”
“No, Daddy,” Gaia said. “I’m a Halloween pumpkin.”
“Oh,” he said. “A Halloween pumpkin with glasses.”
She whipped her little spectacles from her face self-consciously, only to return them once she realized she couldn’t see anything without them.
Just then, Tom’s phone rang, and he was out the door again, tramping pine needles and clods of earth in his wake.
Bath time was straightforward enough—though I did end up wearing the contents of the bath, thanks to Coco’s love of splashing—and by the time bedtime rolled around I felt like I’d been hit by a tractor. Fifteen storybooks and much cajoling, singing, and bribing later, and both girls finally drifted off to sleep.
I felt like I deserved a medal.
It was a relief to get to my own room, my own space, where I wouldn’t be required to glue my eyeballs to Coco in anticipation of the moment she’d find a shard of broken glass to chew on or a window to hurl herself out of, and where I wouldn’t have to answer Gaia’s infinite stream of brain-melting questions, such as why the moon was called the moon and if people could still poo in heaven.
I took off my clothes and put on my pajamas—it was only half past eight, but I was dog-tired—then headed to the bathroom to use the toilet and brush my teeth. Right as I was sitting on the toilet, the door creaked open. I gave a jump of fright and called out, “Who’s there?”
A small hand appeared around the door, and I recognized it as belonging to Gaia.
“Can I come in?” she said from behind the door.
“I’m . . . I’m on the loo,” I said, clutching on to my pajama bottoms. “Are you all right?”
“If I promise to close my eyes can I sit with you?”
I was thrown by the question. “Sit with me? You mean, on the toilet seat?”
“On your lap,” she said. “Mumma always let me sit on her lap when she was on the toilet.”
Before I could answer, Gaia made her way through the door and climbed onto my knee, right as I hoisted my pajamas up around my waist. She said nothing, but simply sat there, as if my knee was exactly where she ought to be sitting. Then she said quietly: “I don’t like my bed.”
“Oh,” I said. “Is it uncomfortable?”
She shook her head.
“Is it . . . cold?”
She shook her head.
“Are there worms in it?”
She looked up, confused. “Why would worms be in my bed?”
“Well, what’s wrong with your bed, then?”
Another world-weary sigh. “It’s too empty.”
“Maybe it needs more teddies in it,” I offered. “Let’s go and find some, shall we?”
And I took her by the hand and led her to her bedroom, settled her into bed with an army of soft toys, then went back to my own bed. Within minutes I was asleep, but at half past two Gaia’s shrieks ripped through the house. I