to see me. I give her a short wave, but I stay put. If she isn’t in the mood to chat, then I won’t force myself on her. And anyway, it suits me not to get drawn into a conversation right now. Too late. She’s coming over, albeit reluctantly.
‘Hey, lovely.’ I give her a hug.
‘Haven’t seen you here for a while,’ she says. Her face is drawn and pale, her eyes cloudy and ringed with shadows.
‘You okay?’
‘Yeah. You know how it is with young kids. Not enough sleep.’
‘I remember it well. It does get better. Well, the sleep part anyway! The rest of it is as tricky as ever.’
We each force out a little laugh, but it’s obvious neither of us is in a chatty mood. Which is ironic, because I have so much I could talk about with her. Too much. I know she’d be sympathetic about Ryan, but I’m not sure what she’d say about Sophie. I think she’d probably be horrified and try to talk me out of it.
A couple of Sonny’s friends’ mums, Anna and Mo, spot me. They wave enthusiastically and come over. Tia seems to shrink at the sight of them. ‘You sure you’re okay?’ I ask her, wishing I could invite her round for a chat, but knowing I absolutely can’t. Not right now.
‘Yeah, I’m fine.’ She almost snaps the words out, but I don’t have time to dig deeper because Anna and Mo are giving me enthusiastic hugs.
‘Kelly! Haven’t seen you here for a while? How you doing?’
‘Fine. You know Tia, don’t you? Her daughter Rosie is in Reception.’
The two women glance at one another and then nod coolly in Tia’s direction. I’m a little taken aback by their reaction, which is verging on rude. But they’re all smiles again now. Maybe I imagined it.
Tia’s face is red, as though she’s about to cry. ‘I’d better go,’ she mumbles. ‘Leo…’ She tails off.
Before I get a chance to say goodbye, she stalks off, and I’m snarled up in my friends’ conversation about school matters. They haven’t mentioned Ryan’s classroom meltdown, so I guess they haven’t heard about it yet. Well, I’m not about to enlighten them. Maybe it will be forgotten about. But I know that’s unlikely. Some child will mention it to a parent and then it will be all around the town in no time. To my relief, the bell rings and everyone’s attention turns to the children streaming out of their classrooms.
It takes a while for my two to make their way out, and I wave at them to get their attention.
‘Mum, what are you doing here?’ Ryan lopes over, his face a thundercloud of resentment.
‘Hi, Mum!’ Sonny beams, almost crashing into me in his enthusiasm. ‘We had swimming today and they let us have the inflatables. It was so funny. George Mulcahy had a sharp point on his swim-shorts toggle, and it burst the inflatable crocodile.’
I ruffle Sonny’s hair and tell him that sounds hilarious.
‘Why are you picking us up?’ Ryan persists. ‘Do we have to go somewhere? We haven’t got to go shopping, have we?’
‘No, nothing like that. Aren’t I allowed to walk home with my boys every now and again?’ I smile distractedly at some of the other parents. Normally, I’d stop and go over for a chat, but right now I really have to concentrate on the kids. To explain to them about Sophie.
‘Oh yeah,’ Sonny says, ‘Dr Barton said to say hello.’
‘Dr Barton? You mean the dentist?’
Sonny nods.
‘When did you see him?’
‘He came into assembly to talk about looking after our teeth.’ Sonny bares his teeth at me to make his point.
‘So boring,’ Ryan mutters. ‘He went on and on about it.’
Sonny pulls a small tube out of his pocket. ‘We queued up at the end to get free samples of toothpaste and Dr Barton said, “Say hello to your beautiful mother,” and then he went red like he was embarrassed.’
‘Gross.’ Ryan strides ahead, his shoulders hunched.
That’s all I need. I really hope Paul Barton isn’t interested in me. If he is, I’ll have to gently set him straight. But right now I have more important things to sort out. Ryan still hasn’t mentioned anything about his outburst at school, even though it must be weighing on his mind. I decide that now isn’t the time for me to bring it up. Not with Sonny within earshot. I’ll talk to Ryan about it later when it’s just the two of us.