dog people, a dog family!
Rummaging around, trying to find spaghetti for the kids’ dinner, she heard the front door open. Johnny appeared and she called down the hall, ‘You don’t live here any more.’
‘Just picking up some clothes for Berlin. Going tomorrow.’
Good. It had been strange and awful sitting opposite him in the office today. ‘How long for?’
He came into the kitchen. ‘I’ll be back Thursday evening.’
‘You need to get another job,’ she said. ‘We can’t work together. You’re great at your chatty charming-Johnny thing. You’ll get something.’
Money, that was a problem, she acknowledged. It had been a problem before and it was a bigger problem now. But she would wait until Karl Brennan delivered his report. He might suggest something helpful.
It was ironic – or was that what irony meant? She’d always been afraid to assume, since poor Alanis Morissette had been so humiliated all those years ago – that she’d consulted Karl Brennan to placate Johnny, but now he might provide the financial solution to facilitate their split.
‘You knew she hated me. You should never have met her.’
‘I didn’t know anything. I was afraid to ask too soon. When I did ask, I made it clear that you and me came as a job lot.’
‘She didn’t want me.’
Anguished, he said, ‘I’m sorry you had to find that out.’
‘She only wanted you. And not as a friend.’
‘I should never have – I hate myself …’
‘Try being me. I feel unloved, friendless, left out, abandoned, humiliated and stupid.’
Tuesday
‘If you’ve lost nothing,’ Peggy said, ‘why would you change?’
Cara nodded in agreement.
Ed had had no choice.
But it was so, so sad.
Her thoughts were way more evolved than her feelings. In theory she agreed with Ed but emotionally she was an ocean of tears: she could cry for ever.
And yet things could be worse: the logistics of their separation weren’t as devastating as they might be for other couples. As things stood, for three months of the year Ed was away during the week. She and the kids were used to it. They coped.
Then there were Dorothy and Angus. They were mad about Vinnie and Tom and always available for baby-sitting, doctor’s visits, any emergencies.
Ed needed a place to live: finding the money for that would be a challenge. But Ed didn’t need material comforts – he’d happily sleep in a cupboard.
‘I’ve broken his heart,’ she told Peggy. ‘I’ve broken mine. If I do everything you tell me to do, how long before I’m better?’
Peggy laughed.
‘Piece of string?’ Cara asked.
‘Yep. Aaaand don’t do this for Ed. Don’t do it to fix your marriage –’
‘Do you think it’s fixable?’
‘It’s not for me to say. What I’m saying is, you have to park all of that. If you want to get better, then do it for you, Cara.’
In a way she felt that she had already lost too much to bother with any of this …
‘You get one precious life,’ Peggy said. ‘Why not try and have a contented one?’
… but she had her sons. And she had herself.
They were good reasons to try.
Wednesday
‘Nell! Watch out! The jayzis architrave!’
Dumbly she looked. The yellow eggshell she’d been rolling onto the walls had dribbled onto the white gloss woodwork. She hadn’t even noticed. ‘Sorry, Dad.’
‘You’re a liability today. What’s up with you?’
What was up was that her giant fucking crush on Ferdia had come back, like a cold-sore she’d thought was healed.
At Johnny’s birthday, her utter mortification had efficiently corralled her feelings: it was crystal clear how terrible her flirtation with Ferdia had been. That conviction had lasted all over the weekend and into Monday.
But yesterday it hadn’t seemed so terrible.
And this morning, it didn’t seem terrible at all. Small matter of an age difference and, yeah, they’d met in a way that wasn’t strictly out of the meet-cute playbook. But so fucking what?
Thursday
Into the ether Nell sent an experimental, Hey.
The aftermath of adrenalin and fear made her pull Molly Ringwald hard against her chest.
‘Are we watching this movie?’ Garr asked.
‘Yep. Let’s go.’
Molly squirmed away, leaving a layer of ginger hairs on Nell’s shirt. The poor cat was shedding fur by the handful, probably due to stress. If they didn’t get settled soon, she’d be completely bald.
Which was looking increasingly likely. Nell had been viewing places every evening after work: for a thousand different reasons they were all unsuitable, sometimes disastrously so. ‘Hold on two seconds.’ She went to the cupboard under the stairs for the Hoover. She scooted around Garr’s room, vacuuming up Molly’s latest fur