She made an effort for lunch with her sisters the following day, wearing navy trousers and a cream, silk shirt instead of the jeans and T-shirt she’d normally have chosen. Smarter than normal clothes, slightly heavier make-up. Trying to look the part. A mother who was happy with her lot. A wife whose husband loved her. He still did, didn’t he?
She’d been so lost in her own woes recently she hadn’t paid Mark much attention. Last night, he’d been distracted, but now that she was giving it more thought, hadn’t he seemed a little distant the last couple of weeks?
As she made her way to the restaurant, the thought haunted her. It refused to budge even to allow Drew to take over. She was being silly she decided, pushing open the door and pasting a smile in place when she saw Emma and Jan already at the table, deep in conversation.
The eldest of the sisters, Susan had married far younger than they had and Drew was older than their children by several years. They’d been luckier than she too – more prolific, Jan with three children, Emma with four. Over the years, Susan had babysat several times. She was a natural with children. Everyone said so. Her sisters especially.
‘You’re so good with them,’ Jan said, every time Susan babysat. ‘Honestly, we can relax and have a good night out knowing they’re in good hands.’
Emma said much the same thing.
‘Of course they say that,’ Mark said with a shake of his head at her gullibility. ‘They’re only too delighted for you to babysit. It doesn’t cost them anything. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: they take you for granted.’
Susan would shush him and smile. She loved to babysit. Loved it more when the children woke and she had to bring them downstairs. She’d sit with them in her lap and sing them the songs she’d sung to Drew before he got to be a big boy who didn’t need his mummy to sing him to sleep.
They too were past that stage now. It didn’t matter; she wasn’t asked to babysit anymore. The eldest in each family was old enough to take on that role and she rarely saw the children these days. With Jan and Emma’s children a similar age, it made sense for them to spend more time together and they frequently went on joint family holidays.
‘You’re welcome to come,’ they’d said to her. And she would have done, but Mark’s ‘no’ was quick and emphatic.
‘Spend a whole week with all seven kids screaming their heads off? No thank you.’
Even Drew shook his head. ‘I know what’ll happen if I go,’ he said. ‘I’ll be left looking after them while all you “adults”–’ he curled his forefingers in the air and wriggled them around that word as if to explain how little like adults they behaved ‘–will vanish, leaving me to it.’
So they hadn’t gone, and eventually, the invitations stopped coming. Now, they only met at Christmas and at family gatherings and even those were growing more infrequent. She couldn’t remember when she’d last been asked to one of the children’s birthday parties.
And now, here in the restaurant, dressed up like a fool, she was sitting silently while her sister’s discussed their children. Had she talked about Drew as much? Probably not. Her sisters’ eyes would have glazed over. They’d oohed and aahed over him, but they weren’t interested in the minutiae of a baby’s growth, and by the time they had children of their own and eager to share, it was too late for Susan.
Anyway, they had each other; they didn’t need her.
She sipped the white wine they’d insisted on ordering although she wasn’t wild about drinking in the middle of the day. It tended to leave her muggy headed and she was bad enough recently without that. She wondered what Drew was doing. If he’d made some nice friends. Perhaps she and Mark should go up for a weekend. They both liked Glasgow and hadn’t been for many years. She might suggest it to him that night, over the nice dinner she’d planned to cook for him. Perhaps she’d make it an extra special meal, get him in a good mood.
Get him in a good mood. A frown creased her brow as her earlier fear came barrelling back. This distance between them – had it been there a long time and she was only noticing it now that Drew had left? Or was it simply that Mark was feeling the departure of their son as much as she, but keeping it to himself? Yes, that made sense. He was a sensitive man. Perhaps she’d forgotten that. She brushed her fingers over her forehead. When had she become so self-centred? She took another sip of her wine, then put her glass down and poked a fork into the lasagne she’d ordered. It wasn’t very good, and she was struggling to eat it.
‘What do you think, Susan?’
It was Jan who asked, her head tilted bird-like as she waited for an answer. There was a time when her sisters had valued her opinion, when they’d arrive home from school troubled about this or that and she’d sit and listen, comfort them, give them advice. Not any more. She didn’t have the faintest idea what they’d been discussing but it didn’t matter; the question had simply been for form. They no longer cared what she thought and it had been a long time since they’d paid any attention to her advice. ‘I think it’s a great idea,’ she said, hoping it was the appropriate answer.
‘See!’ Jan said turning to Emma with a smug look in her eye. ‘I told you she wasn’t listening to us.’ They turned as one to look at Susan, eyes narrowed in accusation. ‘Honestly, have you heard a word we’ve said?’
Susan reached for her wine and downed it in a couple of gulps. Reaching for the bottle, she refilled her glass and picked it up. Then she shook her head and put it down again. Gently. Refusing to spill a drop. Refusing to make a mess. Not her, she was the careful type. The good mother, good wife. ‘I’m sorry. I’m a bit preoccupied.’
‘A bit!’ Jan sniffed. She reached for the bottle and divided what was left between her glass and Emma’s. ‘It’s Drew, I suppose. It’s always bloody Drew. Let the lad go, for goodness’ sake.’
‘So that I can sit and listen to you two talking about your children ad nauseam the way you always do, on and on and bloody on.’
She saw the startled, horrified faces of her sisters, realised she’d spoken aloud and lifted a hand in apology. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.’ But her sisters were quick to take offence and slow to forgive. Like their mother, they sulked like children. They’d inherited her full bottom lip, and when they sulked as they were doing now, it stuck out prominently. Susan’s thinner lips and brown eyes were courtesy of their father. Thankfully, it was all she’d inherited from him, not his capacity to abandon people.
It was tempting to pick up her glass and drain it. Maybe that’s what she should do, turn into a lush. The thought made her smile. Luckily, she turned it into a grimace in time. ‘I’m having a tough time adjusting, that’s all.’ She supposed she was hoping for sympathy, a little understanding.
Emma’s sigh was neither. It was irritated. ‘He’s only gone to Glasgow. He’ll be back in a couple of months for Christmas, then it’ll be Easter, and the long summer. You’ll hardly have time to miss him.’
Susan did reach for her glass then and took a mouthful of wine. Her sisters glanced at one another, Emma giving the slightest of shrugs. Susan rarely drank more than a half a glass; perhaps they thought she was becoming a lush. ‘I know I’m being silly.’ She put the glass down again, eager to reassure them, as she always had done. ‘Anyway,’ she shook her head. ‘Enough about me, tell me what I’ve missed.’
‘We don’t want to be going on and on about our children, do we?’ Jan wasn’t being easily placated.
Emma, always more forgiving, nudged her sister with her elbow. ‘Don’t mind her, Susan; she’s in bad form because Oliver got into a fight in school yesterday and she had to go and talk to the head this morning. It’s left her in a sour mood.’
‘Well, why wouldn’t it?’ Jan’s voice was sharp. ‘The money we pay for that damn school, they should be able to handle things themselves without having to drag parents in for a “meaningful discussion”.’ She reached for her glass and emptied half. ‘A meaningful discussion, for fuck’s sake! It was worse than being back in school myself.’
The rest of the lunch passed in discussion of schools, teachers, and how better behaved their children were than the rest.
Susan threw in a ‘really?’ ‘yes’ or ‘no’ when it was appropriate. It did cross her mind that since neither Jan nor Emma’s children were at all well-behaved, the other children must be monsters. It brought her thoughts back to Drew.
She’d done a good job with him, hadn’t she? It was healthy that he was coping well without her, that he didn’t feel the need to come home for a weekend or spend time chatting to her on the phone.
She switched her thoughts back to Mark. It was time to give him more attention. Perhaps it was her fault he appeared to have drifted recently.
Drifted – nothing more than that.
Their marriage was solid.
Solid.
She had no doubts at all.
None.