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The first cracks opened when the phone rang at five-forty three on Wednesday evening. Michelle was in the kitchen, crouched before her eight-month old daughter, Rosie, spooning into her mouth an organic mixed-vegetable mush that smelled not unlike the first pumpkin pie Michelle had ever made. That smell (compost peelings with a top note of cough syrup) had been the major reason for it being also the last pumpkin pie Michelle had ever made. That and the fact it hadn’t set properly, and had fallen on the plates in viscous globs much like those you’d find in the handkerchief of someone with an acute sinus infection.
Fortunately, that Thanksgiving it had only been her and Chad. It was their first, eight months after their wedding, before babies and mercifully free of in-laws. Chad’s father had accepted a junket to Rome courtesy of some European mega-bank and taken his wife, Virginia, with him, a joyous event not to be repeated for any of the subsequent Lawrence family Thanksgivings.
Chad had stared at the globs and said, ‘Don’t you make pumpkin pie in New Zealand?’
‘No, we bloody well don’t!’ Michelle had huffed. ‘And we don’t make any of that other freak food like baby marshmallows with sweet potato, or salads encased in — gag me — moulded gelatine. We have roast lamb and pavlova, like normal people!’
Chad had looked up at her, his expression wistful. ‘I like baby marshmallows and sweet potato.’
Michelle had shaken her head. ‘Not on my watch, buckaroo. As long as I have breath in my body, in this house the freakish twain of confectionery and tubers will never, ever meet.’
Of course, every subsequent Thanksgiving at her mother-in-law’s house, Michelle had to watch, powerless, as both her husband and her son, Harry, scarfed down turkey stuffed with sausage, mashed potato oozing with extra cheese, and the sweet potato casserole made with marshmallow crème custard that continued to be served because ‘it’s always been Chad’s favourite’. Michelle noted that Chad studiously avoided her eye as the serving spoon emerged from the casserole dish with a sucking sound, bearing a mound of pinkish goo. Michelle was only grateful that Chad’s mother considered the customary addition of jello cubes to anything, sweet or savoury, as ‘tacky’. And that she didn’t stint on the wine.
No, Virginia Lawrence could not be said to be a stingy hostess, Lord love her. Michelle had never seen her mother-in-law in a state even close to tipsy, but she was convinced there were deeper reasons for her insisting that Harry called her ‘Gin-Gin’.
Michelle glanced over at her son, sitting up at the table, working his way steadily through a plate of beans and rice and carrot sticks. Harry, at three, did everything steadily. He refused to abandon any task before he was finished and, equally, he refused to be hurried. In that respect, as well as physically, Harry was just like his father. The two were blonde, measured and solid. In fact, Harry added a whole new dimension to the word solid. Friends would bend down to pick him up off the floor and exclaim ‘Jesus!’ (or ‘My goodness!’, depending on whether they were Michelle’s friend or a friend of the Lawrence family). Even Lowell, Chad’s father, who until recently had been as hale and robust as a Wagnerian god, had struggled to get baby Harry off the ground.
Michelle smiled fondly at her son. Her daughter, who was as measured as a rogue firework, did not appreciate even a second’s pause while being fed. With a squeal of irritation, Rosie lunged forward and grabbed the plate.
‘Shit!’ Michelle jerked, and the plate shot out of Rosie’s grasp and flipped upwards, hurling a brown arc of mush into the air. Most of it landed on Rosie, who began to scream at a pitch and volume to rival Maria Sharapova on centre court. A big gob hit Michelle right in the eye. ‘Shit!’ she yelled again, wiping at it frantically. ‘Shit, bugger, bugger, that stings!’
‘Mom-ee!’ Harry hated yelling of any kind but especially the swearing kind. He also hated the thought of anything bad happening to his mother. He’d become inconsolably distraught when Michelle had effed, blinded and hobbled after her bare foot had landed heavily on a piece of LEGO. Now, Michelle made sure she always wore slippers.
‘Mom-ee-ee!’
‘I’m OK, sweet pea!’ Michelle called. ‘It’s just Rosie’s food! Effing stinging bollocksycrap,’ she added under her breath, fumbling for the baby wipes. ‘Organic, my bum.’
Rosie writhed under the wipe, red-faced with rage. Her screams now had that shuddering tremolo of pure fury, and were now potentially audible to not only the neighbours, but also citizens of the next state.
‘MOM-EE-EE!’
Michelle almost snapped at her son, but knew that no one in the history of existence had ever calmed down when ordered to calm down.
The phone rang, so Michelle snapped at it instead. ‘Go away!’
The ringing seemed to get louder, as if the phone knew it was being deliberately ignored. Michelle gave up wiping a furious Rosie and stomped to the refrigerator, where she stabbed the plastic straw into a box of juice, stomped back and shoved it at her daughter, who stopped crying instantly and started sucking. Michelle then went to Harry, picked him up out of his chair and hugged him to her.
‘There you go, sweet pea.’ She stroked his back as he buried his hot little face in her shoulder. ‘Everyone’s all better now. We’re all cool little Fonzies.’
Harry lifted his head. ‘Rosie’s not supposed to have those juices,’ he told his mother. ‘They’re bad for her teeth and she could choke on the straw and die.’
‘Let me guess. Did Gin-Gin tell you that?’
Harry nodded solemnly, and added, ‘The phone’s still ringing.’
‘I know,’ said Michelle. ‘But the only people who call at this time are telemarketing freaks who want to take our money. They’ll go away soon.’
Immediately, the ringing stopped.
‘See?’ Michelle smiled at her son. ‘We’ve just saved twenty bucks of Daddy’s hard-earned moolah!’
The phone started up again.
‘Oh, come on!’ Michelle tried not to yell.
‘Might be Daddy,’ said Harry.
‘Daddy knows better than to call at your dinner time.’
But Michelle plumped Harry back down in his chair and walked a little faster than normal towards the phone.
‘Hello?’
‘Is he there?’
Forty years of living in the South had taken most of the clip out of Virginia Lawrence’s Boston vowels, and while she would never go so far as to adopt the languid formality of a Blanche Dubois, she always spoke with a scrupulous courtesy. She would never, ever, under normal circumstances begin a conversation without a reciprocal hello.
‘Virginia?’ Michelle frowned. ‘What’s up?’
Normally, too, her mother-in-law would protest at the use of the expression ‘What’s up?’, classifying it with others she deemed irretrievably vulgar, such as ‘How’s it hanging?’, ‘Where y’at?’ and ‘Gimme five!’ When Harry was first learning to talk, Michelle had considered teaching him to greet his grandmother, just once, with ‘’Sup, G?’ but had reluctantly decided against it.
But Virginia seemed not even to have heard her. ‘Is he there?’ she said again, with a breathless urgency. ‘Is he home?’
‘Who? Chad?’ Michelle glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘It’s only quarter to six.’
‘He left here ten minutes ago.’
Michelle felt a prickle of dread. The soles of her feet began to tingle, as if the ground she was standing on was no longer stable.
‘He left your place? What was he doing there? He always comes straight home—’
She heard the click of the front door opening. It was a sound that she subconsciously waited for every weeknight. Usually it released a small but vital bubble of happiness, which flitted upwards from her gut to her heart. Usually that click meant Michelle could be sure all was right with her world.
‘Daddy!’
Seemed she wasn’t the only one who listened for it. Harry scrambled down off his chair, ruddy face alight with joy, and stood bouncing up and down on his tiptoes, ready to race forward at the first sight of his father.
‘Virginia!’ Michelle hissed urgently. ‘What was Chad doing at your place?’
‘It will kill him. Really, you must talk to him!’
‘Kill who? Jesus!’
‘Dad-eeee!’
Harry had spied his father in the kitchen doorway and was racing towards him. Michelle watched as her tall, blonde husband bent to scoop his son up into his arms. She heard Rosie in her highchair grunt and gurgle with excitement, knowing that Daddy would soon stride over and chuck her cheek with his finger and kiss the top of her dark, downy head. That was Chad’s routine — a bear hug and a ‘Hey, big guy!’ for Harry, a quick kiss and a ‘Hey, gorgeous’ for Rosie, then a fuller kiss on the mouth for Michelle and a brief, silent exchange of amusement mixed with disbelief, as if neither of them was entirely sure how all this had come about but it seemed only right to count their blessings.
This Wednesday evening, however, at ten to six, there was no ‘Hey, big guy!’ Chad scooped up Harry and hugged him. But his eyes were on Michelle. The prickle of dread crept up her spine and insinuated itself everywhere. She felt suspended, in that nauseating instant when you realise you’ve stepped out onto nothing and are about to fall.
A muted squawking reminded Michelle that her mother-in-law was still on the line. She held out the receiver to her husband.
‘It’s your mother.’ Chad nodded. ‘Shall I put her on speaker?’
Her husband reached out for the phone. ‘Mom, I’ll call you back.’
The answering squawk was abruptly terminated.
Rosie, outraged at being deprived of her kiss, began to yell. Michelle saw Harry’s face crumple and knew he, too, was about to cry. If Michelle didn’t do something fast, there’d be three people bawling in the kitchen.
‘It would be a very good idea if you got our children into their bath and then put them to bed,’ she informed her husband. ‘You will then find me in the living room, drinking a large glass of wine, and you will tell me what the be-jeepers is going on.’