‘She did,’ Prue agreed. ‘Jacob was bored though.’
‘He just wanted to get to nursery. They’ve got a worm farm going.’
‘Ew, that sounds revolting.’
‘He wants to make one at home.’
‘Oh that’s disgusting!’ She screwed up her face in the same way as she’d done when any mess came her way—when the kids got out the paints or cooked independently. He’d told her then to enjoy their childhood and not be in a rush for them to turn into adults. What he’d actually wanted to say to her was stop trying to make them into miniature versions of you, afraid to get a speck of dirt on them. What exactly did she think it was going to do to them?
‘So what did you want to talk about?’ He refocused on the here and now.
Prue looked down into her lap and Dylan wondered why she was so hesitant to speak.
‘Do you need money?’ he asked.
‘What? No!’
‘Sorry, it’s just that you rarely hang around as much as you have been lately.’
‘I know.’ She seemed to be collecting her thoughts. ‘Mom and Dad gave me a bit of a sermon last night. In fact, they’ve been doing so for a while now.’
Dylan knew her parents could be forthright when they wanted to be, which in his experience was most of the time. They’d made it clear when he started to see Prue that they were thinking the union would be a long-term one, and sometimes he’d wondered whether that was why both of them had got carried away with marriage and the whole suburban American dream way too soon.
‘About what?’ He checked his watch even though the only place he needed to be was the supermarket to do the groceries. He was expecting her to say they’d lectured her about finding a respectable job, perhaps standing on her own two feet for once. He hadn’t expected what came next.
‘They disapprove of us, of this.’ Her palm waved back and forth in the air between them as though it was a connecting thread. ‘They didn’t say much when we first split up but they’ve started to complain they don’t see enough of their grandchildren.’
Neither did Prue, in Dylan’s opinion. ‘What are you saying, Prue?’
‘They want us back together.’
‘That’s absurd.’ He laughed, and had assumed she would too, but when he looked at her she was as serious as she’d been the day she filed for divorce. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’
‘I think we rushed into it.’
He stood, took his coffee cup, and poured the liquid down the sink. ‘There was no “we”, it was you, if you remember. You got bored, Prue. You always do. You got bored of me and the kids and so you left and now you’re bored of the new life you have and you’re wondering if being with me, with us, is the better option.’
‘That’s not fair. I didn’t leave because I was bored.’
‘So why did you leave?’
‘Because you were stifling me! It was like being in an American family from the TV, all perfect, the two kids, the house in the suburbs—’
‘You were the one who wanted the fucking house in the suburbs!’
‘You don’t need to shout!’ She came and stood next to him beside the sink. ‘I’ll go, you’re angry.’
‘Damn right I am.’ He turned to face her, arms folded across his chest. ‘Is this what you want or is it what your parents want?’ Her parents had a way of persuading people around to their point of view and even their thirty-six-year-old daughter couldn’t say no.
‘I think it’s what I want.’
‘Prue, you don’t come round and tell me you’re regretting the divorce without being sure. And you sure as hell won’t be breathing a word of this to Ruby or Jacob.’ They’d dropped Jacob off at nursery right after the science event but he’d clung to his mom’s leg. He’d had trouble saying goodbye to her since she left the family, as though he wondered if each time she left it could be the last time he saw her.
‘Calm down, Dylan.’
He was tugging at his hair, the way he’d done when Ruby had shown signs of foetal distress when Prue was in labour and their daughter had ended up being delivered via an emergency C-section.
‘Dylan.’ Prue put a hand on his arm but he pulled it away. ‘I’ll go but we’ll talk soon.’
