‘Fern—’
But she wasn’t hanging around to see if Everett had anything else to add. She could already hear another fight escalating between the boys in the kitchen and went to deal with that instead.
She found them arguing over who got to have the last Weetabix in the box and who had to make do with All-Bran.‘I’m shopping later today, it’s one morning, for goodness’ sake. What’s wrong with you both?’ There was mess all over the floor where one of them must’ve snatched one of the Weetabix from the other’s bowl and Fern’s fuse, already shortened, burned right down and she yelled at both of them. ‘Upstairs, this minute! And when you can have a sensible conversation, you can have breakfast!’
How didone remark from your husband and an inconsequential kids’ argument have the power to set the tone for your mood and potentially shape the rest of your day? She’d woken up feeling organised, somewhat in control, but now? Now she wished she could climb back into bed and wake up the same Fern who’d been full of energy with her young boys, who’d made love to her husband even after the longest day. Shelonged to be the Fern who was truly happy, the Fern who turned up on time, the Fern who was never late for a meeting or missed an appointment. She wanted to wind back the clock to when her life had run smoothly, when it didn’t feel as though things were beyond her control. But it had been so long since it had been that way that she wondered whether it ever could be again.
She cleared the floor,grateful she’d at least managed to sort things out at work. She’d also advised her boss that a family necessity meant she needed to be with her mother in Butterbury for a few weeks. He’d been happy to accommodate her last-minute request and she’d calmly scheduled her holiday with human resources and methodically worked through what was on her desk, organising others to cover where needed and bea point of contact in her absence. When she’d got home she’d told Everett and the boys she was going to Butterbury before they would this year. She’d cited the excuse that this was all for her grandad, that he was getting older and really wanted to spend time with Fern, Ginny and Daisy together. The boys’ questions came firing out one after the other –Who’s going to take me to Saturday morninghockey? What about the open evening at school? Can I still go to Scotty’s birthday party because you were going to take me?Everett had leaped straight in and clarified that he had been a parent before and knew how to drive a car, how to socialise with other people in the case of the school event, and was perfectly capable of sourcing a birthday present for the friend whose party it was.So whydon’t you do it more often?Cooper had asked and his dad had told him it was because Mum was so good at it.
Fern wished Everett hadn’t left this morning without them talking properly. She wished she’d been able to tell him her real reasons for going to Butterbury all of a sudden, that it wasn’t just because Loretta had requested it or that Grandad needed it, but that she needed to get away fromthe norm here and try to get her head straight. She wasn’t sure how to accomplish it – it couldn’t be measured like the financials and the performance at work – but she knew action was required and her home village seemed like the best place to start.
After Fern dropped the boys at school, she headed straight to the supermarket. With a couple of days to get the house and family organised beforeshe left, she intended to spend the afternoon batch cooking so Everett and the boys would have plenty of meals and wouldn’t exist on frozen pizzas or takeaways.
She headed up and down the aisles plucking fresh and nutrition-packed ingredients. She found pantry staples – brown rice, pasta, couscous – and as she shopped she realised she was beginning to feel excited about her solo trip to Butterbury.The only misgiving she had was that it would be concentrated time with her sisters and she wasn’t sure how that would go. Still, it could be worse. A colleague who Fern lunched with on occasion was going home for Christmas too and apparently her parents had downsized the second she and her three brothers had left home and so now it was a race to see who got the spare bedroom, and it wasn’talways ladies first. At least Fern didn’t have that problem, the girls all had their own rooms. Fern sometimes wondered why Loretta had kept such a big house when it was just her and Daisy, why she’d insisted their bedrooms remained the way they’d always been. It was as though she was clinging onto a past that no longer existed. And perhaps that was what she was trying to do now, expecting the sistersto come together under one roof and get on like they once had.
Fern hoped for all their sakes that it worked out that way.
After a walk Fern spent the afternoon in the kitchen and found that compared to how she usually felt by the end of the day, she felt more clarity than she had in ages. She’d never wanted to get away on her own before. It had seemed like a needless luxury, but as she’d choppedingredients and cooked, the thought of being Fern – not Mum, not a wife, just Fern, in her childhood room with her beautifully handmade quilt at the foot of the bed – filtered her body with a calm she couldn’t explain to anyone else.
‘You’re home early,’ she observed when Everett walked through the door a good hour before he usually would.
‘I decided I needed to be,’ he said warily. And thesimple act of what he’d done wasn’t lost on Fern. He recognised they were in trouble too. He hadn’t said as much, but coming home to her told her all she needed to know.
She paused after she dropped peelings into the compost bin. ‘I’m sorry I lost my temper earlier.’
‘Are you really cancelling the party?’ he asked softly.
She looked at him briefly before getting back to what she was doing.As she’d cooked she’d realised coming back for it would be silly, a lot of pressure to have everything just right, and take away from the time out she so desperately needed. ‘I’m really cancelling the party.’
‘Do the neighbours know?’
‘Nope.’
‘I can let them know.’
She nodded. ‘That would be great, thank you.’
‘Who knows, maybe one of them will realise what an effort you go to every yearand put on a party themselves.’ Everett wrapped her in a hug from behind. ‘I’ll miss you when you’re away.’
She smiled, glad to be in his arms again, but their time alone was short-lived when the boys, who’d both been upstairs doing homework, came downstairs and Jacob headed for the fridge while Cooper raided the pantry.
Fern made sure they both had something half decent.
‘I’m old enough toeat what I want to eat,’ Cooper snapped.
‘Call it life experience,’ she told him. ‘You’ll thank me for not giving you a heap of sugar and processed foods when you’re older,’ she called after him as he schlepped back upstairs with the peanuts she’d given him and the banana from the fruit bowl. ‘It’s not like I never give them treats,’ she said to Everett. But her attention was snatched away toJacob who’d gone to start up his PlayStation. Fern wiped her hands on her apron and followed her youngest son. ‘Twenty minutes,’ she told him. ‘Then finish your homework.’ He hadn’t been upstairs long enough to do it, he was trying his luck, and his nod of agreement proved he knew she was onto him.
It was hard to get the balance between time out and school work, but she knew if she got her boysinto good habits, it would help them in the long run. ‘Don’t let him be on that thing too much when I’m away,’ she told Everett, back in the kitchen where she put away the tomatoes she hadn’t used, adding in a comment that they could be sliced and used in sandwiches as well as an instruction not to let them go off or be wasted.
When Everett didn’t reply she asked, ‘Did you hear me?’
He loosenedhis tie, undid his top button and then reached for the carton of orange juice in the fridge. ‘Heard you, loud and clear.’
‘Everett …’ She was momentarily struck by the animosity in his tone. Here they were, back to petty remarks and snapping. How was it possible to miss someone you were standing this close to? ‘Are you annoyed because we got interrupted?’ Perhaps that was it. They’d been alonebefore the boys put a stop to it.
‘I’m not a teenager with hormones all over the place, Fern.’
‘I didn’t say you were.’
