But he left her in the kitchen and whatever contentedness she’d felt while she was cooking and preparing meals for her family was replaced by a tension that saw her splashing water when she dumped utensils into the sink, and invited no humming of whatever tune had been inher head earlier.
Everett came into the kitchen as she was taking the mince out of the fridge for tonight’s dinner, ready to make a chilli con carne. He took the packet of mince from her hands. ‘I’ll cook tonight.’
It was a welcome peace offering. She was about to insist that she could manage, but she’d made so much this afternoon even she wasn’t sure she could face any more cooking.
As Everettchopped the onion, minced the garlic and found the kidney beans from the back of the pantry they talked. They discussed his work, they went over hers, they talked about his boss who was new and had slotted in well. ‘Your boss was understanding,’ he said of Fern’s. The muscles in his forearm tensed as he used the tin opener to take the lid off the tin of kidney beans. ‘To give you the time offwith such little notice shows he values you and can see that you need the break.’
‘I don’t need the break, but I am entitled to it.’
He turned around briefly to look at his wife. And with that one look she knew. Everett could read her better than the newspaper he held on his lap on the train each day, work out her clues more easily than he could solve those of the crossword puzzle. And withthat one look her way Fern felt a rush of love but also a rush of shame. She’d failed, she had weakness, weakness she didn’t want anyone to see let alone Everett. Being strong and dependable was part of who she was. It always had been.
‘I’ll be taking my laptop,’ she told him. ‘That way I can be contacted if they need me.’
‘Did Nick insist on you doing that?’ His knife paused in mid-air fromcutting up the courgette he’d dice really small to sneak it into the chilli without the boys having any idea.
Fern didn’t answer the question because of course he hadn’t insisted, he hadn’t even hinted at it. Everett was right, Nick was a good boss and Fern got the impression he sensed her need to take time off and so hadn’t questioned it. But it was one thing for Fern to admit she needed timeto regroup to her boss, not that she’d had to come out with it in so many words, but quite another to let her family know the same.
‘What are you looking for?’ she quizzed as Everett shifted through things on the pantry shelves.
‘Tomato sauce,’ came the voice.
‘There should be a couple of jars still left, right at the very back.’ Fern made her own tomato sauce and each time, it was enough tolast for months, the exquisite flavours captured in the jar tasting better than anything that was store bought.
When Everett still didn’t have any luck Fern took over the search and got down on her hands and knees to check the very bottom of the pantry. ‘I meant to make more. I should’ve thought of it earlier.’
‘Don’t stress.’ He put his hands onto her upper arms and guided her back to her seat.‘You drink your wine, I’ll sort this.’ He called his eldest son and instructed him to go and grab four tins of diced tomatoes from the corner shop. And Fern didn’t miss his mutter to grab himself a can of drink if he liked.
‘He shouldn’t drink fizzy all the time,’ Fern said when Everett came back in to carry on with dinner preparation.
‘He doesn’t. Everything in moderation.’
‘Sorry about thetomato sauce.’
‘You must be the only person who makes your own.’
‘I like to do the best for my family.’
He didn’t turn around this time as though he’d got tired of the same fight. ‘So do I, Fern. So do I.’
Dinner was going to be a while and Fern took a glass of wine upstairs and ran a bath. As she lay there soaking Fern made a list in her mind of what she needed to pack for her trip to Butterbury– plenty of winter outfits, a few choices of footwear. Her sisters would shake their heads when they saw her laptop, her mother would pretend to understand, but Fern couldn’t be without it yet. If things got too difficult it would be an excuse to escape, something to hide behind if she needed time away from the others. She wasn’t about to show them that she’d taken time off to get her headstraight, she wasn’t going to show her weaknesses or let her façade slip. That only ever happened behind closed doors.
Going back to Butterbury had never been easy since her dad died, and it got a little bit worse every time with the tension between Fern, Ginny and Daisy. But at least she’d be getting away from here, she’d give her marriage a bit of breathing space and try to pull herself together.She’d soon be back to the wife and mother who juggled everything and kept it all together.
And once Butterbury and Christmas were out of the way, she could start fixing things between her and Everett. That was what she wanted the most of all.
