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So, a man—
Just not this one, another voice pointed out. He wasn’t available.
Somehow they were all around the table, Marty making a pot of tea while Emma rolled the dough in flour to lessen the stickiness and divided it into two pieces.
‘It’s green,’ Hamish pointed out, quite unnecessarily.
‘Very green,’ this from Marty as he put the teapot on its stand in the middle of the table.
‘We can make frogs,’ Xavier said, sheer delight in his voice and face.
‘Out on the veranda, and not until you’ve had your snack,’ Emma told them, getting up and washing her hands again—and, no, green food colouring didn’t come off with soap and water.
She found biscuits and sultanas for the boys, poured each of them a glass of milk, then sat down to have a cup of tea, Marty already having found mugs, small plates and the biscuit tin.
Yes, maybe a husband would come in handy sometimes. But no more than that. She could easily manage without one.
‘Your hands are green,’ Hamish told her.
‘Really?’ she teased. ‘I thought they were purple.’
‘No, definitely green,’ her more serious son, Xavier, assured her.
But the lure of green hands ended the boys’ conversation as they scoffed down their snacks, drank their milk and headed, green balls in hand, for their play table on the veranda.
‘Too much food colouring?’ Marty asked.
He was seated opposite her, across a wide, old, kitchen table that really wasn’t wide enough. But she had other distractions right now.
‘Dad does all this stuff so easily,’ she said, sighing and running her green fingers through her hair to push it off her face. ‘I do so want to set him free—to get him out and about, and leading a life of his own—but he worries about how I’ll cope. And then there’s the boys—growing up without a father, especially when they reach puberty, and start asking questions. I know heaps of kids do grow up without a father, but what if they feel cheated later?’
She paused, shaking away the thoughts tumbling through her head, then looked across the table at Marty.
‘I really do need a man,’ she said, the words bursting from her lips before she realised just how desperate they sounded.
Not to mention pathetic!
Although who better to tell than a man who wasn’t interested in her himself?
Wouldn’t it be handy to have his opinion on the subject?
‘I know I should be able to cope on my own, and I’m sure I could, but it’s making Dad see it.’
Marty was sipping his tea, but looked interested enough for her to continue.
‘If I had a man, then Dad would feel it was okay to get on with his own life because he wouldn’t be leaving me alone. I’d thought of it—not hard, but there’d been a tiny seed of an idea—back there in Sydney. I’d been thinking it might be good for the kids to have a father. It’s only since I’ve been up here and seen Dad with people of his own age that I realise how selfish I’ve been not to have let him go before now.’
‘I don’t think it was a matter of you letting him go, but more he wouldn’t have left you on your own,’ Marty pointed out.
‘That’s the problem.’
She was about to say more but noises from the veranda had Emma on her feet.
Green froth around the dog’s mouth explained what had happened, and as Xavier was wailing, it was his playdough the ‘puppy’ had eaten.
Emma divided the remaining dough, ignoring Hamish’s protests, and they settled down again, but she knew the game was losing their attention and was relieved when Marty appeared with their two cups of tea.
‘If we sit here, we can watch them,’ he said, hitching a cane table closer with his foot. He set down the tea and brought over two chairs.
Emma gave a huff of laughter and half smiled as she said, ‘You can see why having a man around would be easier.’
Marty looked at the woman who was causing chaos in his mind and body, agreeing with the idea she needed a man but for different reasons. If she was married he’d no longer be interested in her—he hoped—because he’d always avoided the unnecessary complications of dating a married woman. As far as he was concerned, it just wasn’t done.
But all her talk of having a man around didn’t seem to be making her happy. In fact—
‘You said that as if, while it might be easier as far as managing the boys goes, and freeing up your father, you’d see it as a nuisance—a penance of some kind. Something you’d be doing solely for your father and the boys and not for yourself.’
She frowned at him over her teacup.
‘Would it matter why I wanted him?’ she asked.
