Page 64 of How To Not Need You

Three bedrooms run off the hallway. Mine at one end. Tilly's at the other, permanently scattered with books, stuffed animals and enough glitter to survive the apocalypse. The third barely earns the title of bedroom. It's little more than a box with a window overlooking the backyard, but it fits a desk, a filing cabinet and the mountain of paperwork that comes with adult life.

Out the back, beyond the wide windows, the swing set catches my eye. It still leans ever so slightly to one side.

I'd spent the better part of a weekend swearing at that thing after somehow managing to sink one leg deeper than the others. I'd considered pulling the whole bloody thing apart and starting again until Tilly climbed onto the seat, swung so high I nearly had a heart attack and declared it, "The best swings ever."

That settled it. If the chief inspector was happy, who was I to argue? The place isn't perfect. It never will be.

But somewhere between the squeaky floorboards, the verandah wrapping around the house, and the crooked swing set out back, it became ours.

She’s already halfway to the kitchen, backpack sliding off one shoulder, still talking as I refocus on her.

“…so then Miss Penny made us BOTH say sorry, which I think is unfair because I didn’t DO anything except tell him the TRUTH about sharing.”

“Life’s full of unfair apologies, bug,” I call after her. “Better get used to it.”

She stops at the kitchen, turns, and fixes me with a look that suggests she is not amused by my statement. “That’s not helpful, Dad.”

“I know.”

I follow Tilly into the kitchen and flick on the lights. The counters are still clean. The dishes from breakfast sit drying neatly beside the sink where I'd left them before work this morning. I'd washed them while Tilly hunted for the missing sock she'd somehow managed to leave in the toy box.

Small habits. They don't seem like much until one day you realise they're the reason your house always feels like home.

Tilly drops her backpack on the nearest chair and immediately starts rummaging through it.

“I brought my fossil home.”

“Your what?”

“My fossil. From the sandpit. It’s a real dinosaur bone, I’m pretty sure.”

She produces a rock. It is, obviously, just a rock. Grey, slightly oblong, with a faint ridge running along one side that might, if you squint and really want it to be true, resemble something prehistoric. I take it from her hands, turn it over, and make what I hope is a suitably impressed face.

“This is definitely something.”

“I KNOW.” She beams. “Can we keep it?”

“It’s a rock, Tils.”

“It’s a FOSSIL.”

“Same thing.”

She snatches it back with the wounded dignity of a palaeontologist who’s just been told her life’s work is worthless. “You don’t understand science, Dad.”

“Clearly.” I laugh, which gets a small smile from her.

I move to the fridge, pull the door open, and start gathering what we need. Pasta. Jar of sauce because I’m not ambitious tonight. Garlic paste because I learned my lesson last time. Olive oil. Parmesan. The kind of dinner that takes fifteen minutes and requires zero brain cells, which is exactly what my brain cells are asking for after fourteen hours of other people’s emergencies yesterday.

Tilly has migrated to the living room with her fossil clutched to her chest, already deep in conversation with Hades about whether or not dinosaurs had cats. Hades, stretched across the back of the couch, blinks slowly at her and offers no opinion.

I set the onion on the cutting board and reach for the knife to start chopping. A loud clatter distracts me and draws my attention to the source.

I watch in almost slow motion as the terracotta pot hits the floor tiles with a solid, decisive crack.

Soil explodes across the kitchen floor in a dark fan of dirt and shattered pottery. Hades, sitting squarely in the middle of the counter where the plant used to live, looks up at me with an expression of such profound indifference that for a moment I genuinely consider whether he’s capable of facial expressions at all, or if I’m just projecting human emotions onto a creature who views me exclusively as a food dispenser.

We stare at each other. The onion sits untouched on the cutting board. Soil covers so much of my kitchen floor that I already feel more of the exhaustion from work creeping up on me.