If everything was done we could all sit for a moment together and smile at each other before M had to leave. Then cleaning. Washing, dusting, on my knees and pushing a damp rag into all the corners. Everything tidy and in its right place, even me.

I had to be quite severe with myself. To write rules and stick to them. To be firm so I wouldn’t slip. After all, when you’re falling who knows where you might end up. Things needed to always be done quickly and in the right order, laundry left in the dryer would wrinkle and become irretrievable, likewise groceries left out on the counter, likewise the dust, which if ever at all left to settle would invite in and collect more dust. I bought a bottle of linseed oil and began rubbing it into the wooden floor of the guest room, massaging the parquet with a little square of cloth, making it shine. The whole room seemed to glow when I was done. There were results, there was satisfaction. There was always more to do.

At night too, there was lying down next to M, right close up next to him, and there was the jumping up. Bam! Just like that, when B cried or E cried, and I was needed.

In the afternoon we still went to the park, but we had to leave early, packing up our things along with all the other busy mothers who had to get home to make dinner for their husbands. Who had to wash their children clean for bed. There was so much business and busyness. So much attending to. All the hours and hours and hours filled up by necessary things. Everyone was so purposeful. We were all so relieved to be occupied.

Nell didn’t hurry to leave the park though, with me, with the other mothers. She was never brisk and bustling, clicking her tongue and checking her watch, she was never in a hurry to go at all, and I envied the way she lay there, on her picnic blanket, twined up and in between her baby and her son. I was envious but also a bit miserly with my tasks, protective of them. Of course, I could have lain down in the park right beside her and played with B. Go play, I could have said to E. We can stay all day. Sorry, I could have said to M when he got home, there’s nothing to eat. Of course I could have. Fine, he would have said, that’s fine, but I didn’t want him to. I didn’t want him to say it, and I knew that he would. So I kept rushing home to cook, to have dinner ready and nice-looking, even though M never ate much of what I made.

M began to leave early anyway for work. Too early to make breakfast for him. Too early for us all to sit together at the little table in the kitchen. Things were difficult at work, things weren’t going well. Or perhaps things were going very well. In either case, M was required earlier and earlier, and later and later too. More and more was needed of him. Or he felt he was needed. Or he told me he was. Everything was so unclear really and I felt too embarrassed to ask for clarification. I would lie down on his side of the bed after he left, my head where his head had been for just a moment.