This was the perfect punishment for Harper, and he knew it. She tried to appear unbothered, but couldn’t help but ask, “For how long?”
“Until I say so. From now on, if you’re not in the office every day from eight until five, you better be at home with an impressive illness and a doctor’s note. Now get on with those bloody reports.”
After Thrupp left the office, Harper turned unwillingly to her task. She wasn’t sure how long she’d be able to stay nice, no matter how much Thrupp wanted her to be sorry about her past mistakes, and to be grateful for the risks he’d taken on her behalf.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
A branch of mountain ash tied over the cradle protects girls against fairy abduction, as according to ancient superstition the first woman was created from the mountain ash. A branch of the alder tree protects boys, as the first man was created from the alder tree.
Irish traditional
AUGUST 7TH
THREE WEEKS AND FOUR DAYS OLD
EARLY MORNING
The front door slammed and for a few seconds there was no sound. Then, the distant beeping of the car being unlocked, the car door opening and shutting, engine igniting in a low growl, gravel and grit twisted under tyres as Patrick drove away. The clock on Lauren’s phone told her it was seven thirty-nine, and those numbers meant only that it would probably be almost twelve hours until he returned. In the brief absence of noise, a particularly egregious phrase he’d used in a recent conversation occurred to her, rudely by itself: “Marketing requires networking, darling.” Going to a bar after work, in his world, was essential for business. She was too tired to argue.
A few nights before his return to work, he’d moved into the spare room. He hadn’t wanted to, he said, but he couldn’t sleep with the windows shut. She couldn’t sleep without them being firmly locked.
“If you insist on leaving the windows open, anywhere in this house, at night,” she said, “we’re going to need a lock on the inside of the bedroom door so that I know we’re safe in there, at least.”
He’d got in the car, driven directly to the DIY shop and brought her three to choose from. She chose them all.
“Three locks?” he said.
“Yes.”
Although he looked at her then in a way she couldn’t fully interpret, he fitted them without complaint.
The locks made her feel safe enough to nap when it was dark outside, but the physical barrier it created between her and Patrick underlined their separateness: they were no longer a team. There was no point trying to wake him in the night, to watch over the babies or to help; it was easier just to get on with it herself, to stay awake when she needed to, and to sleep only when she and the boys were secure. For Patrick’s part, he’d dropped off his caring cliff: I care, I care, I care, I would care but I simply do not have the time or energy to care anymore, mostly because of all that caring you just made me do. He implied, in both his speech and his actions, that baby-rearing was exclusively Lauren’s department, and always would have been, obviously: the roles were pre-determined; man/woman, breadwinner/homemaker. The gut-punch of dismay was unexpected. Why hadn’t she realised before now that he was so old-fashioned? Would she have married him, if she’d known? It seemed too much to try to argue, to wriggle out from under the weight of it all.