‘Grace! Yoo-hoo!’ As I approached the two women my eyes were once again drawn to Mikee and then to a large bruise that circled his cheek bone. I gasped and Jenny shot me a look.

‘It’s okay, he’s just been falling over again, haven’t you Mikee?’ Jenny said with a reassuring tone and a wink at Emily. ‘Emily’s got three boys at home, haven’t you? Anyway, how are you, Grace? How’s the cooking going?’

I nodded. ‘Yes, good thanks, Jenny.’ I placed my bag down under the counter and turned to the sink behind me.

‘I must get on,’ I heard Emily say as she went and took her place in front of the class. When I could see that Emily was out of earshot, I turned to Jenny as I dried my hands. ‘So he got that bruise from falling over, did he?’

She looked down at Mikee who was pushing a car around on the floor. Jenny furrowed her brow and bent down and busied herself with straightening his jumper. ‘Yes. He’s very clumsy. He’s not three until August. Boys, hey! You’ll see, Grace, when you have children.’

I could sense the rawness of the subject, for I was a pro at brushing over things that didn’t beg to be talked about, and decided not to mention it again. But I knew that boy didn’t get that bruise from falling over. I understood the balance of power between adults and children. And the children always lost.

I arrived at her counter and wiped my damp hands down my apron. I smiled at Jenny and picked up the paperwork in front of me. I took a surreptitious peep under the counter at Mikee. He gave a cheeky grin. He looked happy enough.

I thought about the child Jenny was carrying and what sort of life it might have, born into a house where it wasn’t wanted, with a father who had a temper and a mother who scuttled around covering it up all the while.

23

DAISY

I didn’t know my husband. I had begun to understand his foibles and his awkward ways that sometimes disrupted my psyche, but that was a marriage; there had to be give and take. What I hadn’t really known was what something so serious this soon into our relationship would do to Ben. I knew he had a tender soul and that he got affected by the world, so in hindsight I should have been prepared.

I knew I had broken us. I knew by blaming Ben for Eve’s death, I had forced him away. We weren’t strong enough to survive this. A baby, a marriage, Eve’s death, not to mention Ben had lost everything in the fire. It was too much for one relationship to take so soon. But as I sat alone on the edge of the bed on the morning of Eve’s funeral, I wasn’t prepared for the sadness that engulfed me. Our relationship had barely done any mileage. Together we hadn’t attended friends’ weddings, had a holiday, weathered the storms of a marriage, waded through the tribulations of life. This tragedy should have been one we faced side-by-side. But it was too soon for him, as Annie often reminded me – he wasn’t built for this kind of distress. I felt the lack of his presence hard.