‘Nothing,’ said Mimi. ‘That was so perfect, that’s all. You said exactly what I always want to say when someone tells me how to parent but never have the guts to. Thank you.’

Jill looked rapt. ‘Just looking out for my daughter-in-law,’ she said.

‘Should we get one more bottle of wine?’ Mimi asked then.

Andrea winced. ‘Oh hon, I don’t think I can. I was thinking of heading off shortly.’

‘Actually,’ said Jill, ‘I think I should probably drive your car home, darling.’

Mimi creased her forehead. ‘What for? I would have only had a couple of glasses.’

‘Ah, I only had one,’ said Andrea. ‘And I think Jill skipped the wine altogether.’

Jill nodded.

‘So that means the rest of the bottle was all you. Definitely making up for lost time with the breastfeeding,’ Andrea added with a laugh.

Mimi’s faced reddened. ‘I didn’t even realise. Okay, if you wouldn’t mind, Jill, that’d be great.’

‘Of course. I caught the bus today anyway. I didn’t want to worry about finding parking.’

Mimi glanced down at the twins and felt a prickle of guilt. Talk about bad mums. That wasn’t a very responsible parenting move, was it?

*

Jill

Dear Frank,

I’m worried about Mimi. I don’t know what it is. It’s not as though there’s anything specific. To anyone else, it probably looks like she’s doing fine. She’s not unhappy . . . She’s not frazzled or unwell, the twins are well looked after and yet . . . something has me concerned. Babies are hard. Being a mother is hard. But with twins, it’s intense. I’m scared she’s not coping as well as it looks to everyone else.

I guess all I can do is keep watching and checking.

Love,

Jill

*

Jill stood on the chair with a screwdriver in one hand and squinted up at the smoke alarm, trying to figure out how to open the damn thing. Why the hell had she always let Frank do these kinds of jobs over the years? She never would have considered herself helpless in any way. She ran a high school. She brought in a good salary and she dealt with their finances and stayed more or less on top of her own computer literacy over the years. And yet somehow, she’d still let herself fall into those archaic gender norms when it came to fixing appliances, changing lightbulbs, checking the oil in the car and the like.