Seb shrugs his shoulders, tries to smile at Rosie, an unconvincing flicker of a thing, before he says, ‘We should eat before it gets cold.’
Rosie is still confused. ‘Why didn’t she mention that to me?’
Seb turns around to walk back to the kitchen and either he doesn’t hear her or he pretends not to, as Rosie’s words fall into the empty space between them.
Standing there, Abi walking away from her outside, Seb walking away from her inside, Rosie is left with the creeping, shuddery feeling that something significant has just happened but that both Abi and Seb want to keep her far away from it.
Chapter 3
Abi blamed herself. If she’d met him, as originally planned, at the new-parent meeting, things would have been different. She’d have known how to handle herself. But having Lily and Margot in the same house, so close to the truth, had been horrifying. Abi was in too much shock to talk after they left Rosie’s, but listening to Margot and Lily chatting about Frozen kept her feet on the ground, kept them shuffling towards home. Without knowing they were doing it, her girls saved her. They always saved her. Margot took Abi’s and Lily’s hands so they could swing her along the pavement, Margot kicking her little feet into the air and calling, ‘Higher, higher!’ The weight of her, feeling Lily on the other side, knowing they needed her to be strong, to keep going with her plan, kept Abi from falling to her knees.
What the hell was she doing?
It wasn’t until the girls were in bed that she paced, swore and tried to work through all the different scenarios of what could be going on. None of them were good for Abi or the girls.
She woke early, still furious and still afraid. But really, what was new?
Margot had crept into her bed at some point during the night, bringing her little body close. Her presence helped Abi ignore the question that had been circling in her mind all night: What will he tell Rosie? She had no idea. So she did what she had done for years. She pushed her rage away and, weak with fear and exhaustion, she did what she had to do to feed her children.
She knew he’d come; she just didn’t know when.
She’d held Margot close, kissed her cheek. Smiled and waved to Lily at the school gates. She hid her fear behind her smile, because pretending was Abi’s thing. She kept her face impassive as she walked away from school, imagining what he could have told the other parents, told Rosie.
The thought of Rosie made Abi wilt. She was surprised by how much she wanted to be friends with Rosie. She hadn’t made a new friend in so long, but Rosie intrigued Abi; she’d never actually known anyone like her. Someone who seemed to be gliding along on an escalator through life while the rest of them trudged up mucky steps that smelt like piss. Rosie had the kids, the husband, the sighing complaints about the kitchen extension. To Abi, Rosie’s life seemed so calm, so exotic in its ordinariness. But Abi knew now there was sadness too, a weariness that wore at the edges of Rosie’s dreamy set-up and made her face fall into worry when she thought no one was looking.
Abi arrives early at the restaurant. There are hundreds of forks, knives and spoons that need unpacking, washing, drying, polishing and putting away. This is the kind of monotonous work she can handle today. While Richard and Lotte sweep around the restaurant arguing about where to hang an oil painting, screaming at each other over a wine order, Abi keeps to the kitchen, hunched, working her fingers raw.
She wishes Diego were here, but he isn’t arriving for another few days and, besides, she probably shouldn’t tell him. He is moving for a new start both professionally with PLATE and with his partner. It’d disturb him, the past stalking them like this.
Abi stays in the kitchen, working and listening to Richard and Lotte’s latest row about the reservation system when suddenly the swing doors sigh open and Lotte stalks stormily into the room. She kicks herself up on to the stainless-steel countertop and holds her head in her hands, groans dramatically, ‘Urgh. Men!’
Abi stops drying a platter.
‘I honestly think doing this on my own would be easier than doing it with him. It was such a stupid idea, thinking we could cope working together.’ She turns to look at Abi. ‘I mean, look at you, a working single parent. You’re better off without a man, aren’t you?’
Abi breathes out, fiddles with the bangles round her wrist, wrestling with the urge to tell her boss to fuck off, but reminds herself this is what women like Lotte do: they chat.
A few months ago, when she first arrived in Waverly for her interview, she noticed how Lotte’s smile had faltered. The way Lotte’s mouth crumpled as she took in her tattoos, her freshly cropped hair.
But Richard and Lotte had spent months wooing Diego to leave London and head up PLATE, and Diego had been unwavering: he’d only accept the offer at PLATE if Abi had a role too. She’s promised Diego she’ll do her best to fit in.
Abi forces a smile. ‘Well, it hasn’t always been easy.’
‘No, of course it hasn’t,’ Lotte states, before curiosity gets the better of her and she asks, ‘Does their dad help?’
Of course. This is what Lotte wants. A slice of Abi’s history.
‘Well, they don’t have the same dad.’
‘Oh,’ Lotte says. ‘They’re half-sisters.’
‘They’re just sisters.’
Lotte nods like Abi’s confirming what she already knew. ‘Of course.’
Lotte’s eyes still on her, Abi gives in to the pressure to offer her half of the story.
‘I got pregnant with Lily when I was eighteen – it was just a casual thing. He’s been all right, really – paid maintenance, did the bare minimum – but he’s never really been Lily’s dad.’ Abi looks steadily at Lotte, hoping to pre-emptively neutralize any pity. ‘He lives in Scotland now; he’s got other kids, his own family, which is fine.’
Lotte nods, like this is all as she anticipated but she’s impatient to hear the rest of the story. ‘And Margot?’
Abi picks up a few spoons, starts drying them, unsure how this is going to go. ‘I knew I wanted another child, so I used a sperm donor.’
Lotte’s jaw actually drops. ‘I was not expecting you to say that,’ she says, her eyes blinking with surprise.
‘No one ever does.’ Abi shrugs and picks up some more spoons to keep her hands busy. Although it was never a motivation, she has to admit there is some satisfaction in challenging the bleak single-parent narrative. People always think Margot must have been ‘another mistake’ but the truth is the opposite. Abi loved being a mum and she was bloody good at it. She wanted another baby and Lily wanted a sibling. She’d waited until Lily was old enough to understand, until she had savings and could take a few months off work, could support the three of them, and then she’d tracked her ovulation and bought some sperm. The whole thing was straightforward, and Margot made her presence known as a little blue line after only two months of trying.
‘Wow,’ Lotte says, sitting up straighter on the counter and shaking her head. ‘I have so many questions, I literally don’t know where to start.’ Abi realizes that her honesty has made Lotte relax, and she smiles as she feels Lotte arrive fully in the room.
‘What about you guys?’ Abi asks.
‘Oh, we just did it the boring old sex way.’ Lotte laughs and then quickly settles herself. ‘You mean, why didn’t we have another kid?’
She says it in a way that suggests she assumes this is what people want to know about her but most dare not ask. It makes Abi want to howl and laugh at the same time because women’s lives are never immune to scrutiny – even the choices of married, straight, solvent mothers like Lotte.
The bell from the front of the restaurant sounds, Lotte rolls her eyes and Abi freezes.