‘Yes, she was knackered. I don’t think she was very happy about me being out today.’
‘You’ve gotta cut those apron strings sometime …’ Owen says teasingly. He’s only trying to wind me up, I know it, but I’m tired and stressed and knocked off balance by everything that happened today, still trying to make sense of the envelope of drawings and Thea’s revelations, and I snap back, without meaning to.
‘For Christ’s sake, Owen, she’s six months.’
‘I know that,’ he says, nettled, taking a sip of the beer that’s sitting at his elbow. ‘I know her age as well as you do. She’s my kid too, you know. Or so I’m led to believe.’
‘So you’re led to believe?’ I feel the blood rising up in my cheeks, and my voice when I repeat his words is high and cracked with anger. ‘So you’re led to believe? What the fuck does that mean?’
‘Hey!’ Owen puts down his glass of beer with an audible thud. ‘Don’t swear at me! Jesus, Isa. What’s got into you lately?’
‘What’s got into me?’ I am almost speechless with fury. ‘You make a crack about Freya not being your baby and you ask what’s got into me?’
‘Freya not being – what the hell?’ His face is genuinely confused, and I can see him replaying the conversation of the last few minutes, and then realising. ‘No! Are you out of your mind? Why would I mean that? I was just trying to say that you need to chill out sometimes, I am Freya’s dad, but you wouldn’t know it by the amount of childcare I get to do. How the hell could you think I’d imply that she’s –’
He stops, lost for words, and I feel my cheeks flaming as I realise what he meant, but my anger doesn’t abate; if anything, it rises. There’s nothing like being in the wrong to make you fight back.
‘Oh well, that’s OK then,’ I spit. ‘You were just implying I’m some kind of controlling obsessive lunatic who won’t let her husband change a nappy. That changes everything. Of course I’m not cross now.’
‘Oh Jesus, will you stop putting words into my mouth?!’ Owen groans.
‘Well, it’s hard not to, when you make these cracks without ever coming out with your point.’ My voice is shaking. ‘I’m fed up with these constant little jibes about stuff – if it’s not childcare it’s bottles, and if it’s not that, it’s getting Freya out of our bedroom and into her own. It feels like I –’
‘They weren’t jibes, they were suggestions,’ Owen interrupts, his voice plaintive. ‘Yes, look, I put my hands up, it is something I’ve been starting to get frustrated about, especially now she’s six months. She’s on solids – isn’t it a bit weird breastfeeding her when she’s getting teeth?’
‘What’s that got to do with anything? She’s a baby, Owen. Give her solids! What’s stopping you?’
‘You are! Every night it’s the same thing – of course she won’t go down for me, why would she when you won’t stop breastfeeding?’
I’m shaking with anger, so furious I can’t speak for a minute.
‘Goodnight, Owen,’ I eventually manage.
‘Hang on.’ He stands up as I begin to walk out of the room. ‘Don’t come all high and mighty. I didn’t want to have this bloody argument in the first place. You were the one who dragged it all out in the open!’
I don’t answer. I begin to climb the stairs.
‘Isa,’ he calls urgently, but softly, trying not to wake Freya. ‘Isa! Why the hell are you being like this?’
But I don’t answer. I can’t answer. Because if I do, I will say something that might damage my relationship beyond recovery.
The truth.
I WAKE WITH Freya beside me, but the rest of the double bed is empty and for a moment I can’t work out why I feel so wretched and ashamed, and then I remember.
Shit. Did he sleep downstairs, or come up late and leave early?
I get up very carefully, pile the duvet on the floor in case Freya wakes and rolls off the bed, and pulling my dressing gown on, I tiptoe downstairs.
Owen is sitting in the kitchen, drinking coffee and staring out of the window, but he looks up as I come in.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, straight off, and his face crumples with something between relief and unhappiness.
‘I’m sorry too,’ he says. ‘I was a complete dick. What I said –’
‘Look, you’re entitled to feel that way. And you’re right – I mean not about the breastfeeding, that was horseshit, but I will try and involve you more. It’s going to happen anyway. Freya’s getting older, she won’t need me as much, and besides, I’ll be going back to work soon.’
He stands up and hugs me, and I feel his chin resting on the top of my head, and the warm muscles of his chest beneath my cheek, and I draw a deep, tremulous breath, and let it out.
‘This is nice,’ I manage at last, and he nods.
We stand like that for a long time, I don’t know how long. But at last there’s a noise from above, a kind of chirrup, and I straighten.
‘Crap, I left Freya in the bed. She’ll roll off.’
I’m about to pull away, but Owen pats my shoulder.
‘Hey, new resolution, remember? I’ll go.’
I smile, and nod, and he sprints up the stairs. As I put the kettle on for my morning cup of tea, I can hear him, cooing at Freya as he picks her up, her squeaking giggles as he plays peekaboo with her comforter.
While I drink my tea, I listen to Owen padding about in the room upstairs. I can hear him pulling out wipes and nappies to change Freya, and then the sound of our chest of drawers as he gets out a fresh vest for her.
They take a long time, longer than I would over a nappy change, but I resist the urge to go up, and at last there are footsteps on the stairs and they appear together in the doorway, Freya in Owen’s arms, their expressions heart-meltingly similar. Freya has a com-ical case of bed-head almost as good as Owen’s, and they are both grinning at me, pleased with themselves, with each other, with the sunny morning. She reaches out a hand towards me, wanting me to take her, but, mindful of Owen’s words, I just smile at her and stay where I am.
‘Hello, Mummy,’ Owen says solemnly, looking at Freya and then back at me. ‘Me and Freya have been discussing, and we’ve decided that you should have a day off today.’
‘A day off?’ I feel a little spurt of alarm. ‘What kind of day off?’
‘A day of complete pampering. You’ve been looking absolutely knackered, you deserve a day not worrying about us.’
It is not Freya I’m worrying about. In fact, in many ways, she’s the only thing keeping me sane right now. But I can’t say that.
‘I don’t want to hear any protests,’ Owen says. ‘I’ve booked you an appointment at a day spa already, and I’ve paid in full, so unless you want me to lose my money, you’ve got to be down in town by 11 a.m. Me and Freya are going to manage all by ourselves from –’ he glances at the kitchen clock – ‘from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m., and we don’t want to see you.’
‘What about her feed?’