The Husband’s Secret

Mum. I’m sorry I never offered to go with you before. I should have.’
    ‘Sweetheart, you did offer,’ said Rachel. ‘Don’t you remember? Many times. And I always said no. It was my thing. Your dad thought I was crazy. He never went to that park. Never even drove along the same street.’
    Rob wiped the back of his hand across his nose and sniffed.
    ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘You’d think after all these years . . .’ He stopped abruptly.
    They could hear Jacob in the kitchen singing the words to the Bob the Builder soundtrack. Lauren was singing along too. Rob smiled tenderly at the sound. The smell of hot cross buns drifted into the room.
    Rachel studied his face. He was a good dad. A better dad than his own father had been. That was the way these days – all the men seemed to be better fathers – but Rob had always been a soft-hearted boy.
    Even as a baby he’d been a loving little thing. She used to pick him up from his cot after a nap and he’d snuggle against her chest and actually pat her back, as if to thank her for picking him up. He’d been the most chuckly, kissable baby. She remembered Ed saying, without resentment, ‘For God’s sake, woman, you’re besotted with that child.’
    It was strange, remembering Rob as a baby, like picking up a much-loved book she hadn’t read in years. She so rarely bothered to think about memories of Rob. Instead, she wasalways trying to scrape up new memories of Janie’s childhood, as if Rob’s childhood didn’t matter because he got to live.
    ‘You were the most beautiful baby,’ she said to Rob. ‘People used to stop me in the street to compliment me. Have I told you that before? Probably a hundred times.’
    Rob shook his head slowly. ‘You never told me that, Mum.’
    ‘Didn’t I?’ said Rachel. ‘Not even when Jacob was born?’
    ‘No.’ There was an expression of wonder on his face.
    ‘Well I should have,’ said Rachel. She sighed. ‘I probably should have done a lot of things.’
    Rob leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. ‘So I was pretty cute, eh?’
    ‘You were gorgeous, darling,’ said Rachel. ‘You still are, of course.’
    Rob snorted. ‘Yeah right, Mum.’ But he couldn’t hide the delight that suddenly wreathed his face, and Rachel bit down hard on her lower lip with regret for all the ways she’d let him down.
    ‘Hot cross buns!’ Lauren appeared carrying a beautiful platter of perfectly toasted and evenly buttered buns, which she placed in front of them.
    ‘Let me help,’ said Rachel.
    ‘Absolutely not,’ said Lauren. She said over her shoulder, as she returned to the kitchen, ‘You never let me help at your place.’
    ‘Ah,’ Rachel felt strangely exposed. She always assumed that Lauren didn’t really notice her actions, or even register her as a person at all. She thought of her age as a shield that protected her from the eyes of the young.
    She always pretended to herself that she didn’t let Lauren help because she was trying to be the perfect mother-in-law, but really, when you didn’t let a woman help, it was a way ofkeeping her at a distance, of letting her know that she wasn’t family, of saying, ‘I don’t like you enough to let you into my kitchen.’
    Lauren reappeared with another tray containing three coffee cups. The coffee would be perfect, made exactly the way Rachel liked it: hot with two sugars. Lauren was the perfect daughter-in-law. Rachel was the perfect mother-in-law. All that perfection hiding all that dislike.
    But Lauren had won. New York was her ace. She’d played it. Good on her.
    ‘Where’s Jacob?’ asked Rachel.
    ‘He’s drawing,’ said Lauren as she sat down. She lifted her mug and shot Rob a wry look. ‘Hopefully not on the walls.’
    Rob grinned at her, and Rachel got another glimpse of the private world of their marriage. It seemed like it was a good marriage, as far as marriages went.
    Would Janie have liked Lauren? Would Rachel have been a nice, ordinary, overbearing mother-in-law if Janie had lived? It was impossible to imagine. The world with Lauren in it was so vastly different from the world when Janie had been alive. It seemed impossible that Lauren would still have existed if Janie had lived.
    She looked at Lauren, strands of fair hair escaping from her ponytail. It was nearly the same blonde as Janie’s. Janie’s hair was blonder. Perhaps hers would have got darker as she’d got older.
    Ever since that first morning after Janie died, when