‘She’s fragile, you know. Incredibly strong, but fragile too, just because of how much shit she’s been through.’
He doesn’t understand, hecan’tunderstand, the richness of what Molly and I still have. The joy it’s bringing both of us to have this closeness. This second chance. And while we rebuild our relationship, moment by moment, I’m also working my arse off to show up for her kids. Not just for Molly’s sake, because she’s entrusted their care to me in the mornings and because she could use a second pair of hands, but for their sakes, and my own.
I’m trying to build something here. Something special, with all three of them, all the while being careful not to overstep. To rush. Or to over-promise, when I don’t know if I have what it takes to deliver in Molly’s mind.
I scour the recesses of my brain for a metaphor that will explain myself to my brother, who clearly sees himself as the Stafford family’s keeper. And while I’m bone-deep glad they’ve had him around to play fairy godfather this year, it rankles. It rankles that he’s been around to watch out for them, when I’ve been in a different hemisphere, totally fucking oblivious.
‘Look,’ I begin. ‘Try to understand. I think about this every second of the day, but Molly and I have only been back together, technically speaking, for a few days, and it’s too early to make some grandiose declaration to her.
‘And in case you’re under the illusion that she’s desperate for me to man up and put a ring on her finger, she’s never given me the slightest indication that that’s the case.’
I can feel a scoff coming on from him, so I hold my hand up to stop him.
‘It’s like she and I are on a road. There are a couple of streetlights ahead of us, but after those, it’s dark up ahead. I’ve got her, and I’m holding her hand tightly. We’re walking towards the darkness, but as we walk, the streetlights nearest to us come on.’
I sit back in my chair. ‘I just have to trust that those streetlights will keep coming on, the more we keep walking into the unknown. That we’ll work out what we want. What’s possible. Whether I’m enough for her. But the important thing is that we’re in it together. No one’s leading anyone down the garden path.’
His mouth twists sceptically. ‘That was great until you mixed your metaphors.’
‘Oh, give me a fucking break.’
‘Look.’ He shifts in his seat and takes a spoonful of soup. Unlike me, he’s not so uncouth as to slurp straight from the mug, even though I’m pretty sure that’s why they serve it in a fucking mug rather than a bowl. ‘I get it. I get that it’s hard to know where to go from here. Just… do me a favour and tread very carefully.
‘You may think you guys are side by side on this, but she has a hell of a lot more to lose than you do if you bugger back off again to Malawi, or Botswana, or wherever the fuck you decide to go next. She’ll be left heartbroken, dealing with two kids who got used to having a man around the place again. Got used to seeing their mum happy, even if you keep them in the dark about the nature of your relationship.’
‘I know,’ I say in a small voice, because he’s exactly right, and the reminder is humbling. If Molly and I don’t make it this time, I’ll be just as destroyed as she will, but I only have one heart to guard over.
Not three.
As far as Tobes and Daze are concerned, I’m leaving after Christmas. But that doesn’t make it easier for any of us. It doesn’t mean the three of us haven’t grown attached to our mornings together, to our car journey singalongs, to bath time. To having me around.
As I pile Stilton onto an oat cake, I imagine myself buggering off, and Molly and the kids continuing life as normal.
Angus has it completely wrong, I realise with a shock. They wouldn’t be the most bereft party.
I would.
They’d still have each other, still have their routines in place, still have their messy, chaotic home. And presumably, they’d find another au pair, someone young and energetic and preferably female, who’d whip the kids into shape and be able to withstand Daisy’s little face when she begs for Nutella in the mornings.
Because, God knows, I’ve become a fucking pushover.
I’d be the one alone, living out of a backpack again, wondering what the fuck I’ve done with my life.
In that annoyingly intuitive way that my brother has (I swear Zoe is rubbing off on him), he asks, ‘Tell me honestly. Can you see yourself staying? Making a go of it with Molly and the kids?’
That earns him some eye contact, because that is about as far from an idle question as you can get.
Angus is asking me if I could see myself throwing off my lifelong insistence that I won’t have children, an insistence that drove an irreparable wedge between Mol and I first time around, and committing myself, not just to her, but, to all extents and purposes, to fathering Toby and Daisy.
Unbeknown to Angus, he’s asked the wrong question. Because the issue at hand, the issue I cannot for the life of me stop turning over in my head, isn’t whether I want this.
It’s whether I’m up to the job.
Whether I deserve the privilege.
30
MOLLY