In My Sister's Shoes by Sinead Moriarty

Author:Sinead Moriarty [Moriarty, Sinead]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
Publisher: Penguin Adult
Published: 2007-05-28T14:00:00+00:00

23

Mark continued to spend all his time at the university, working on his world-shattering paper for the competition. When he told me he couldn’t go with Fiona to the fifth chemo session, I exploded. ‘What do you mean “can’t”? There’s no such word as “can’t”. You’ll just have to reschedule your really important meeting and take your sick wife to hospital. It’s called prioritizing, Mark. You might want to look up the word in the dictionary. It’s on the same page as “prat”.’

Sweeping his hair back from his forehead – which I think he just did to wind me up as I had none to sweep – he sighed.

‘Look, Kate, if I could rearrange the meeting of course I would, but Professor de la Toit is flying in from Paris that morning to help me with the final stage of the paper. I need his expertise to work through a glitch in the findings.’

‘Can’t you let him figure it out while you sit with Fiona, then meet up with him later when I take over as usual?’

‘He’s only here for five hours and I need to work with him on this.’

‘Isn’t that cheating? Getting someone else to finish your homework for you?’

‘It’s called collaboration, Kate. It’s near “common sense” in the dictionary.’

‘Would that be close to “cold-hearted”?’

‘Having a conversation with you is impossible.’

‘If Fiona dies, will you be glad you spent all this precious time on some pathetic ego-trip?’

‘Fiona’s going to be fine,’ snapped Mark. ‘Don’t you dare use my wife’s illness as leverage against me.’

‘That’s rich coming from the man who called me in London and blackmailed me into coming back. I’ve given up everything to help and your life hasn’t skipped a beat. In fact, you’ve more free time now I’m here to chauffeur your family around and cook dinner and clean up.’

‘I’ll be in my office if you need me,’ he said, and left the room.

‘Need you for what exactly?’ I shouted, to the back of his hairy head.

When I got home my blood was still boiling. Derek was in the kitchen with Roxanne, both shovelling bacon sandwiches down their throats as some rap artist screamed insults from the stereo. I switched off the noise, grabbed a bottle of wine from the fridge, filled a glass to the brim and began to glug.

‘Mark?’ Derek asked, between bites.

I nodded.

‘What this time?’

‘Can’t take her to chemo.’

‘Again?’

‘Yep.’

‘Coz he’s got prize shit going on?’

‘What do you think?’

‘That dude is always busy when she needs him,’ said Derek, getting as riled as he was capable of.

‘He’s fucking someone else,’ said Roxanne, as casually as if she’d commented on the weather.

‘Excuse me?’ I said, as some wine spilt down my chin.

Roxanne shrugged. ‘’Sobvious. He’s having an affair. Probably a student. All this bullshit about his work is a smokescreen.’

‘What the hell would you know?’ She was beginning to get on my nerves. First, she’d upset Fiona by telling her about her cousin who was dying of cancer, and now she was accusing Mark of having an affair.

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