The Long, Hot Summer by Kathleen MacMahon

Author:Kathleen MacMahon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction / Contemporary Women, Fiction / Family Life, Fiction / Literary
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2016-07-05T04:00:00+00:00

It was early afternoon by the time they got back to the house.

“Can we bake?” asked the boys as soon as they were in the door.

“Jesus, lads. We’re only just back from the park. Would you not think of having a nap?”

Their two little faces turned up to hers in expectation of disappointment. For weeks she’d been promising them they could bake. For weeks she’d been postponing the promise. Maybe later, she would say, maybe tomorrow. Hoping they would forget about it, but of course they didn’t.

“You promised us we could bake.”

“All right,” she said wearily. “Let’s bake.”

So here they were, standing precariously on a pair of kitchen chairs, with adult-sized aprons tied twice around their bellies and wooden spoons in their hands. Flour in their hair, and in their eyebrows and their eyelashes, flour in every crevice of their clothing. With their cheeks flaming and their eyes wide and serious from the task at hand, they were blithely unaware of the spectacle they presented.

Connie was just about to put the tray of cookies into the oven when she saw a sudden movement in the corner of the room. She froze with the tray in her hand. She saw, but did not react. For a second, maybe two, she stood and stared at the rat. The rat sat and stared back. Connie dropped the cookie tray and screamed.

In one swooping movement she hooked a child under each arm and climbed up on to the couch. She managed to reach for her mobile, which was on the table. Stabbed at Emmet’s number; the phone rang three times and went through to voice mail. She rang his number again, and again the phone went through to voice mail. Again and again she rang, picturing the tally of missed calls mounting on the face of his phone, a measure of her growing hysteria. Seven calls she made, and still the rat sat in the corner of the kitchen, picking away at a stray crumb of cookie dough.

Connie decided to make a run for it. She hefted a child on to each hip and made for the door, her bare feet barely touching the floor, as if she was running through a pit of flames. She slammed the front door behind her and threw the boys into the back of her little car, climbing into the front seat herself and starting it up. The soles of her feet naked on the pedals.

On the way to Emmet’s mother’s house, she kept trying his number. With each unanswered call she chalked up another black mark against him. By the time she had pulled up outside the house, she had scored twenty-seven unanswered calls. She rang on the side door, but again she got no answer. She bent down and retrieved the spare key from under the mat, letting herself into the dark hall. Turning the boys loose on their granny’s fridge, she made her way up the stairs to the first floor, driven now by fury.

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