The Mothers by Sarah J Naughton

Author:Sarah J Naughton [Naughton, Sarah J]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781409184614
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2020-01-08T16:00:00+00:00

14

Electra

Before

Hearing the door close, she quickly got out of bed to stop him coming and telling her not to bother.

She walked quietly out into the hall. The twins were snuffling in their cots, Pearl gathered into a ball topped with a shock of Zack’s sandy-blond hair, and Ozzy stretched out, his toes poking through the bars. The psychologist who had diagnosed the autism suggested moving on to a toddler bed with side supports as he would enjoy the feeling of security.

Glancing at the sleep-trainer clock on the chest of drawers, she saw it was past two a.m.

Zack knocked off at half eleven, was usually out by midnight, home by quarter past as the roads were pretty clear by then. Had he stayed for a drink afterwards? He used to, when Alex worked there, but Alex had left when he got the trading internship. But Thea was still there.

Padding down the hall she could hear him in the kitchen. Sometimes he made himself a snack before coming to bed and his mouth would taste of Marmite when she kissed him.

Stumbling on a Duplo brick, she felt her belly judder under her T-shirt and wished she’d pulled on a hoodie. All the other mums, except Bella, had managed to lose their baby weight, and it didn’t even matter for them. Their husbands were old.

At the kitchen door, her heart began to thud with fear, that she would find him texting.

She pushed it open.

He wasn’t texting. He was leaning over the worktop, head bowed in an aspect of exhaustion or despair. Somehow this was worse. Was there more bad news that he’d been keeping from her?

‘Hey.’

‘Hey.’ His voice was flat. He didn’t turn.

‘You okay?’ She noticed with a plunge of her heart that he had poured himself a whisky. Were things that bad?

‘Shitty night.’

It was always a shitty night. He shouldn’t even be there – wouldn’t be if it weren’t for the twins. It was supposed to be a blip, the bar job, something non-stressful while he got over his dad’s death.

‘What happened?’ She walked across to him and touched his shoulder. Under the shirt he was damp with sweat and he smelled different, a musky salty scent. She swallowed. God, surely not …

He raised the glass to his lips and it clinked against his teeth. His hand was shaking.

‘Babe, please. Has something happened?’

When he finally looked at her, she gasped.

His left eye was almost completely closed, the lid swollen and purple. A cut on the socket had bled down onto his pink shirt and blood had dried at the corners of his mouth. There was so much blood, on the shirt and on the back of the hand that held the whisky glass, where he’d tried to wipe his face. That was the smell – not another woman’s sex.

‘Oh my god. Zack.’

She grasped his shoulder and he winced, as if there were more injuries to his body.

Sitting him down at the kitchen table with the pathetic little first-aid kit they’d only ever needed for plasters and bite cream, she set about cleaning and dressing his wounds.

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