The Stay-at-Home Mother by Nicole Trope

Author:Nicole Trope [Trope, Nicole]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-01-03T05:00:00+00:00

SIXTEEN

GABBY

‘I… I already called them,’ Gabby says and she feels her face flush as she remembers how bored the policeman who answered the phone sounded, as though he didn’t care that her precious son was missing.

‘What did they say?’

Gabby reels off the questions she had been asked, making her voice sound as robotic as the policeman on the phone had sounded. ‘“And when did you last see him? And how old did you say he was? Has he ever done this before? Has he contacted you at all? Have you called the school?” I wasn’t going to…’ She stops speaking.

‘Wasn’t going to what?’ asks Andrea.

‘Look, to be honest,’ says Gabby, ‘I told them everything I knew and I didn’t want to lie to them so when he asked me… when he asked me if Flynn had ever run away before, I had to tell the truth, I had to.’ She rubs her hands over her face, not wanting to see the look she knows Andrea is giving her.

‘He’s done this before?’ the woman asks.

Gabby nods miserably. ‘He has. He usually comes back after a day or two. Richard has given him a credit card for emergencies, and only Richard can see any activity on it and he hasn’t returned my call. He always comes back and he’s much better after a day or two away, but I have a feeling that this is it, that this time he won’t return.’

‘Sit down, sit down, come on,’ says Andrea as she moves to the sofa, gesturing that Gabby should join her. Gabby understands why Andrea needs to get off her feet: her belly is huge in the last week of pregnancy. But Gabby cannot sit down. She looks around the small sitting room, the creeping smell of mould filling her nose. Andrea has never invited her over here and she can see why.

She could never live in a house like this, she reflects. It’s chaotic and she is sure none too clean. Surely if you have enough money to buy a house in this street, you should at least have enough money for a cleaner? And would it have hurt for Andrea to make some temporary renovations? She’s never mentioned plans, but they must be renovating – they must be.

Jack comes into the living room.

‘I finished my cereal,’ he says. ‘Hi, Gabby, can I play at your house today?’

‘Um,’ she says, not quite sure how to answer the little boy who wants nothing more than a treat and some time with the toys at her house. How easy this age is, how simple and straightforward. If they’re hungry, you feed them; tired, you put them down for a nap; and whatever happens, they love you with everything they have. Children this age are not capable of the levels of disdain she has been subjected to, and as she looks at the little boy, she is overwhelmed by a wistful desperation to be the mother of a young child and not the mother of a teenager who would rather be anywhere but in her presence.

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