THREE #3
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘You go to that private school, don’t you? The one with all the snobs.’
‘Oh,’ says Avery. ‘Um…’ Her face flushes.
Stephanie has had quite enough of this young woman already, and she’s only just met her. ‘What can I do for you, Polly?’ she asks.
‘Oh, um, Mum wanted to know if you’ve got a cup of sugar,’ she says. ‘She’s making’ – the girl rolls her eyes – ‘something.’
‘Sure, sure,’ says Stephanie, going to her pantry and finding an unopened small bag of sugar, which she takes over to Polly. ‘You can just have this. I’ve got quite a few in the pantry,’ she lies as she mentally puts sugar on the shopping list.
‘Oh, she just needed a cup. She only wanted a cup,’ says Polly, sounding irritated.
‘It’s fine,’ says Stephanie. ‘Take that. Enjoy.’
The girl nods and doesn’t say ‘thank you’, turning around and leaving without another word. Stephanie closes the door, locks it and closes the blind, unable to help a loud sigh escaping.
‘She’s a bit… mean,’ says Avery and Stephanie tries to put things in perspective once again.
‘I think it’s been very hard for her and her family. Imagine if our whole house burned down.’
‘She’s a bitch,’ says Luke.
‘Hey, that’s not nice,’ scolds Stephanie, despite her own private agreement of his assessment.
‘Sorry,’ Luke says and he stands up. ‘I have to get some work done. What’s for dinner?’
‘I haven’t decided, stir fry maybe.’
‘With noodles or rice?’ asks Avery as there is another knock at the kitchen door.
Stephanie goes over to open it again, pulling up the blinds as she grits her teeth. Cecelia is standing at the door holding the now opened bag of sugar. ‘Sorry, just wanted to give this back. There’s so little room to store things in the kitchenette,’ she says, holding the bag out to Stephanie.
‘Thanks,’ says Stephanie, her voice tight and controlled.
This is not what she expected at all. This was supposed to be a completely separate arrangement, not one where the family are in her home every five minutes.
She really hopes this is not a sign of things to come or she has made a huge mistake.
‘My pleasure,’ says Cecelia sweetly, as though she’s the one who has done the favour and she goes back across the garden, leaving Stephanie holding the sugar, feeling slightly stunned.
‘I vote for noodles,’ says Avery, ignoring the interaction with Cecelia as she picks up her bag.
‘Noodles it is,’ says Stephanie as she locks the glass door again, hoping that is the last she will hear from the Kemp family for a while.
While she prepares dinner, she finds herself conscious, as she chops vegetables for the stir fry, that the family are out there, in her garden. Every now and again she hears the sound of a door slamming and she wonders what’s going on there.
The closed blinds do make the kitchen darker and the swirled blue marble countertop looks dull without the light that comes in.
Is this a mistake? she wonders as her hands move automatically to the onion that she slices into thin rounds.
But then she thinks about the hundreds of dollars that are now in her bag from the first month’s rent. It will really help.
She shakes her head as the frequent question of How did I get here? repeats in her mind.
At twenty, she learned that life sometimes got in the way of your plans. Would she make the decision to keep the baby who became Luke again? Yes, a thousand times. But has it cost her qualifications, a career and independence? Also, yes.
Her parents weren’t happy when she told them she was pregnant and keeping the baby, but immediately offered to help with childcare so that Stephanie could complete her degree.
But she and Christopher agreed – at least, she remembers being on board with the idea – that it was a waste for her to leave university in the middle of her final year so she might as well leave before it ever began.
They also agreed, after Luke was born, that children needed someone at home for the first few years of their lives. Stephanie would be able to go back to university any time she wanted when he was older. And then Avery was born four years later and one year rolled into another.
She spent her first pregnancy working in a clothing store so that they could save up some money and then, a year after Luke was born, she went back to work in the same clothing store part-time while her parents babysat, so that she could help support her husband as he studied medicine.
Now he’s her ex-husband, but he’s also a GP with a thriving practice.
She’s still working on getting her degree.
She was happy enough to be a stay-at-home mother to their two children once Christopher opened his practice. She remembers thinking that they had finally made it through the difficult times and that everything would be smooth sailing from then on.
‘Ha,’ she says out loud.
There’s no use in thinking about the past. The Kemp family are here and it’s going to be fine.
Having the extra money will help enormously and there’s no way that can be a mistake, she’s sure.