CHAPTER FIFTEEN
EMMA
It's Monday again. How did that happen? One minute, it’s Friday night and I’m convincing myself I’ll have a nice, relaxing weekend, and the next, I’m knee-deep in another school run, wondering how time moves so fast and yet so painfully slow at the exact same time.
Like, the hours between dinner and bedtime?
They drag on for eternity. I swear, I age a full decade every evening between the start of bath time and the moment the last child finally stops creeping downstairs “just to ask a quick question.” But the days themselves?
Gone in a blink. I feel like I’m constantly playing catch-up in a game I never actually signed up for.
The thing is, I do play with them. I build the towers, I do the puzzles, I nod enthusiastically while they shove dolls in my face and demand I make them talk in very specific accents.
But do I enjoy it? No. Not even a little bit.
And that makes me feel like a terrible mum.
It’s not that I don’t love them, because obviously I do, more than anything.
It’s just that my idea of fun doesn’t involve pretending to be a talking unicorn named Sparkleberry who runs a bakery for woodland creatures. I try, I really do, but after five minutes, I’m mentally making a shopping list or wondering if I can fake a phone call to get out of it.
I shove the guilt aside as I sip my now-lukewarm tea and remind myself that I am a good mum, just maybe not the floor-sitting, pretend-bakery-owning type.
At least Dan and I are trying to fix things.
We both know we need to, and I’m glad we’re making the effort.
But part of me worries that we haven’t actually laid all our cards on the table yet.
There’s still so much unspoken between us, things we don’t say because we’re afraid of making things worse.
We’ve acknowledged that we’ve drifted apart, but we haven’t yet dug into why.
And if we don’t, I’m scared we’ll just be papering over cracks that will only get wider.
But there’s no time to dwell on that now, because the morning chaos is in full swing.
Oscar is refusing to wear a coat even though it’s practically arctic outside. Sophie is sobbing because her sock “feels weird” and no amount of adjusting is making it right. Ruby has managed to remove her nappy and is now running around completely naked, giggling like a tiny, deranged streaker.
Dan appears in the doorway, bleary-eyed, clutching a coffee like it’s the only thing keeping him alive. “Do you need help?” he asks, which is ironic, because he’s asking while standing still, not actually helping.
“YES,” I snap, as I wrestle Ruby into a clean nappy while simultaneously trying to convince Sophie that her socks are fine and she will survive.
By some miracle, we manage to get everyone dressed and out the door, but not before I trip over a discarded toy, Ruby face-plants into a pile of shoes, and Oscar suddenly remembers it’s PE day and he’s not wearing his kit.
I scream into my hands for a second before shoving his kit into a bag and praying the school won’t judge me too much for the chaos that is our existence.
As we pile the kids into the car, I glance at Dan, who smirks at me knowingly.
“Another peaceful morning,” he says.
I glare at him, but I can’t help but laugh. Because honestly? If we didn’t laugh, we’d probably cry.
There is a moment, just a fleeting, golden moment, when all the kids are strapped into the car, and silence washes over you like the first sip of a hot coffee. It lasts approximately 20 seconds, but in that time, I swear, it feels like I’ve checked into a five-star spa.
The doors are shut. Nobody is touching me. Nobody is asking for snacks. Nobody is screaming because someone dared to breathe in their direction. It’s just me, standing there, taking the deepest, most luxurious breath of my life. This is it. This is self-care.
The drive to Oakwood Primary isn’t long. In fact, we could probably walk it in twenty minutes but I am not organised enough to have that much spare time in the mornings. The five-minute drive has to suffice.
Sophie and Oscar are off to school, and Ruby has just started preschool two days a week, which means, brace yourself, Dan and I now have an entire child-free day together. In our own house. Without interruptions. I mean, sure, we both work from home, but still.
Of course, the fact that we both work from home is entirely because I never got to go back to my dream.
Once upon a time, I was going to be a journalist. And I was!
Briefly. Until I got pregnant with Oscar, and my editor made me redundant.
Officially, it was due to “necessary role cuts,” but considering I was the only role cut and my workplace was basically a boys' club that viewed maternity leave as a contagious disease, I knew the truth.
I tried to go back when Oscar was one. I applied for jobs in the city since there was nothing in Oakwood but childcare costs as well as the costs of us both commuting into the city, meant we’d have to sell a kidney to afford it.
And because flexible work was apparently a foreign concept, I ended up freelancing as a copywriter instead.
It’s fine. I still get to write. But there’s always that part of me that wonders what could have been if I’d had the chance.
Would I be chasing stories, writing big, important features, having my name in print somewhere that wasn’t just “Emma’s blog post about best sofa cleaning hacks”?
Would I have an actual office, where my chair wasn’t always sticky, and nobody interrupted me by yelling “Muuuuum” 800 times an hour?
Maybe. Maybe not. But I’ll always feel like I missed out on something.
Still, right now, I have 20 seconds of peace outside this car. And honestly? In this moment, it’s enough.
After dropping the kids off, I decide to treat myself to a takeaway coffee from the little café in town.
It feels earned somehow. They do the best flavoured lattes imaginable, and my current obsession is their hazelnut latte.
It’s sweet, nutty, and indulgent enough to feel like a small act of self-care rather than just caffeine.
The coffee shop is called The Rose Café, named after Rose herself who was the little old lady who owned it for over forty years and worked there right up until she passed away last year.
Her death came as a real shock to the town.
She was eighty-six, but I think most of Oakwood had quietly decided she was immortal.
Rose had always been there, behind the counter with her apron and her no-nonsense warmth, like a permanent fixture of the place.
She wasn’t just a person; she was part of Oakwood’s furniture.
Thankfully, the café stayed in the family.
Rose’s grandson, Mark, who happens to be married to my friend Clara, runs it now.
He’s kept everything just the way she liked it.
More often than not, his two kids are there too, perched on stools or “helping” behind the counter after school and at weekends, adding to the gentle chaos and charm that makes Rose’s feel like home.
The café itself is housed in one of Oakwood’s oldest buildings, all beautiful original architecture and quiet elegance.
From the outside it looks timeless, like it belongs just as much to the past as it does the present.
Inside, it’s decorated with roses, subtle touches here and there, painted details and soft patterns.
Nothing matches, yet somehow everything does.
The tables and chairs are all different shapes and styles, and the cups and saucers are mismatched in the most beautiful way, as though each one has its own story.
As I step through the door, I’m immediately wrapped in the rich aroma of freshly ground coffee and Rose’s famous almond croissants.
That’s when I notice the noise. A proper ruckus by the till.
Rose’s is usually calm, gently buzzing at most, so this feels unusual.
Curious, I tiptoe closer and catch sight of what, or rather who, is causing the excitement.
Rory Bennett.
The Rory Bennett.
Oakwood alumni through and through. He grew up here, his whole family still firmly rooted in town, but he was scouted into professional rugby and left Oakwood behind for a flash city life and a supermodel girlfriend.
He’s probably just back visiting his parents, but since nothing remotely interesting ever happens in Oakwood, the entire café is fussing over him like royalty.
He looks painfully embarrassed, awkwardly polite, his cap pulled low as if it might somehow make him invisible. He makes small talk with familiar faces, nodding and smiling while clearly wishing the floor would open up and swallow him whole.
I seize the moment. While everyone else is distracted, I slip straight to the front of the queue, place my order for a hazelnut latte, and make a swift, silent escape. Coffee secured; local celebrity avoided. Some mornings, that counts as a win.
I arrive back after having dropped the kids off and sit in the driveway for just a few seconds to take in the moment of peace.
The silence is weird.
Like, really weird.
I close the front door behind me and just stand there for a second, ears straining. No shouting. No fighting. No one demanding toast after we’ve already left the house. Just… silence. I think I can actually hear my own pulse.
For a brief moment, it’s almost peaceful. But then I turn my head and remember that peace does not exist here. Not in this house. Because the place is still an absolute disaster zone from the morning chaos.
The shoe box by the front door is doing a laughable job at containing shoes. It’s meant to store them neatly, but instead, they spill out like a crime scene. There’s at least one wellington boot, several odd trainers, and, confusingly, a doll’s head. I don’t even want to know.