Chapter 18
Eighteen
I’ve been cleaning the kitchen since five-thirty in the morning, two full hours before the twins woke up, and I’m pretty sure I’ve organized the junk drawer three times now.
Each paperclip, loose battery, and mystery key has been repositioned with impressive focus, and the countertops have reached a level of cleanliness that makes Luca later describe them as “basically sending passive-aggressive messages to the rest of the house.” But I can’t stop.
My hands keep moving, wiping, arranging, wiping again, while my brain cycles through the same thought on repeat: Today is the day Daniel comes to get his last things.
Today is the day he returns his keys. Today is the day it’s officially, completely over.
The coffee in my mug has been reheated so many times that it’s taken on the quality that makes it barely drinkable, but I can’t bring myself to make a fresh cup.
The thought of having to go through the entire process, kettle on, mug out, coffee in, wait, wait, wait, feels physically impossible, like asking someone to run a marathon in the middle of a hurricane.
From her position on the play mat, Maisie watches me move around the kitchen with her usual unsettling level of focus.
Her eyes follow me from cabinet to counter to sink, one tiny eyebrow raised slightly as if she’s mentally correcting my technique.
In his bouncer beside the table, Milo is having none of it.
He’s currently engaged in a very passionate one-sided debate with a wooden spoon, his entire face scrunched in the expression that makes him look like a tiny CEO.
“Ma!” he announces, already launching into his next point. “Ma-ma-ma!”
“That’s definitely my name,” I tell him, reaching for the cloth I’ve just wiped down the bench with for the fourth time. “Whether you intend it to mean me however. Is debateable.”
The front door opens with a soft click, key in the lock, and Luca appears in the kitchen doorway with a takeaway coffee in each hand and a more cautious expression than I have seen in a while.
His eyes move from the spotless counters to my untouched coffee to the reorganised spice rack (now arranged by frequency of use rather than alphabetical order), and his expression changes from casual to concerned in a single fluid motion.
“Absolutely not,” he says, already placing his bag on the counter. “You are not doing emotionally significant life moments alone like some kind of haunted indie film protagonist.”
He reaches for my mug without asking, dumps its contents directly into the sink, and replaces it with one of the takeaway coffees before I can protest. The smell of actual, fresh coffee, not the reheated abomination that’s been sitting on the counter since five-thirty, fills the kitchen, and I feel myself take a deep inhale.
“I’m fine,” I tell him, already reaching for the coffee. “Really. I’ve had months to prepare for this. I’ve literally color-coded the custody schedule. I’m emotionally stable to the point of being suspicious.”
Luca looks at me for a long moment, three seconds, five, ten, his face shows he is trying to make his mind up about something. He is not being dramatic, more like assessing the scene and determining the best steps to take next.
Then he turns to the baby monitor on the counter, checking the volume, adjusting the angle, like he’s making himself useful without being asked, and asks casually: “Did Adrian text you this morning? He said he was going to.”
I nod, already reaching for my phone. Adrian’s message sits in my inbox, the subject line, “Thinking of you today”, appearing as it has for the past three hours:
Just checking in. No pressure to respond. Standing by for whatever you need.
Such a simple sentence, an acknowledgment of what today means for me, for the twins. A way to ensure I know that I am not alone in this moment that I never expected to have when I walked down the aisle towards Daniel.
I’ve saved it like a small piece of ballast, something to hold onto when everything else feels like it’s too difficult and check it again without realising I’m doing it. The words remain as they were the first time, brief and entirely without expectation.
“He texted,” I tell Luca, already putting the phone down. “Just a quick check-in. Nothing too intense.”
He nods, accepting this without pushing for more, and then there’s a knock at the door, three soft, careful taps that mean only one thing.
Daniel.
I stand perfectly still in the kitchen, my coffee halfway to my mouth, and feel myself freeze. Then Luca makes a small sound and suddenly I’m moving again, crossing to the door with care, already reaching for the handle with my free hand.
Daniel is quieter than he’s been in any previous encounter, no charm offensive, no forthright apologies, just a tired man standing on my doorstep with a cardboard box and a bin bag.
He’s wearing his standard weekend outfit, grey jumper, dark jeans, it makes him look like he stepped out of a family photograph, but something about him is different.
Not in an outwardly spectacular way, more like all pretence has dropped.
“Elsie,” he says, his voice carrying a note of wistfulness.
“Daniel,” I reply, already stepping back to let him in. “Come in.”
We exchange polite small talk that is somehow more exhausting than screaming, yes, the twins slept okay, yes, the car service got booked, yes, he found the charger he was looking for, while Daniel moves through the house with the unhurried quality of someone who knows what they’re doing and why.
He collects the study items first, textbooks and reference materials, and then the garage tools, each one handled with careful attention before being placed in the bin bag.
From his position on the play mat, Milo watches this whole process. His eyes follow Daniel from room to room, tracking each movement with careful attention, and then, without warning, he launches himself toward Daniel’s legs.
“Ma!” he announces, already grabbing for Daniel’s shoelaces with both hands. “Da!”
Daniel looks down, really looks, and something complicated flashes across his face. Not guilt or grief, but something more complex, as though the weight of his actions are finally settling into his understanding.
“Hey, buddy,” he says quietly, already reaching down to pick Milo up. “How’s it going?”
Milo, never one to be outdone by potential admirers, responds by grabbing directly for Daniel’s face. The movement is so specifically him, just what he does to everyone who picks him up, that Daniel laughs despite himself, a real one that makes Milo glance up with delight.
In the background, Luca watches this exchange with no comments, just leaning against my kitchen bench with his own coffee. Silent but almost daring Daniel to step out of line.
Then Daniel reaches for Maisie, and something in my chest goes very quiet. Maisie was more hesitant last time, and that moment of hesitation destroyed something in both Daniel and me. No matter what he did to me, the twins need their dad, and he needs them just as much, probably more.
Maisie goes to him without hesitation this time and then she does the thing she’s started doing with people she trusts, she presses one small palm flat against his jaw and just holds it there, studying his face calmly.
Daniel goes completely still. His jaw tightens. His eyes close briefly, a movement so small I almost miss it, and then open again, focused entirely on Maisie’s face. He doesn’t cry, but it’s close, I can see the sheen to his eyes from here.
I watch it happen from across the kitchen with my coffee cup held in both hands, feeling the full complicated wreckage of anger and grief and unwanted empathy moving through my chest at the same time.
I don’t look away. Don’t comfort him. Don’t make it a moment or a speech or any of the other gestures people usually offer in these situations.
I just let it be what it is.
After Daniel has loaded the last box into his car, the bin bag of garage tools, a stack of DVDs from the living room shelf, a framed photograph of his university rugby team that’s been sitting on his desk since we moved in, he comes back to the kitchen and sets his house keys on the counter.
He doesn’t make a show of it, just places them there carefully.
He looks at them for a second, just a second, and then at me, and I know that we are both feeling the weight of this moment.
“I didn’t think this would happen to us,” he says quietly.
Those words encompass all the emotions currently rioting through my body.
I look at the keys and then at Daniel, my face arranged in an expression so sad that Daniel’s face drops further. “Neither did I.”
No cruelty in it. No forgiveness either. Just the truth.
Daniel nods once, the gesture that contains an entire universe of feeling, and turns toward the door. “I’ll text when I get the twins on Saturday,” he says, already reaching for the handle. “Let you know how they’re settling in.”
“Thank you,” I reply.
Then he’s gone, the door closing behind him with a soft click that somehow manages to sound both ordinary and significant at the same time, and the house settles around me.
Luca waits approximately four seconds, the specific, careful timing of someone who’s been physically restraining himself for far longer than normal, before asking casually, “Scale of one to psychological collapse?”
I laugh, before immediately starting to cry, because apparently my emotions have decided to travel in a pack today.
The sound is so unexpected, so completely at odds with the careful composure I’ve been maintaining since this morning, that for a moment, I just stand perfectly still in the kitchen with tears running down my face and no idea what to do next.
Then Luca is there, and I’m crying into his jumper again. He doesn’t say anything, not a single platitude or observation, he just holds me where I am.