Unsuitable

Audrey frowned. “You know about that too?”

“Polly told me. I saw Reece that night, remember. He wasn’t being a pumped up dickhead. He was worried about you. He was calm about the whole movie action man thing. I drilled Polly till he told me the whole story.”

Audrey turned her head to look out her window. There was no sun and it was blowing a gale and she felt hot and chilled at the same time.

“Reece isn’t anything like your dad, Aud.”

Audrey shook her head as she turned back to look at Les.

“He was young. He made bad choices. He recognised it, made amends and moved on.”

“I didn’t—”

Les didn’t want to hear her protests. “Your dad treated you like a nuisance, an interruption to his life. Then he closed a door in your face and refused to meet his granddaughter even when you might have died. That’s abuse and violence to me. Reece would sooner drive his precious Monaro off a cliff than do anything like that.”

She looked away again. She didn’t want Les to see how those words made her feel, vulnerable and resolved at the same time. Her parents failed any standard of care measure you could apply. They were the reason she’d designed her own single parent, absent father family, knowing the only person she could thoroughly rely on was herself.

“Mia and I are better off without Reece. He’s too young and he wants a family and I’m done with that. I’m lucky. I’ve already got what I wanted. And I can bring Mia up with love and the best opportunities I can buy.” She turned her head to catch Les fiddling with a button on the sleeve of her jacket.

“All right, that’s different.” Les left the button alone. “I can accept that. I think it’s sad you’d choose to be without Reece, knowing he loves you and Mia and he’s not a violent man, but I understand it.”

Audrey took a deeper breath. Her head was spinning, she needed to eat. “Can we work?”

It took an hour to fix the contract. She slammed down a sandwich and was still hungry. She attended four more meetings. At six pm she was shattered. Her first week back at work was over. Every bit of it as engrossing, engaging and exciting as she’d known it would be.

She drove home to find Mia fractious, Cameron eager to go home and Barrett missing. There was no food in the fridge, no milk for the morning and no one to blame except herself. Barrett wouldn’t think to get milk, and it wasn’t the nanny’s job though Reece had never left her without basic provisions. Cameron took off for the weekend, but would be back Monday.

Not fifteen minutes later, Audrey lost her temper with Mia and made her cry over nothing important, and the switch that lit the huge red neon sign that sat above her head and flashed world’s worst mum was flicked on. And under its illumination it was impossible to behave differently, so when Mia was out of bed before the hour was up because her toenails were too long, after being out of bed ten minutes before that because her ears couldn’t sleep, Audrey went rogue again.

Mia stood in the lounge room and insisted on having a pedicure. Audrey gave her the kind of look that made people at work doubt they weren’t drooling. “If you come out here again tonight there will be no park tomorrow.”

Mia produced tears immediately, and before they hit her cheeks she produced near incoherent fury. “I hate you. I want, Reece.”

“You can’t have him.”

Mia stamped her feet, her face red with outrage. “I want him now.”

She bent to get close to Mia. “Neither of us can have him. He is no good for us. He’s not coming back.”

She straightened up, covering her face with her hands. What was wrong with her, shouting at her child, saying horrid things?

Mia stopped crying, she held her breath then she threw herself on the floor and screamed and screamed and screamed and all Audrey could do was try to stop her hurting herself as she thrashed about. That’s how Barrett found them, both of them on the floor twisting in anger and grief; Mia vocalising her misery, and Audrey trying to simply breathe through lungs encased in the barbed wire trap of being a responsible grown-up, whose own needs came last.

“Goodness me, what’s going on?”

The tone of his voice, the severe part of Barrett’s presence that wasn’t kid friendly, stopped Mia’s carry-on instantly. “You should be in bed, Marvellous. Go right now and no more of this nonsense.”

Mia ran to her room as if she was being chased by dragons. Barrett followed her in and all was quiet. Audrey was right where he left her when he came back. She’d had no energy to move, no motivation to pretend to be anything other than an inadequate mother.

Barrett held out a hand and she took it, and he heaved her off the floor. “Does that happen often?” He wore a pained expression, as if he was cultivating a tumour.

“

No. Yes. Sometimes.” The very best thing about Barrett is that he wouldn’t judge her for something he was equally mystified about. “It’s what they do when they’re upset and they don’t understand. I’m an awful mother. I yelled at her because I’m upset and I don’t understand, so maybe you should put me to bed.”

He steered her to the lounge and they sat together. He put his arm around her shoulder and drew her into his lean body and said nothing until she’d begun to relax.

“She’s amazing, that child. She’s an alien implant from planet impossibly batty, but I can’t believe we made her and I let you convince me not to be part of her life.”