Page 91 of In This Together

Hannah’s family was her primary responsibility and she’d failed them.

Rod came into their bedroom, picking up TJ from where he was lying on his jungle mat on the floor, ready for nursery. He threw the baby three inches into the air and was rewarded with TJ’s high-pitched giggles and limb-flapping as he repeated the move once, twice, three times.

‘Okay, okay. Enough, otherwise he’ll throw up,’ Hannah said, unable to help herself laughing at the sound of TJ’s happiness.

For that brief moment, she forgot that she was deceiving her husband.

‘Rod…’

He set TJ back on his mat.

‘Yeah, babe?’ he said, before pressing a chaste kiss to her lips.

How should she begin…?‘Nothing. Have a good day.’

He kissed her again and was gone.

‘Well, TJ, it’s just you and me again, baby boy. Where should we clean today?’

* * *

After two hours of emptying, cleaning and refilling each cupboard and drawer in the kitchen, Hannah’s arms were aching. She was hot and flustered and in need of a coffee.

She turned to where TJ was in his bouncer chair on the tabletop, giggling as George the Giraffe swung back and forth from the rail above his head.

‘I would have normally had three coffees by now with the girls at work,’ she told her son as she stepped down from the chair she had been using to reach the top cupboards. ‘Today I haven’t even had one.’

She tugged off her rubber gloves and considered them, then her son. ‘What would you be doing at nursery, bubble? More than watching Mom clean the kitchen, huh?’

Dropping her gloves into the sink, she said, ‘I’ve got an idea. Let’s go out for that coffee, shall we?’

The summer was upon them when Hannah stepped outside with TJ strapped to her front, legs dangling in his carrier, his soft cap in place atop his increasingly unruly black curls of hair. Hannah had swapped cleaning clothes for a pair of yoga pants and a thin workout top. She walked briskly, happily building her heart rate as she and TJ headed toward the local park, where she knew she would find an exceptional oat milk latte and a fine Italian biscotti.

She passed other moms with their babies in strollers. Teenagers skated by her on roller blades and skateboards. A woman riding a bike chimed her bell to ask Hannah to step aside as she cycled the narrow pathway that was overhung by full trees.

All the people Hannah passed looked carefree. There was a part of Hannah that was loving her days off with TJ – she adored spending time with her kids. But the overwhelming feelings she had were guilt – guilt because she was lying to Rod; guilt because she had spent six bucks on a coffee and a biscotti when she was no longer contributing to the family finances – and a general sense of being out of sorts. She had no routine, no goals, no purpose.

She’d thought that trying to work alongside having a family was exhausting. In fact, sleepless nights due tonotworking were worse.

Taking a seat on a park bench, she unstrapped TJ from her chest and bounced him on her knee, tickling him until he giggled.

‘You know I love you, buddy, don’t you? But this just isn’t me.’

TJ gurgled.

‘Why? Well, I’m used to… being needed, I suppose. In a different way to how you and your brothers need me.’

She pressed her nose to his. ‘And you, mister, have been the neediest kid so far. All that yucky sicky. That’s right, you laugh at Mommy.’

She kissed his brow and bounced him on her lap again.

‘Aunty Andrea will come around. She’ll give me my job back, I know she will. She needs me.’ Her stomach twisted with the thought of Andrea facing her pregnancy alone. It terrified her that Andrea might consider aborting her baby. She felt immeasurably horrible that she had been the one to bring Andrea’s affair with Hunter out into the open. And now she had ditched her best friend. True, Andrea had fired her, but Hannah hadn’t put up much of a fight. Andrea had been the one person Hannah had been able to depend on when her own parents turned their backs on her when Luke was a baby and Rod was still at college. When it came to Andrea and her first pregnancy, Hannah had walked away.

TJ screeched as she bounced him more vigorously, making her laugh, too.

‘The thing is, I don’t know if I want my job back, Teej. I don’t know. I mean, we need the money, and I like the structure. I miss the girls, so much. And, you can’t understand this, but I’m the mostmeI can be when I’m in the city. I’m not Mommy or a wife. I’m Hannah.

‘But it’s exhausting. And when I’m at work, I miss you guys. I hate not being home when your brothers get in from school. I hate that there’s a chance I’ll miss your first steps because I’m working.

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