Page 27 of Child's Play

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ she cried, throwing a spanner across the floor. How the hell was she supposed to know what to do? Damn it, she’d never wanted kids and wasn’t afraid to admit it. She’d never wanted the responsibility of another life in her hands and she possessed enough self-awareness to know the kid wouldn’t fare so well either. She wasn’t so sure Charlie down the road would have come and walked it daily the way he did with Barney. And she worried enough about him. No, having a child was definitely not for her and somehow she’d ended up with three of them. Big ones.

Barney raised his head and looked at her.

‘I’m relaxing, honest,’ she said, crawling on her knees to retrieve the tossed spanner.

He stood and walked past her. His tail wagged two seconds before a knock sounded on the garage door.

‘You in there?’

‘Bugger off, I’m relaxing,’ she called back to her colleague.

‘Yeah, I heard.’

‘Come round,’ she called back getting to her feet, eager to be out of the garage.

Normally she loved her time in her favourite room of the house. She loved nothing more than to focus on the jigsaw of bike parts that would eventually make a whole, but only when she felt she’d earned it and deserved it.

She reached for the percolator jug as Bryant came in the front door.

Barney blocked further access with a resolute stance and a whooshing tail.

‘Here you go,’ Bryant said, paying the entry fee of one apple. The definite way to her dog’s heart.

‘Couldn’t sleep,’ he said, launching himself on to the bar stool on the other side of the breakfast bar.

‘Bryant, it’s not even nine o’clock,’ she said, smiling.

‘Ah, that’ll be why then.’

‘You gotta relax,’ she offered.

‘Tried it,’ he said, shrugging. ‘Got bored.’

‘How?’ she asked turning. ‘How exactly did you try and relax and why isn’t Jenny keeping you busy?’

Normally wives appreciated a bit of help from their husbands.

‘Started weeding the front garden. How desperate is that for something to do?’

Knowing how much he hated gardening that was pretty much rock bottom.

‘And?’

‘Apparently we pay a kid who’s putting himself through college to do that.’

She smiled. Yep that sounded like Jenny.

‘I put the washer on. Apparently it’s not the right day for that cos now she’s got washing hanging around until ironing day. I mean who knew washing machines and irons only worked on certain days of the week?’

‘Bryant, you’re giving these things way too much thought.’

‘Yeah, that’s what Jen said right before she sent me round here.’

Kim laughed out loud. If she was honest, she loved Jenny almost as much as Bryant did.

Never once had she been threatened by the friendship that had grown between them over the years. The long hours, the late nights, the focus that excluded all else when a heavy case came up. Jenny got it and was totally secure in her husband’s love.

‘She’s having trouble adjusting,’ he said, turning a drinks coaster onto its edge and trying to twirl it.