Who Loves You Best

by Tess Stimson

  “You can’t afford to pay me more.”

  I suppress a flare of anger. This is my company. I know it better than I know my own children. Craig isn’t privy to everything that goes on; he has no idea of the real cause of our financial problems. How dare he tell me what I can and can’t afford?

  Because he’s got me over a barrel, that’s why.

  “I know what I can afford. Look, Craig. Let’s sit down and talk this through, see if we can work something out.”

  “I’ve already accepted the job.”

  “Have you signed a contract?”

  “Not yet, but—”

  “I’m coming in.” I glance at the kitchen clock. Jenna’s running late today; she’s usually here by seven-thirty on Monday mornings, and it’s ten to eight now. “I’ll be there in an hour. Don’t do anything until I get there. Will you promise me that, Craig?”

  “Well …”

  “At least hear me out. Surely I deserve that much, after twelve years?”

  He sighs. “I promised to go and sign everything this afternoon. You’ve got until then.”

  I hang the phone back on the wall and mollify the twins with a bowl of Cheerios. Rowan stuffs them in his face with two fat fingers, but Poppy seems more interested in seeing how many she can work beneath the waistband of her nappy. She beams happily at me, the picture of health. You’d never guess how ill she was just a week ago.

  I feel sick every time I think about it. In my wildest nightmares, I never thought such a thing could happen to me. My baby lying sick in the hospital, maybe even dying, while I’m dragged out of bed in the middle of the night and hauled down to the police station to be asked dozens of stupid, pointless questions—“Do you ever feel jealous of your daughter, Mrs. Elias? How did you feel when your father died?”—and all the time, all I could think of was Poppy, Poppy alone and wondering why her mother wasn’t there.

  Marc should have come with me. He didn’t stay behind because he needed to marshal the troops and call Davina. He stayed because he wanted it to be true.

  I’ve forgiven him for stealing from my company, re-mortgaging the house, putting the whole family in jeopardy. But I’m not sure I can forgive him for this.

  I barely hear the eight o’clock news, anxiously listening for Jenna’s key in the lock. I really need to get going; it’ll take me thirty minutes to drive to the shop in Fulham. I can’t let Craig leave now, not with everything else up in the air. If Marc and I … if we … if I can’t learn to live with this … I need work to stay settled. I can’t cope with the business and the children on my own. Thank God I have Jenna. As long as she’s here, I can deal with everything else.

  Dammit, where is she? She’s never been late before. I hope the wretched Tubes aren’t out, the whole of London will grind to a halt and I’ll never—

  The phone rings, and I grab it off the wall with one hand, liberating the ketchup bottle from Poppy’s curious reach with the other. “Yes?”

  “Clare, it’s Jenna—”

  “Where are you? Is it the Tube? How long do you—”

  “I can’t make it in today, I’m sorry. Jamie’s sick, I need to stay with him. I know it’s short notice, but you said you weren’t planning to go into the office today—”

  “But I need you,” I exclaim. “It’s really important that I go in to work today. Please, Jenna. I’m sure your boyfriend can’t be that sick—”

  “Clare, he is. I’m sorry, but there’s no one else to look after him.”

  No. She can’t do this to me. Not today, not now.

  “Can’t you just dose him up with something and put him to bed? I’ll send a taxi to come and get you. You don’t have to stay overnight, I’ll be home by six—”

  “I’m sorry, Clare, I really can’t.”

  For a moment, I almost hate her. She has no idea what she’s just done. What does she know about real life? She swans around, partying and having fun, with no responsibilities or obligations or worries to speak of. A little credit card debt! She should try my life for five minutes.

  “There must be something you can do,” I say, suddenly near to tears.

  “There’s really nothing—”

  “You don’t understand. You can’t let me down like this. I have to get to work. What am I supposed to do?”

  Her tone turns stroppy. “Look, I’m not doing this on purpose. I didn’t ask him to get sick.”

  My mind races, seeking a way out of this trap like a rat in a maze. Marc’s at the office, Davina’s two hours’ drive away, Candida, Poppy, and Fran will be at work. Fran! Maybe I can borrow Kirsty.

  I want to scream. Of all the times for Jenna to leave me in the lurch! For all I know, her boyfriend’s not sick at all, and they’re both going back to bed to shag all afternoon at my expense.

  With an effort, I hold on to my temper. I can’t afford to have her quit either.

  “Well, I suppose it can’t be helped. Will you be back tomorrow?”

  A chill thought strikes me. Suppose she’s seen through my little sweetness-and-light routine with Marc? If she’s guessed things are going off the rails, she won’t want to be caught in the middle. For all I know, she’s got another job lined up already. “You are coming back, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I’m coming back. I’ll call you tomorrow,” Jenna says shortly, and rings off.

  Fran’s phone is engaged, so I bundle the twins into their playsuits and jackets, and jump in the car. I just hope she doesn’t leave home before I reach her.

  I leave the twins with a startled, but willing (once I brandish a fistful of twenty-pound notes) Kirsty, and race to the Fulham shop, where I coax Craig, by dint of a crippling, unaffordable pay raise and the promise of free rein with some of his new ideas, into staying. Then I give him the rest of the afternoon off, and send Molly home early, too. I need some time alone. I need to be with my flowers. I’m worn out. So many people wanting a piece of me, pulling me in different directions. It’s never bothered me before, I’m used to organizing everything; but for once, I wish there was someone who could share the load. Just for five minutes.

  I’m in the back, sorting through some vivid blue lobelia, and wondering how to use them. With a twist of hedera ivy, they could look wonderful. I imagine a June bride walking down the aisle with these, a splash of tropical color against her white gown. I had ivy in my bouquet, ivy and mistletoe and white calla lilies—

  The bell signals a customer. I walk out to the shop floor, unbraiding a twist of raffia from my wrist.

  “Cooper.” I smile. “How is Ella this week?”

  “Recovering at home.”

  “Oh, I’m so pleased.”

  He nods shortly. “Zinnias. Please,” he adds, as an afterthought.

  Zinnias. I glance at him sharply. The Victorian meaning of zinnias was absence, as well as the emotional correlation, sorrow.

  Maybe he has to travel again. Over the past weeks, each time he’s come into the shop to order flowers for his girlfriend, I’ve gleaned a few more details about his life. He’s a journalist; well, a writer, really. “Journalist” makes him sound like an inky-fingered hack. Cooper Garrett freelances for some serious magazines like Newsweek and Time (Craig elicited those particular details; like getting blood out of a stone, he said) and does some travel writing, too. But what I find more interesting is the unpaid work he does for several high-profile NGOs, like the Red Cross and its sister arm in the Middle East, the Red Crescent. Cooper is the one who writes those emotive, wrenching color pieces that drum up donations. He’s so silent and taciturn in person; you’d never know how articulate, how eloquent, he can be on the written page. I’ve looked up and read his pieces online, of course. Everything I can get my hands on.

  I scoop a bunch of stunning zinnias out of a water bucket. They’re deep orange at the center, radiating to hot pink and then bright yellow. Not my favorite flowers; but certainly cheerful, and they work well mixed against the late pussy willow.

  “No need to deliver t
his time,” he says. “I’ll take them myself.”

  I can’t imagine Cooper abandoning his wife in a police station in the middle of the night. Or getting himself into a financial mess and leaving it to Ella to sort out. Oh, I’m sure she gets stuck with his dry cleaning when he gets back from a trip, but I bet she doesn’t have to run around making sure his life runs smoothly, as if he were a third child. From the first, he’s struck me as the kind of man you can rely on in a crisis. Even if he is a little rough around the edges.

  “How’s your daughter?” he asks suddenly. “Poppy, isn’t it?”

  I startle. “She’s much better,” I say. “How did you—”

  “Your colleague. Craig.”

  “How kind of you to remember. She had us terribly worried for a few days, but she seems over it now.” My voice cracks. “She had so much salt in her body, they thought I must have given it to her. The police came … it was so dreadful—”

  Tears spill suddenly down my cheeks. I dash them away, hopelessly embarrassed.

  “Of course it wasn’t you,” Cooper says, his matter-of-fact conviction an unexpected balm to my lacerated self-esteem.

  “They can’t seem to find another explanation,” I say helplessly.

  “Then they’re idiots,” he snaps. He stares intently at me, then spins on his heel. “I’m sorry. Something—I have to go.”

  He picks up his zinnias and bolts for the door, leaving me openmouthed. He really is the most extraordinary man. It must be quite a challenge for Ella Stuart to sustain a full-length conversation with him. Still, he seems devoted to her. He’s been in here every other day for weeks now.

  In seven years, Marc has never once bought me flowers.

  ———

  “Did you have to be so rude to me in front of Xan?”

  Marc tosses his jacket on the end of the bed. “Give me a break. The man’s a drunk.”

  “He’s my brother! At least you could have—”

  “You’re the one who stormed upstairs over a spilt glass of wine,” Marc snaps.

  “I had a headache.”

  “You are a headache.”

  I wrap my arms defensively around my chest. “How can you say that?”

  “Christ. All you ever do is bitch.” Marc sneers. He balls up his socks and throws them in the direction of the laundry bin, his voice taking on a mocking falsetto. “‘Get another job. Sell the car.’ Have you heard yourself lately?”

  “I’m not the one who got us into this mess.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Save it, Clare. I’m not in the mood.”

  He climbs into bed and turns his back to me. I switch off the bedside light and stare miserably into the darkness. I can’t seem to do anything right anymore. Marc blames me for everything. How could he believe I’d ever hurt Poppy? He must really … he must really hate me, I realize, with a spurt of shock. He’s lived with me for seven years, he knows me better than anyone except Xan. To believe the worst of me like that … to want to believe it … how much resentment has he been harboring, for how many years?

  I’m bewildered by the speed with which we’ve fallen apart. I can’t remember the last time he kissed me, never mind the last time we made love. But we were fine until we had the twins. Weren’t we? Or … or was I just too busy with PetalPushers to notice?

  Was I so wrong, to expect the same from marriage as Marc? A partner who was my lover and my friend; a career; a family. Is that really asking too much?

  I push myself up on my elbow, but Marc’s light snores tell me he’s already asleep. How can he? My own stomach churns with anxiety. How can he sleep when our marriage is in crisis?

  I throw myself restlessly back on my pillows. I haven’t heard Jenna or Xan come upstairs yet. I’m very fond of Jenna, of course. It’s not that I don’t think she’s good enough for Xan, obviously. But if they got together, it would … complicate … things too much. He’ll break her heart, and I’ll be the one left picking up the pieces.

  Sliding out of bed, I reach for my robe and tiptoe out onto the landing. There’s a soft murmur of voices below me, and then, as I stand and listen, a long, pregnant silence. Suddenly, the thought of Jenna stealing kisses from my brother—my brother: the one man whose loyalty and love I can still count on—fills me with a dark, ugly jealousy.

  “Jenna?” I call sharply. I descend to the half-landing. “Jenna, you have to be up early tomorrow with the twins. Don’t you think you should get to bed?”

  Moments later, the front door slams. Instantly, I feel ashamed of my pettiness. I didn’t mean for Xan to drive home. He’s in no fit state.

  I slink upstairs and climb back under the cold covers. Next to me, Marc is stiff and unyielding, even in sleep.

  I doze fitfully, haunted by dreams in which my life and Jenna’s are entangled and confused. At one point, I reach for Marc, only to have him turn into a wild-eyed Jenna, laughing manically as she brandishes a salt-cellar in each hand.

  I wake disoriented and exhausted. Marc’s side of the bed is empty. The two of us are getting up earlier and earlier in our attempts to avoid each other.

  Downstairs, I find Jenna in the utility room, loading the washing machine. Elbow deep in our dirty laundry: literally and metaphorically.

  “Thank you so much for clearing up the kitchen last night,” I say nervously. “I really appreciate it. I didn’t mean you to get caught up in—”

  “Forget it.”

  She slams the washing machine door shut, and twists the knob. I follow her back to the kitchen, cowed. Jenna has a way of giving you the cold shoulder, making you feel in the wrong even when you don’t know exactly why. After all, I certainly pay her enough to clean up a few coffee cups now and then. And Xan was here to help. It’s not like I’m using her for slave labor.

  Jenna picks up the kitchen sponge, and, ignoring me, wipes down the countertop. I hover uselessly. It’s like being back at school. I never quite grasped the unwritten playground rules. I couldn’t work out why I would be cast out of my small circle of friends for no apparent reason, and would spend tearful hours trying to discover what I’d done wrong, until I was suddenly admitted back into favor without explanation. I hated it then, and I hate it now.

  “Was Xan … was he OK to drive when he left?” I ask tentatively.

  “He got the Tube. He said he’ll come by to pick up his car in a day or two.”

  She’s obviously in one of her moods. I decide to ignore it and hope she gets over it. “Did the twins sleep through?”

  “They woke up at seven.”

  She clears away Rowan and Poppy’s breakfast bowls, hands each of them a cracker, and then starts briskly to sponge the already gleaming kitchen table.

  “You haven’t forgotten about their play-date at Annabel’s?” I venture. “It’s not far from here, but if it rains you need to get a taxi. I don’t want to risk Poppy catching cold.”

  “I haven’t forgotten,” she says coolly.

  I move out of the way as she starts on the Viking range. “I could help you get the twins ready if you like. I don’t have to go into work until later today,” I add, suddenly wondering as I say it why I have to go into work at all. I could spend the afternoon lazing in Annabel’s back garden, the children playing on a picnic rug at our feet, enjoying the gentle June sunshine on my face and a glass of crisp Pinot Grigio in my hand and the feeling of grass between my bare toes.

  I lift Poppy out of her high chair, inhaling her smell. She’s growing up so fast, and I’m missing it.

  Poppy squirms, and reaches towards Jenna. “Ma! Ma! Ma!”

  It’s like a knife in my stomach.

  “She says that to everyone,” Jenna says.

  “She wants you,” I say, handing her to Jenna.

  “Cupboard love.” Jenna smiles at Poppy. “She knows where the cookies come from.”

  Forcing a smile, I go upstairs and get ready for work. When I come back down, the twins are playing on the floor of the sitting room. Jenna dressed Poppy in one of the hi
deous starched, frilled dresses I hate, and Rowan in a loathsome pair of black jeans and a miniature bomber jacket. Why does she keep buying them this dreadful stuff? Why can’t she let them look like babies? They’re only six months old, for heaven’s sake! I don’t want them going to Annabel’s looking like this. They’re not Jenna’s children.

  “Look, do you mind if I change them?” I say suddenly. “I’d rather they wore something more comfortable.”

  Deliberately ignoring her outraged expression, I take them back upstairs. My hands tremble with anger as I lay each of them on the changing table, and take off the scratchy, cheap synthetic outfits. I pull out their soft, worn sweats and T-shirts, in pale, faded colors: lavender, mint, robin’s egg blue. It’s like Jenna’s trying to take over. Imposing what she wants against my wishes. She needs to remember she’s just here to do a job. They’re my babies.

  She’s sitting at the kitchen table when I bring the twins back down, her arms folded. I don’t have to be a mind reader to see trouble coming.

  Instantly I regret my childish power play. It’s not fair to take out my foul mood on her. And Jenna’s the last person I need to alienate at the moment.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be so picky,” I apologize. “It’s just that the twins will be crawling around Annabel’s back garden, and I’d hate it if they ruined the lovely clothes you bought them. They should be kept for best—”

  “Look, Clare. We need to talk.”

  Words you never—as an employer or a lover—want to hear.

  I sit warily opposite her.

  “It’s not about the clothes,” she says quickly.

  She hesitates, rubbing the palm of her hand up and down her inner arm as if she’s cold. I’ve noticed it’s something she does when she’s nervous or unsure.

  “I’ve been offered another job,” she blurts. “It’s a lot more money, and the hours would be shorter, too. You know how much I love the twins, and I’d hate to leave you, but … well …”