The Child Inside by Suzanne Bugler

school. I have bought him a jumper, and a kit for cleaning his golf clubs. I do not hear anyone telling him how lucky he is, but these things of course are not so special.
    My sister was unable to come. She decided to spend Christmas in Devon, instead, with friends. I try not to think of her going for long walks on a windswept beach, or lazing by the roar of an open fire. I try not to think of Amy, either, and her house filled with the exhilarating noise and laughter of sixteen people. I spend much of the day in the kitchen. Andrew has our guests to entertain, and a Meccano rocket-launcher to build with Jono. And I find that there is only so long that I can bear to be in the living room with them all, yet another pair of eyes upon Jono. I cook lunch, I serve lunch, I eat, I clear away. It goes as smoothly as ever it could. My son sits or moves among us – the pet, the idol, the raison d’être. One day he will escape all this; he will leave as soon as he is able. The inevitability of that is a large, immovable rock in the pathway of everything that I do.
    Later, when it is over, and my parents have gone home and Jono is curled up in front of a film in his pyjamas, Lois decides it is time for her to go to bed.
    ‘Thank you for a very nice day,’ she says to Andrew.
    And Andrew says, ‘You’re very welcome,’ followed by the measure of all nice days: ‘I think Jono enjoyed himself.’
    She turns to me then, and I think that she is going to thank me, too, for after all, I did all the work. But instead she pulls a very wistful face and says, ‘You want to make the most of Jonathan while you can, Rachel. Before you know it, some woman will come along and steal him away from you, and you won’t like that, I can tell you.’
    ‘Did you hear her?’ I ask Andrew, when she’s gone upstairs.
    ‘She didn’t mean anything by it,’ he says. We are in the kitchen, putting away the last of the plates.
    ‘She didn’t even thank me. She just thanked you.’
    ‘Don’t be like that now,’ Andrew says in his patient but warning voice, as if I am the one who is wrong, as if he is being patient with me. His tone goads me.
    ‘When Jonathan gets married, I’ll have the sense to make a friend of his wife,’ I snap. ‘I’ll be her best friend.’ I swallow hard. ‘She’ll be the daughter I never had.’
    I see the weariness cross his face; I swear, he almost rolls his eyes. ‘But what if you don’t like her?’ he says so calmly, so apparently reasonably. He says it as if I don’t know that it’s meant to hurt.
    ‘That won’t even come into it,’ I snap. ‘But is that what you’re saying? That your mum doesn’t like me?’
    ‘I’m saying it’s hard for her, that’s all. I’m her only child.’
    ‘Oh yes,’ I say. ‘And Jono is mine.’
    The unsaid words hang between us.
    Andrew carries on putting away the crockery, and then he moves on to the glasses, his contribution to the day’s meal. I stand there, mute now, and I watch him. He moves so precisely, so controlled. Inside I am bubbling with a rage I cannot define.
    When there is nothing more to be done in the kitchen Andrew very carefully folds up the tea towel and places it on its rail. His composure infuriates me. I want to see him undone.
    ‘It isn’t my fault that Jono is an only child,’ I say and my voice is loaded.
    ‘No,’ Andrew says. ‘I suppose, like everything else, it’s mine.’
    My heart is thumping. ‘Babies don’t conceive themselves, you know.’
    He looks at me coldly. ‘And is that supposed to be a turn-on?’
    The anger inside me floods over into despair and I feel tears rush into my eyes.
    But we cannot argue, we cannot even talk, with Jono still up and Lois in the house, no doubt with her ear against her door. Andrew sighs, and he leaves the room. Moments later I hear him in the living room, talking to Jono, and to his mother, and laughing. And I am stuck in the kitchen, trapped within myself, unable to join them. Always,