Ed used to have nightmares too. Rachel would wake up to hear him yelling, over and over, “Run Janie! Run! For God’s sake, darling, run!”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had nightmares,” said Rachel. What could she have done about it?
Rob got his face back under control.
“They’re just dreams. They’re no big deal. But you shouldn’t have to go to the park every year on your own, Mum. I’m sorry I never offered to go with you before. I should have.”
“Sweetheart, you did offer,” said Rachel. “Don’t you remember? Many times. And I always said no. It was my thing. Your dad thought I was crazy. He never went back to that park. Never even drove along the same street.”
Rob wiped the back of his hand across his nose and sniffed.
“Sorry,” he said. “You’d think after all these years—” He stopped abruptly.
They could hear Jacob in the kitchen singing the words to the “Bob the Builder” song. Lauren was singing along. Rob smiled tenderly at the sound. The smell of hot cross buns drifted into the room.
Rachel studied his face. He was a good dad. A better dad than his own father had been. That was the way these days, all the men were better fathers, but Rob had always been a softhearted boy. Even as a baby he’d been a loving little thing. She used to pick him up from his cot after a nap and he’d snuggle against her chest and actually pat her back as if to thank her for picking him up. He’d been the most chuckly, kissable baby. She remembered Ed saying, without resentment, “For God’s sake, woman, you’re besotted with that child.”
It was strange, remembering Rob as a baby, like picking up a much-loved book she’d hadn’t read in years. She so rarely bothered to think about memories of Rob. Instead, she was always trying to scrape up new memories of Janie’s childhood, as if Rob’s childhood didn’t matter, because he got to live.
“You were the most beautiful baby,” she said to Rob. “People used to stop me in the street to compliment me. Have I told you that before? Probably a hundred times.”
Rob shook his head slowly. “You never told me that, Mum.”
“Didn’t I?” said Rachel. “Not even when Jacob was born?”
“No.” There was an expression of wonder on his face.
“Well, I should have,” said Rachel. She sighed. “I probably should have done a lot of things.”
Rob leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. “So I was pretty cute, eh?”
“You were gorgeous, darling,” said Rachel. “You still are, of course.”
Rob snorted. “Yeah, right, Mum.” But he couldn’t hide the delight that suddenly wreathed his face, and Rachel bit down hard on her lower lip with regret for all the ways she’d let him down.
“Hot cross buns!” Lauren appeared carrying a beautiful platter of perfectly toasted and evenly buttered buns, which she placed in front of them.
“Let me help,” said Rachel.
“Absolutely not,” said Lauren over her shoulder as she returned to the kitchen. “You never let me help at your place.”
“Ah.” Rachel felt strangely exposed. She always assumed that Lauren didn’t really notice her actions, or actually register her as a person at all. She thought of her age as a shield that protected her from the eyes of the young.
She always pretended to herself that she didn’t let Lauren help because she was trying to be the perfect mother-in-law, but really, when you didn’t let a woman help, it was a way of keeping her at a distance, of letting her know that she wasn’t family, of saying I don’t like you enough to let you into my kitchen.