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‘Yeah, I guess so,’ she replied with a sigh, mentally adding it to her To Do List.I have enough trouble taking care of my pelvic floor let alone the kitchen floor,Cara thought, and would have said out loud had it not been for the fact that she’d have to answer the inevitable ‘What’s a pelvic floor?’ question from Lily. She’d find out soon enough, there was no need to scar her youth with an explanation of female physiology just yet. Cara stopped chopping onions for a moment, realising that with Lily turning eight in a couple of weeks, there were only a few years to go until she’dhaveto talk to her about pelvic floors and other such things. Cara shuddered, in no way prepared for that. For now, all she could think about was how to deal with Toby’s condition.
Cara slid the onions into the pan then grunted again, trying to open a jar of mustard. ‘Stupid bloody lid. Geez, you have to be Houdini to open things these days!’ She took a breath, and tried again.
‘Here, let me.’ Pete twisted the lid and opened it with a quick pop.
‘Thanks, Houdini,’ Cara said. ‘Oh, Pete, do you know what a molecule is?’
‘Sure. It’s the smallest particle of a substance that retains the chemical and physical properties of the substance it was derived from.’
Great. Not only was her husband Houdini, he was also Einstein.
‘How’s my little molecule?’ Pete put his arms around Lily.
‘Daddy, don’t be silly, I’m not a molecule!’ Lily laughed. ‘I’m just made of molecules,’ she added, closing her homework book and opening another, before looking up at her mother. ‘Mum, what’s Viagra?’
The jar of mustard fell from Cara’s grip and cracked into several pieces on the floor.
‘Don’t worry, hun, I’ll clean that up while you answerour daughter’s question,’ Pete said, hiding a grin by scratching his nose.
‘Wait.’ Cara scooped a smidgen of mustard from the floor, careful to get a bit that wasn’t in direct contact with the floor or broken glass. She probed it with her finger to check, then pushed it off the spoon and into the pan. Pete questioned her with his eyes. ‘Well?’ Cara shrugged. ‘The recipe needs mustard.’
‘So, what is it?’ Lily asked.
A question about pelvic floors would have been preferable, but an erectile dysfunction medication? Geez! After a vague and fumbled response along the lines of it being aspecial medicine for men, Cara motioned to Pete for support.
‘Where did you hear that word, Lil?’ Pete enquired.
‘Some ad on TV.’ She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear after it came loose from its pigtail. ‘I’m writing a story for English about kings and queens, and I think ‘Lord Viagra’ would be a fitting name for a king.’
The girl’s vocabulary was growing by the minute. It was like she had intellectual Viagra.
‘Ahh...’ Cara cleared her throat. ‘I don’t know if you should call him that. What about, Lord...’ she looked around the room for inspiration, ‘...Mustard. Lord Mustard. How about that?’
Lily shook her head, her pigtails swinging side to side. ‘That’s just silly, Mum.’
‘I actually think Lord Viagraisa fitting name for a king,’ Pete declared, and Cara shot him an ‘are-you-kidding-me?’ glare. ‘Yeah, I’m sure the kingdom would all rise in his honour,’ he added, and Cara spluttered with laughter.
‘See, Mum. I knew it was a good name.’ Lily’s little hand scribbled away on the page of her homework book.
Pete cleared his throat. ‘So, hun, what did the doctor say about Toby?’ He sidled next to Cara as she stirred the contents of the pan.
She told him the doctor’s diagnosis and filled him in on her expensive shopping trip. The gluten free products were at least double the price of their gluten-containing counterparts, some even triple. The ‘health food’ aisle might as well have been called the ‘get-a-second-job-and-re-mortgage-your-house’ aisle.
‘Wow.’ Pete combed his fingers through his short hair. ‘Just like my cousin, and my uncle.’ He walked to the lounge room where Toby sat in his walker watching Barney on the TV screen. ‘How’s my man?’ He kissed the top of Toby’s head, and Toby pointed to the screen, smiling at Barney’s rendition of ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’.
‘It’s okay, we’ll manage,’ Pete said as he came back into the kitchen. ‘We’ll adjust the budget and sort out the cupboards, and make sure Toby can’t reach anything he can’t eat. How about we work out a weekly meal plan too, so we know what ingredients to have ready each day?’
‘Yes, we’ll have to do that,’ Cara replied. ‘Can you pass me the cornflour?’ Pete handed it to her. ‘Oh wait! What does cornflour have in it?’ She wasn’t used to checking labels.
‘It says gluten free, look.’ Pete pointed to the label. ‘I think some cornflour has wheat in it though, so make sure you always buy this brand.’ Although Cara did the majority of the cooking, Pete was quite handy in the kitchen, having had some experience working in his parents’ cafe when he was younger. ‘So, you’re making a white sauce?’ he asked, as Cara poured rice milk into the pan.
‘That’s the plan. I’m making gluten free pasta with tuna, in a dairy-free and soy-free white sauce.’
‘Aren’t you a clever chef!’ Pete said. ‘Want me to grab a lemon for the sauce?’
‘Yes, please.’ She turned to face him. ‘And a steaming hot coffee too, while you’re at it.’ She winked. ‘Or a glass of wine. Or the whole bottle, whatever.’ She smiled and Pete gave her a rub on the back.
Fifteen minutes later, the Collins family sat at the table. Toby, in his high-chair, was even higher up than Cara who could probably benefit from a high-chair of her own. Cara served up bowls of pasta which had just about dissolved into a gluggy mess, topped with a generous amount of white sauce and tuna to hide the glug.
