Page 14 of Be More Capybara

‘Gravy, Nigel?’

Klaus’s voice brought him back to reality. He took the gravy boat.

‘Sorry, I was miles away.’ Or years away, to be more accurate.

Nigel waited until Klaus had gone upstairs for a nap, presumably exhausted after the chaos of Julia and her family packing up and leaving. Mark and Lucy had gone for a walk, so now he had his mother all to himself as he helped her clear the lunch things away.

‘This trip to New York, Mother dearest.’

‘Hmmm.’ She was concentrating on scrubbing a particularly tough stain on a saucepan.

‘Are you joining Tamsin and family?’

‘Yes, of course. Watching a total eclipse is one of the few experiences left on my bucket list. Klaus and Julia will be coming too.’

Nigel took a fresh tea towel from the drawer to finish drying the final few serving dishes.

‘And were you planning to mention that you were going to be in the same state as me?’

‘I was going to tell you on our weekly phone call next week.’

Easy to say that now. She glanced at him, checking his reaction, he assumed.

‘It’s true,’ she said. ‘I was intending to invite you, Madison and the girls. I thought the prospect of watching a total eclipse might be enticing enough for Madison to say yes.’

Nigel wasn’t sure about that, but he understood why she wanted to try. He felt guilty that it had been at least six years since she’d seen Sloane and Avery in person, and she’d only managed that thanks to a last-minute trip to New York to see a friend. Perhaps it hadn’t been last-minute at all.

‘Where are you staying?’ he asked.

‘I’ve booked us a large house on the shores of Seneca Lake. We should get at least two minutes of totality there. Plenty of room for us all. No need to step on one another’s toes.’

‘But you must’ve booked that at least a year ago.’

‘Nearly two years, actually.’

‘Before Julia found you again?’

‘Lucy and Mark were originally going to join us, but Lucy understandably doesn’t want to travel now she’s going to be heavily pregnant, which has turned out to be quite handy, considering I’ve got four new family members to accommodate.’

‘So why didn’t you mention it before?’

‘And give Madison time to book something even more special to keep you and the girls away from us?’

She was right. Madison had form for doing exactly that. His 40th birthday party, for instance. Nancy had invited them all to Devon to celebrate and offered the use of her London flat so they had time on their own as a family, but Madison had whisked him off to the Bahamas instead. She was an expert at keeping his family at arm’s length. It hadn’t bothered him too much at the time, but now he was seriously regretting not taking his mother’s feelings into consideration.

She passed him the saucepan for him to dry. ‘I’d love you to join us, and the girls, too. Even Madison is welcome if you’re back together by then.’

‘The way things are going, that’s highly unlikely.’

She didn’t look too disappointed. ‘So what do you think?’

He’d never told her about the botched kiss with Helen, so she had no idea how he felt about eclipses. ‘So much has happened over the last few days. I can’t think straight. Can I come back to you about it?’

‘Take as long as you like, darling.’ She dried her hands. ‘We’re done.’

He took a sharp intake of breath. Exactly the words Madison had used as she walked out of the house on Christmas Eve. ‘Yeah, we are,’ he said.

His mother gave his arm an affectionate squeeze as she walked past him towards the kitchen door.