Page 26

Clara is quiet for a moment, and I can picture her sitting at her desk with her reading glasses pushed up into her dark hair, one hand resting on the mouse as she considers her next words. “There’s something else,” she says finally. “I’d like you to begin quietly noting patterns around Daniel’s family involvement. Not to manufacture anything, just to document reality accurately. Sometimes grandparents appeal for grandparent rights. And as unlikely as it is, anything that establishes a clear picture of their roles in the children’s lives would be helpful.”

The request surprises me. Not because it’s unreasonable, it makes sense really. Turning their relationship with their grandparents into evidence, their daily routine into ammunition just feels strange and wrong.

“I understand,” I say, my voice coming out smaller than I intended.

“Elsie,” Clara says, and there’s something in her voice, a particular quality of understanding that makes my throat tight. “This isn’t leverage, Elsie. It’s about establishing a pattern of care. The court needs an accurate picture of what stability currently looks like for your children, and who provides it.”

I nod, even though she can’t see it. “I know,” I say. “I’ll start tonight.”

We finish the call with the usual practicalities and then she’s gone, the line going quiet with a soft click. I sit in the dark car park with the phone in my lap.

Behind me, Milo makes a small sound and then settles back into the rhythm of almost-sleep. Maisie is already gone, her breathing slow and even, one tiny hand curled around the octopus toy.

I open a new note on my phone, lock it with a separate passcode, and type the date. Then I sit there with my thumb hovering over the keyboard, suddenly unsure what to write. How do you document the interaction of your in-laws? What’s the appropriate format for recording the relationship babies have with them?

The moment feels surreal, me watching myself do this with the detached clarity of someone observing a stranger log details, preparing for a trial nobody else knows is happening yet. There should be a form for this, I think. A specific template for “Things I Noticed About My In-Laws Today.” A drop-down menu of betrayal options. A checkbox for “I am now the person who takes notes on my husband’s family interactions with our children.”

In the end, I keep it simple: “Grandparents last saw the twins two weeks ago at my cafe.”

It’s not much, barely a sentence, hardly worth documenting, but it’s a start. Evidence that I’m doing what Clara asked. Evidence that I’m moving forward, one small, painful step at a time.

I put the phone in my bag, start the car, and pull out of the car park. The streets are quiet at this hour, just the occasional passing car and the soft hum of the engine beneath us. In the back seat, the twins have fully given in to sleep, their faces slack with exhaustion, their chests rising and falling in perfect unison.

We’re home in twenty minutes, the driveway, the front door, the careful process of unloading sleeping babies without waking them. Daniel meets us at the door, takes Milo without being asked, and carries him upstairs. I follow with Maisie, her warm weight against my chest, her tiny hand curled around my finger with trust.

The rest of the evening unfolds in its usual routine of dinner, baths, and Maisie’s forty-minute protest against sleep. By the time we finally make it to bed, I’m on autopilot. Daniel is already under the covers, his eyes half-closed, a man at the end of a normal day in a normal life.

I brush my teeth, wash my face, change into the pyjamas. I check the baby monitor, both twins asleep, Milo on his back with one arm flung dramatically above his head, Maisie curled on her side with her blanket clutched in one tiny fist and set it on the nightstand beside my phone. I slide under the covers, careful to maintain the distance we’ve established and stare at the ceiling while Daniel’s breathing slows beside me.

Daniel’s side of the bed dips slightly as he rolls toward me, his movement casual in a way that makes my chest ache.

“I love you,” he says, the words delivered with the easy confidence of someone stating an obvious fact.

“I love you too,” I answer, the response so ingrained I don’t have to think about it.

Three simple words that used to contain an entire universe and now mean absolutely nothing at all.

Beside me, Daniel’s breathing slows and evens within minutes. I lie on my back in the dark, one hand resting on my phone beneath the blanket where Clara’s notes are still open on the screen, and stare at the ceiling while the baby monitor hums its soft mechanical nothing on the nightstand.

Tomorrow, I will add another line to the document. I will kiss him goodbye with the warmth I’ve perfected and feel that strange level of relief as he drives away.

But for now, in the dark, I try to convince myself that I am on the right path. That staying here in this painful moment will be worth it in the end.

Nine

Noah

The cursor blinks at me, patient and judgmental. I’ve been staring at the same line for nearly fifteen minutes, a dense paragraph of Italian legal text that refuses to make sense in English no matter how many times I rearrange the words. My coffee sits cold and forgotten at the edge of the table, a sad puddle of the morning I’d been optimistic about three hours ago.

Outside Page & Grounds’ wide front windows, the rain falls in sheets, turning the high street into a grey smudge of hurried umbrellas and hunched shoulders. I should be at home, where the heating works properly and my desk chair doesn’t creak every time I change position. But here I am, laptop open, manuscript half-translated, and absolutely nowhere with the tax implications of international property transfers.

Behind the counter, Elsie laughs at something Luca says, and my eyes lift from the screen before I can stop them.

There it is again: that sound. The one that’s been catching me off-guard for weeks now. It’s not that she doesn’t laugh; it’s that lately, the laughs have been careful things. But this one, this one escapes fully formed, a bright, startled thing that changes her entire face. For a second, she’s not the tired woman with circles under her eyes who moves through the café with efficiency. She’s just herself, whoever that is when she’s not watching every word she says.

I look back at my screen, annoyed with myself. I shouldn’t be noticing this. I shouldn’t be keeping track of when she laughs or when she doesn’t, when she rubs two fingers across her forehead because the twins kept her up all night, when she apologizes too quickly for a wrong order, when she goes still for just a second after checking her phone, like whatever she’s reading requires a moment to process. I definitely shouldn’t be timing my mornings around whether her car is in the car park, which I did this morning despite having promised myself I’d work from home.

I’m thirty-four years old. You’d think by now I’d have developed the ability to stop emotionally attaching myself to women who wear wedding rings.