Absence makes the heart grow fonder

1. Fighting

For the first time in her married life Molly couldn't understand her husband. Arthur had come home from work very late. She had been worried sick.

At first everything had seemed as always. Molly stood in front of the stove and cooked their dinner. The three year old twins were playing in the living room next door with nine year old Charlie looking after them. Baby Ron slept in his crib, oblivious to the din his twin brothers created. Percy was laying on the floor with coloured pencils scattered around him and a sheet of parchment in front of him. Currently he was using the blue pencil to draw the eyes of his sleeping baby brother onto his picture. Molly chanced a peek at the whole picture and smiled. Percy had drawn the whole clan with Mummy and Daddy holding hands and all the children around them.

After cooking dinner to perfection she had laid out the table and called her sons to gather around the sink and wash their hands. Obediently all of them had scrambled to their feet and toddled over. Ron had squawked over from his crib at the sound of his mother's voice and opened his eyes sleepily. Molly smiled instantly as she always did in response to her children. She went over to the crib and smiled down on her son.

Suddenly she smelled something burning and whirled around with a screech, startling Ronnie who immediately began to cry.

Her chicken was smoldering in the oven a little. A forgotten feather had caught fire and had caused the smell of burning. But for a moment she had seen the house aflame. Putting a hand over her wildly beating heart, she tried to calm herself down enough to attend to Ronnie.

She had been so happy that he had finally slept. Ron had a bad diaper rush, which made him cross and irritable, needing to be picked up every few minutes. He nursed and fussed alternately, pausing to spit up at intervals, making clammy wet patches on whatever Molly wore that day. She had had to change not only the baby but herself constantly.

To top off the chaos already reigning supreme, Charlie had dragged in a cat, half-starved, scratchy and floo-ridden. He had not told her and proceeded to bath the animal. Naturally he had ended up with nasty scratches on arms and chest, falling into the tub head first while the cat made a quick escape never to be seen again. Good riddance to her.

Percy had been quiet as always and the twins had created havoc as always.

Now Ron cried his heart out because she had screeched and she felt sorry.

"Oh, baby! Oh, I'm so sorry. It's ok. Yes, Mummy loves you", she cooed over the youngest of her sons and stroked his cheek.

"Us?" asked Fred, pouting at his mother willfully. George glared at the crib with all the loathing a three year old could muster. That brat was taking Mummy away from him and Fred!

Molly sighed and took the still screaming baby out, bending down then and smiling tiredly at the twins.

"Don't start again, Fred. You know I love you very much, even with Ron around", she said lovingly.

Suddenly Ron burped loudly and spit a load full over Molly's front. Startled and not expecting anything, she lost her balance and fell hard on her bum.

"Oh, darling, not again", she whispered exhaustedly.

Ron fussed again and Molly instantly felt guilty. Just then the door opened.

It was Arthur, laden with packages and late. Much too late. One-handed Molly heaved herself off the floor and then took most of the packages from her husband and parked them on the counter.

"Dinner all ready? I've brought a new tablecloth and napkins – thought ours were a little shabby fro my colleagues. And the wine, of course."

He rambled on but Molly starred at him. Horror filled her eyes slowly and then changed rapidly to anger.

"Colleagues?"

"Yes, they are coming over for dinner. I told you so …"

"No, you didn't!" she growled dangerously.

Arthur lifted the bottle of wine in his hand, smiling, then leaned forward to peer at Molly, and stopped smiling. He looked disapprovingly from her disheveled hair to her blouse, freshly stained with spit-up milk.

"Christ, Molly", he said. "Couldn't you fix yourself up a bit? I mean, it's not as though you have anything else to do, at home all day – couldn't you take a few minutes for a …"

"No", Molly said, quite loudly. She pushed Ron, who was wailing again with fretful exhaustion, into his arms.

"No", she said again, and took the wine bottle from his unresisting hand.

"NO!" she shrieked, stamping her foot.

She swung the bottle widely, and he dodged, but it was the doorjamb she struck, and purplish splatters of Beaujolais flew across the stoop, leaving glass shards glittering in the light.

"I raise YOUR children alone and you DARE to say it's NO WORK!"

"Yes, I work my butt off to keep you in clothes. Couldn't you have taken better care with NOT conceiving?!?"

Molly flung the shattered bottle into the sink and ran cloakless down the walk and into the freezing fog of early November. At the foot of the walk, she passed a startled Miss Hinchcliff.