"Oh." She smiles as her brain short circuits. There is a seventeen-year-old staring back at her. "Hi."
"Hi." Her nephew glances past her, to the hall and the plastic Christmas tree. An awkward, impatient smile. "Is my mum…?"
"Yeah, she's…" They do look alike, now that she's seeing them side by side. "She's gone to the post office I think."
"Oh." Lips that pull over blue braces, pink skin in blotches across his cheeks. An uncomfortable grin that feels oddly nostalgic, more of a grimace really. Brown eyes that dart towards his father's as though they are both in on a joke. "Um…" A loaded stare. "Can I come in?" She furrows her brow at her nephew before the question begins to make sense.
"In- Oh, course, Johnny, sorry, come in." She moves aside, hanging onto the door for support.
"Bye dad."
"Bye, Joe." He waves at his son from the doorstep, wearing a Christmas jumper that seems too tasteful for him to have chosen it himself. She studies his fingers for gold. He digs his hands into his pockets as his son disappears into the kitchen. "Melissa's out?"
"Yeah." He raises his eyebrows and strokes the stubble on his chin. Ringless, thank god. It occurs to her that it should be irrelevant either way.
"Alright." He has aged beautifully, it suits him. "Do you know when she…" He sighs at the doorframe. "Could you get her to give me a call when she gets back?"
"Yeah."
"Thanks, Rach."
"Alright." He seems to relax, trainers disturbing the grit on the doorstep as he turns. She thinks about calling after him. "He's…" He turns back, peers past her into the hallway to check they aren't being overheard. "He's a bit worried about the mocks, I don't want Mel to upset him."
"No."
"I told him that his mum'd understand if he wants to come home early, but I wanted to explain it to Mel in case she…"
"Yeah." She nods, because her little sister can be temperamental about things like that.
"But I want him to give it a chance first."
"Well, I'll keep an eye on…" He smiles back.
"You alright?"
"Yeah. You?"
"Grand." She is still holding onto the doorhandle with unnecessary force. She hadn't expected him to be over her, she'd expected the same respectful desolation of having a soul split in two that has ached inside her for the last seventeen years. "Had a good Christmas?"
"Yeah." She smiles at him. "You?"
"Yeah, it's been lovely."
"Good."
"Alright." The same uneasy grin his son wore. "See you then, Rach." It's like he doesn't realise it's her.
"Eddie?" He glances over his shoulder at her, calm as ever. She has done this before, running after him, telling him he could have whatever he wants just so long as he takes her. "Um…" She wilts, like a dying star, before him, a supernova of unspent devotion. "I've missed you." She didn't mean it like that. It was supposed to be casual, friendly, nothing too heavy, only seventeen years of hollowness.
He stares back at her, lips twitching in what she thinks is the effort to conceal a repulsed grin. Then he nods.
"Alright." She blinks at the bonnet of his car quickly enough to stop her eyes from stinging.
"Okay." It comes out as a rattled whisper.
"Happy new year." She nods, swallows guiltily at the doorstep, listens to his car keys clatter together as he takes them out of his pocket.
"You too." He trudges back to the car, waves at her with the keys in his hand, then drives off.
Her youngest son stands in the kitchen doorway, empty sweet wrapper between his fingers. He is always hungry, no matter how much she feeds him. She worries about what the other parents think when she drops him off at football practice, a skeletal figure with boundless energy, whether they look at the labels when it's their turn to wash the kit.
"Who was that?"
"Johnny's dad." He nods, takes another sweet from the tin.
"Is he here?"
"Yeah." She peers at the kitchen table, at the absence of her nephew. The floorboards creek above her. "I'll go and see if he needs anything."
She finds him with pursed lips, clutching a holdall, and studying the doors to each bedroom.
"Do you know, um, where I'm meant to be sleeping?"
"Oh." Her little sister hadn't mentioned that her nephew would be visiting. "I think if we move the boys into our room, you could have the little one?" The brown eyes stare at her.
"Is that alright for them?"
"Yeah." She grins at him. "They can sleep anywhere; you know what they're like." He doesn't seem to find it funny.
"Okay."
"It's that one." She points at the door behind him. Her nephew flattens himself against the banister. "Did you have a nice Christmas?" It is painfully obvious that they hadn't anticipated his arrival from the mess that litters the box room.
"Yeah." She can feel him watching her throw an assortment of sports shirts into a suitcase.
"Do you know where your mum keeps the bedding?"
"Where what?" She turns back.
"Do you know where she keeps the bedding - sheets, and pillowcases?"
"Oh. No, I…" The pinkness resurfaces in his cheeks. "I haven't been here before."
"Oh." She tries to mask the shock with an odd-looking smile. "Yeah, because your mum only moved here last year?"
"Year before."
"Year before, yeah." She strips the bed, dumps the pillowcases into the pile of her sons' possessions. "Yeah, because we saw you…" She racks her brain for the last time their plans aligned.
"I think it was half-term, you had a work thing, we went to that cafe by the water."
"Oh, yeah." She nods vigorously. "You're right." Over a year ago. She had meant to make arrangements.
"How was your Christmas?"
"Good, yeah."
"Were you here?"
"No, we went to Adam's parents, so- And his sister was there with her family too, so…"
"Nice."
"What about you? Were you at your dad's or-?"
"No, we went to my aunt's." She doesn't realise she has frowned at him until it is too late. "My stepmum's sister."
"Oh." It feels like being punched, her fists ball at the duvet cover, she thinks she might faint. The idea of Eddie in the kitchen with another woman, that he makes her coffee in the morning and tea at night, the conversations they have about menial things like bread and milk, that he tells her he loves her, and that he means it.
"Quite a lot of us."
"Mm." She glides past with an armful of bedding then dumps it on the floor of the spare bedroom.
"Oh." A duvet without a cover lays folded at the end of the bed. He stops pulling at the pillowcase. "You okay?" A nod that oozes humiliation.
"Um, I don't really feel that well, so I'm…"
"Right."
"Yeah." The pillow comes free from its case.
"Have you called your dad?"
"Yeah."
"He on his way?" She can tell from the hesitation that he isn't.
"Um, he's- I think he's got to just do something first and then he can um…"
"I can give you a lift?"
"Oh." He shakes his head. "It's fine, he might be on his way already and then it'll be…"
"Johnny, it's alright, he said you might need a lift home."
"Oh." He nods at the carpet, then smiles at her guiltily, a smile that reminds her of her little sister, and him.
"I'll sort the sheets out when I get back, love, alright?"
She follows him, car keys in hand, up to the front door of the house. The guttering is adorned with fairy lights, hung with an exact precision so that they drop in uniform parabolae. He always had noticed things like that.
She waits a few metres away as her nephew presses the doorbell, lingering on the driveway as though she is only waiting to see that he gets home safe.
"Johnathan." She knows that tone, she has overheard it hundreds of times in school playgrounds, in the corridors and the classrooms, and once or twice in the glow of the living room in his old flat with a small boy who had refused to go to bed. "What did we agree to?"
"Eddie, I brought him back." She steps forward, into the light that streams from his hallway. The Christmas tree is there, adorned with trinkets from holidays she hasn't heard about.
"Ah." The stern facade falls away. He grins, pats his son on the back as he passes.
He watches her, the glint of her earring as she turns back toward the car, the hesitance in each movement. "Rach?" She looks up at him instantaneously. "Thanks for dropping him off."
"Oh." She sounds surprised, deflated, as though she had been expecting more. "You're... Happy New Year." A quick smile flashed in the vague direction of the doorway, the clatter of her heels on the tarmac as she hurries away.
"Rachel." He has called after her like this before, they both know it. She turns back, again, just like before.
"You alright Joe?" A woman emerges from the living room, small frame, about her height, auburn hair that neatly frames her jawline.
He is staring back when she finds the courage to look up, the same heat colouring his cheeks that she can feel scalding hers. And they both know. They both know.