When I Ran Away by Ilona Bannister (best books to read now .TXT) 📗

a nice half-term?” I say after scanning my brain for what to ask her. Half-term was three weeks ago, no longer current for small talk, but it’s all I got. I’m conscious that Johnny’s clinging to my leg and hiding behind me instead of running around with his friends. Susannah cocks her head to one side. “Oh yes, lovely. Have I not seen you since then? Really, really lovely. We went to Morzine. It was fantastic. Amazing snow. And the après-ski, well, turns out there were lots of families we knew who happened to be there too. So perhaps a few too many boozy late afternoons, but that’s alright, isn’t it? We brought our au pair with us, which is really very cheeky, I know, but so worth it because I just let her deal with the tired little darlings and I had an actual break. It was heavenly.”

She looks at me for a response but I have no idea what she expects me to say. She thinks I know what she’s talking about. I deduce that Morzine is a ski place, I don’t know where and I don’t know what après-ski is but it must be something to do with alcohol because it always is. I’ve never had an au pair. All I can think is it must cost a lot of money to take a family of five plus an extra random girl skiing for a week. But that’s not the right thing to say. So, instead I manage:

“Wow. Sounds real nice.” I should say something like, Yes, I heard the snow’s been fantastic this year, aren’t you lucky, or, Such a good idea, taking your au pair, but I don’t think of those things because they’re not part of my lexicon.

Susannah continues, “And what about you? It’s just that time when you’re at home all the time, isn’t it? When there’s no difference between day and night? You poor thing. Is he letting you sleep at all?”

“Um, yeah, he’s only twelve weeks, so you know…” You know, Susannah, don’t you? When it’s so bad that you break a window first thing in the morning?

“Well, you must come to Mums’ Drinks this Thursday, will you?”

“Mums’ Drinks?” I say things like that, Mums’ Drinks. It helps move things along if I mirror what people say.

“Yes, did you see the WhatsApp?” Oh God, Susannah, friggin’ WhatsApp. I ignore it. The only reason I haven’t deleted the class one is because it would leave that message for everyone, Gigi Harrison has left the group. And even I can’t do that. I say, “Oh, you know, I probably did but, baby brain. When is it?”

“Thursday evening, please come, everyone would love to see you and you deserve a night out, doesn’t she, Johnny?” She bends down to address Johnny and rumples his hair. She’s a gifted PTA rep who remembers all the kids’ names. “Lovely to see you, I must be getting off, see you Thursday, I hope!” and Susannah floats off to join another group of moms. Mums. Well, I got through that. I must look normal.

Johnny’s still clinging to me. I run my hand through his hair. What is it like for him, knowing what he knows and then watching me pretend in public? I take a deep breath and dig down to channel the kindness and understanding that’s been in short supply lately. I owe it to him to try and love him more this morning.

“What’s up, kiddo?” I say, bending down to be eye to eye.

“There’s Jasper,” he says in a quiet voice.

“What?” I ask.

“Over there, that boy.” Jasper. That explains a lot already.

“He’s the one who wouldn’t let me play football yesterday at break.” He points to one blond kid out of the hundred running around. A hundred blonds, two Black kids and an Indian girl. I’m looking for a white needle in an Anglo-Saxon haystack, but I’ve clocked him and now I know the one. The one I saw put his foot out and trip Johnny on purpose once when he ran to me at pickup, Johnny splayed out flat on the ground in shock, sobbing. The one who took his candy last week on the field trip and Johnny was too afraid to tell the teacher. The one who made fun of the chubby kid on sports day. I feel a flare of the morning’s earlier rage. It’s surprising, the anger that other people’s children can rile up in you. Few parents would ever admit it, but if you’ve ever felt it, if you’ve ever met a little shit like Jasper, then you know what I mean.

I get down on my knees, pull Johnny’s forehead to mine. “You listen to me, the next time that kid says anything mean to you, you tell him to shut up, that he’s not cool and call him a baby. Tell the other kids to call him a baby too. Because he doesn’t decide what you do, you decide, you got me? If he ever hits you, you hit him back, twice as hard. And let everybody see you do it.”

“But that’s not kind, Jeej.”

“No, it’s not, it’s fighting back. And I’m telling you that it’s always OK with me if you fight back. You don’t start the fight but you fight back.” I hug him as tight as I can and keep my eyes locked on the back of Jasper’s blond head until he turns around. When he looks back at me with his entitled freckles I mouth the words “I’m watching you,” and he turns away, pretending not to see.

9:30 a.m.

On the walk home from drop-off I stop for a coffee. An Americano. We lived here for a while before I figured out that that was the closest I could get to a coffee from home. They don’t do filter coffee here. No glass coffeepots sitting on hot plates. I walk up to the counter. “Hi, how can I help you?” American. No, maybe Canadian, he’s so