Chapter Text
August 2003
She forgot to set her alarm.
That’s the first thing she notices, cursing internally and suppressing the wave of panic that accompanies this realization. She didn’t set her alarm, and her children picked today of all days to be merciful enough to let her sleep instead of waking her up with the sun, and now she’s waking up forty minutes later than she planned. Instead of an alarm clock, Jane awakens to Olly wailing at the top of his lungs.
It seemed like such a good idea at the time, letting Olly sleep in Mummy and Daddy’s room when he’s little, giving them extra time before they need to turn the home office into a nursery. It meant that Jane wouldn't stress about whether they'd hear what they needed to hear on the baby monitor, or whether the monitor would run out of battery. Days like this are when Jane wishes they’d just binned the damn home office. Those are better than the days when she wishes Julio had just picked up some fresh condoms instead of using the expired ones that were almost as old as Charlie is.
Speaking of whom:
“Mum,” her middle child calls from the other side of the door, “we’re out of milk.”
“Charlie, sweetheart, Mummy’s busy with Olly, so you’ll have to wait a minute,” she replies with as much cheer as she can muster. It’s not much.
He barges in, still dressed in his Harry Potter pyjamas.. "But it's seven o'clock," Charlie objects, "I always have breakfast at seven!"
"Charlie, Mummy needs to change Olly and she'll be right out. You'll just have to be patient."
"But -"
"Charlie, I'm not going to say it again. Get dressed and Mummy will make you breakfast when she's done with Olly."
Whatever cheer she may have mustered up is gone when she approaches her 4-month-old baby’s cot and sees what’s making him imitate a fire engine. Not only has he soiled his nappy, but he’s managed to wiggle in such a way that his nappy is halfway off and there’s a streak of poo going all the way up his back.
Three children have somewhat desensitised Jane to the messes, scatalogical or otherwise, that children make. What parent hasn’t caught vomit in cupped hands because it’s easier to wash your hands than clean sick out of a carpet? Even someone as mess-averse as Jane, who was beside herself that one time Tori went to a classmate’s birthday party and came home covered in cat hair, has gotten used to the fact that children are pint-sized agents of chaos hellbent on destroying order and cleanliness. Somehow, however, after only three months on this Earth Olly seems determined to outdo both his siblings in the mess department.
Jane is still wiping Olly’s back (mercifully he didn’t get any in his shock of black hair) when she hears the knock knock-knock knock knock that means Charlie has decided to go downstairs. He always insists on rapping the door trims with his knuckles every time he runs through the hallway, and it has to be exactly in time, too. Julio, claiming that Charlie has a natural sense of rhythm, suggested getting him a drum set for his birthday. Then 8 months pregnant, Jane said over her dead body.
Her husband, as it so happens, is currently in Spain. His mother broke her hip this weekend, and he’s taken a week off of work to visit her. He offered to stay, what with there being two children under ten and a baby in the house, but Jane has always had a soft spot for her in-laws, who she likes much more than her own family, so she insisted that he go and send her love. She could manage on her own for a few days, she assured him.
Mum always says she tends to overestimate her abilities.
With Olly settled and dressed in a Thomas the Tank Engine onesie, she scoops up the newborn and braces herself for an exhausting morning. Done wailing, he gurgles happily and pops a bubble of drool. As she carries him through the hallway she’s already mentally in the kitchen preparing his formula and heating it up in the microwave. She makes a mental note to check his nappy bag to make sure it's fully stocked. It helps to think a few steps ahead.
The moment she gets down the stairs Charlie appears out of nowhere.
“Mum,” he says again, “we're out of milk,”
She bites back an irritable reply. “Sorry, dear, you’ll have to have something else for breakfast then.”
“But it’s Friday,” Charlie whines, “I always have frosties on Friday.”
Before Jane can snap at him,Tori appears right beside Charlie. Jane hates it when her daughter just appears out of nowhere, and so seemingly because of this she does it as often as possible.
“Why don’t you have your frosties without any milk,” she suggests. Somehow her nine-year-old understands her brother better than Jane does, and often ends up being the one who can talk terms Charlie will accept. Jane hates feeling like she’s parentifying her daughter - her parents did it with her to her sister Wendy when they were kids. But sometimes it’s a stressful morning where they need to be out the door very soon and Tori’s better with Charlie than she is.
“But you have to put the milk in first ,” Charlie objects, “how can you put the milk in first if there’s no milk?”
Jane wonders not for the first time why she didn’t get her tubes tied.
“You’re going to have to use your imagination, sweetheart,” she says, pushing her way past the 8 and 9-year-olds to set Olly down in his rocker in the lounge.
“But it’s not the same,” Charlie says. He looks up at her with shimmering saucer eyes and a wobbling chin. "I'm having breakfast late and there's no milk!"
“Charlie, it is 7:15. You are not having breakfast late. We do have a schedule to keep and we need to be out the door in an hour to get Olly to Dr. McMillain’s office. We don’t have time to go to the store so you’re going to have to either eat your frosties dry or have something else for breakfast. Which would you rather do?”
Apparently it comes out harsher than she intended, because Charlie looks up at her with that morose kicked puppy look that he gets and Tori scowls in that prematurely adolescent way she’s started doing in the past couple of months. A voice that sounds an awful lot like her Mum says you're too harsh on them. Of course that same voice also says you don't discipline them enough, so it's hard to tell which Brain Mum is right.
"Sorry," Charlie says, hanging his head.
Charlie and Tori file into the kitchen, their mother following behind them.
There’s an ominous knocking noise coming from the walls. It’s been going on for the past couple of days. Jane thinks that it’s the pipes, but hasn’t yet broken down and called a plumber to look at it.
She busies herself putting frozen pancakes in the microwave for Tori, and slips Olly’s bottle in as well, just to save a bit on time. She grabs the box of frosties from atop the refrigerator and pulls out a bowl for Charlie. She moves to pour it into the bowl -
“Wait!” Charlie says, “You have to put the milk in first!”
Jane breathes in and out and mimes pouring an imaginary jug of milk over the bowl.
“Is that better?” she says, managing to soften her voice just a bit. Charlie nods silently, and Jane pours the cereal. The microwave beeps, and Jane turns, only to find that Olly’s bottle is gone. She wheels around and sees Tori carrying it down the hallway to the lounge.
“Tori, wait!” she calls after her. Her daughter ignores her, and Jane strides down the hall. “Give me that,” she says, snatching the bottle from her daughter’s hands. Tori stares up at her affronted. She forces herself to be gentle.
“You have to test it first to see if it’s too hot,” she explains, and lets a couple drops call against the back of her hand. As she suspected, fresh out of the microwave it’s too hot. Olly would have been screaming yet again, and he’d be miserable the whole day with his mouth burned.
She ushers her daughter back into the kitchen and finishes preparing her breakfast. She pours them both a cup of orange juice. Tori tucks into her breakfast like normal, while Charlie is only picking at his.
“Charlie you need to eat,” she tells him, “we need to be out the door in half an hour.”
His sullen reply is drowned out by renewed wailing from the lounge. Olly’s decided to be fussy again. She strides back into the lounge and offers him his bottle, which has since cooled off. He refuses to suckle it. Perfect.
However, he also refuses his dummy, and she’s pretty sure that he’s hungry. Glancing at the clock on the VCR, she makes a quick decision, unbuttons her blouse, unclips her bra, and picks Olly up, positioning herself in the doorway so that she can see into the kitchen if the kids need her. Olly latches on and begins to suckle. The anxious part of her brain that won’t shut up weaves tales of all of the things that could make them late as a result; she made his bottle specifically because she didn’t think there’d be time for him to breastfeed. They’ll be running a bit behind, but she always leaves twenty minutes or so of wiggle room in the schedule for situations just like this. Silently Jane curses Olly’s paediatrician for scheduling an appointment this early in the day.
“Mum,” Tori calls, “I spilt my juice.”
Goddammit, Jane thinks. She pokes her head out into the hallway and sees that most of the orange juice has spilt onto the linoleum.
“Mummy’s busy right now,” she calls back, “You’re going to have to clean it up yourself.”
“I can’t reach the paper towels,” Tori objects.
“Use your chair, sweetheart,” Jane replies. She flinches as she hears the sound of a chair being scraped along the floor. She knows the linoleum is probably scratched. How hard is it to pick up the damn chair?
She shifts Olly from one breast to the other. Tori is using what looks like half the roll of paper towels, and Charlie is staring at his cereal like it insulted his family.
“Charlie, I want to see you eating,” she calls over. Her son sighs and picks up the spoon. She’s asked in the past why he insists on eating dry cereal with a spoon. He looked at her as if she’d asked what colour the sky is and replied “because you eat cereal with a spoon.”
Finally it seems that Olly is sated for now. She puts him back in the rocker and puts her bra back on, then strides back into the kitchen while she buttons her blouse back up.
Tori’s managed to clean about 70 or 80% of the spit orange juice by herself, and only used a third of the roll to do it. Jane finishes the rest of the cleanup and then puts Tori’s plate in the sink.
"Tori, why are the paper towels in the drain?" she asks exasperatedly. She cringes a bit fishing the mulched paper towels out of the drain and carrying them over to the bin.
"They take up less space when they're mush," Tori says simply.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1, she thinks. Then she answers. "Victoria, paper towels go in the bin, not in the drain. You'll clog up the pipes putting them in the drain." She turns to her other child.
“Charlie, I need you to finish up,” she says, “we need to be out the door in ten minutes.”
“But I’m not finished,” Charlie objects, and lo and behold the bowl is still about half full. "I don't like frosties without milk."
“Charlie, you're stuck on the milk. I need you to get unstuck. Now hurry up,” she says testily. “Tori, get your shoes on.”
The banging noise from the wall is back. She’s pretty sure there’s a pipe back there. It’s summer, though. Pipes don’t burst in the summer. She doesn’t think. She hopes not.
“Mum, I can’t find my shoes,” Tori calls from the entryway. Jane prays to a God she only believes in 30% of the time to give her strength and peruses the scattered shoes in the basket by the front door. None of them are Tori’s. With patience that is declining by the minute she goes upstairs and sees a pair of trainers in the middle of the floor of Tori’s room.
“Here,” she says, handing them to her daughter, “get them on. Quickly.”
“Mum,” Charlie calls, “I had a spill.”
Jesus Mary and St. Joseph, she thinks to herself, this is why some animals eat their young.
In her son’s case, the juice is more of a fashion statement than a mess on the floor. Orange juice drips down his front, all the way from the collar of his shirt down a trouser leg.
“Get changed,” she snapped, “we have to go.” He darts upstairs to his room. She cleans up what remains on the floor, tosses half a bowl of dry cereal, returns to the lounge, buckles Olly into his car seat, and sees that Tori is now waiting on the couch.
“Charlie hurry up, we’re running late,” she calls.
She hears the sound of footsteps, and a knock-knock knock knock knock. Then, to her incredulity, more footsteps in the wrong direction, and a knock, knock-knock knock knock. Then finally Charlie takes the stairs two at a time. He's managed to throw on dungarees and a t shirt with a dinosaur on it that really don't match but Jane's past the point of caring.
Jane slings the nappy bag over her shoulder, picks Olly up, and the four of them walk outside. Jane opens the back door to buckle Olly’s car seat in while her older children buckle themselves in. Then she gets in the front seat, buckles herself in, and turns the key in the ignition.
There’s a whining noise, but no ignition. She tries again.
Still whining, no engine. She tries a third time.
Nothing.
A fourth and a fifth attempt yield similar results. The car remains determinedly inert. In her frustration she utters something which she usually dares never to say around the kids.
“Fuck.”