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“Into jail again, Mama!” Arthur cheers.
“How is it fair that I get punished for being great at this game?” Tess complains as she moves the tiny metal top hat onto the jail square.
For the third time this game she finds herself imprisoned.
The first because the Chance Card had told her to head there, the other two because, as it states in the rules, she had got doubles three times.
A dumb rule.
“Wanna share that dice luck with me?” Vicki wraps her arm around Tess’s waist and kisses her cheek.
She had been having less luck when it came to her rolls, the most she had got all game being 5.
It’s the last day of the May half term and they’re sitting on the floor of the living room, crowded round a Monopoly board. The plush rug that centres the room beneath them, woven pile between their toes. The soft glow of the setting sun, along with the couple of standing lamps they have on, leaving them in homely and warming light.
It’s the last day before Lily and Arthur go back for the final term of the school year, so they decided to have one final bit of family time. A little distraction and time away from studying for Lily who’s in the middle of sitting her GCSE’s and will be going straight back to constant revision and exam taking.
Game night had become a tradition, something they try to do every weekend if they can. Just have a couple of hours of family time. It had become so much of a thing that they even have a cupboard in the living room completely dedicated to games, if you’ve heard of it, they’ve got it. From the more traditional to the obscure.
Lily had chosen Monopoly.
It being her last day of freedom for the next couple of weeks she wanted some fun, and that’s what Monopoly is for this family. For some it turns into an argument, someone storms off because they’ve landed on someone’s hotel for the third time and are now bankrupt, the banker getting accused of cheating because “how have you got more money than all of us?” But for them, for the Owen family, it’s fun.
Tess is dramatic about it all, but it just makes everyone else laugh, and she's more than okay with that. Vicki is awful at it, she can never get more than 3 properties and they’re never a set, she usually ends up bankrupt. Although there was that time last year where she won twice in a row, just completely swept the board out of nowhere. Lily and Arthur only care about beating each other, it’s a friendly sibling rivalry, a competitiveness that they probably get from both their parents as, if they weren’t playing against their kids, Tess and Vicki most definitely would care about winning more.
Just like that time they played against Vicki’s parents Christmas just gone, they ended up teaming up just so they could take down her dad.
The game was also serving as a distraction for Tess as, once the exams were over for Lily and the few weeks Arthur then still had left had gone by, they’d be finishing the last of the packing to move.
She was going home.
Well, home in the sense of the country she was born in, not actual home. Actual home was here, in England, had been for almost 20 years now.
But then if she got more specific, home was right next to her.
Vicki.
Her wife had become someone so important. Of course, Tess felt the same about her kids, she would move the earth for them, confront anyone who has hurt them. But Vicki had been there, she had help her through the mess she had become, through the unhealthy coping mechanism that she had put in place after running away.
Vicki hadn’t questioned her, hadn’t insisted she was told why Tess was doing this to herself, just held her hair, wiped her mouth, put a flannel to her forehead while she fought through the cold sweats and shakes. It was a downward spiral Tess found herself in repeatedly over her first few years in England, drinking and taking anything she could get her hands on.
Tess knew she should tell Vicki why she had been like that, there had been times where she had woken from a nightmare, a flashback of that night, and almost cracked. Nightmares that over the years had slowly reduced down to nothing, having fought and fought to bury it all down so deep.
There had been a few nights, nights when Vicki had thought Tess had fallen back to sleep where she heard her wife’s concerns, a whisper of “What happened that is so bad that you can’t tell me?”
Concerns she wishes she had the guts to answer.
But it’s why it has taken 20 years to finally go back to Australia. Years of pleading from Lily and Arthur about going, she’d finally given in. Although it was in the form of a job offer, one she couldn’t turn down.
It felt like fate really.
For the last almost decade of those 20 years she had been in the best place she had ever been in, both mentally and physically. She had spoken to Vicki just over a year ago about maybe taking the kids over there for a holiday once Lily had finished her exams. A break they all deserved.
A small holiday so the kids could spend time with their grandmother and see where their mum grew up.
Three months after that she was presented with an offer.
A transfer to a position in their Sydney branch, a year at first, but the possibility of it becoming a permeant position. It was higher up than she was now, more money, more stability. She would’ve been an idiot to turn in down really.
She and Vicki had talked it through, took them a few weeks before they presented the opportunity to the kids, told them that if they don’t want to leave England then that’s fine, everything will stay as is. That it will just be a holiday instead.
But they wanted to go. Arthur had said yes almost instantly, Lily wanted to think on it, the next day she came back with her answer.
She’d felt stuck. Her exams, she thinks, were going well but she had no idea what she wanted to do after that. College was the obvious option, but then apprenticeships were also there. She didn’t know and the pressure of that was stressing her out more than the exams themselves. “It will give me time to work out what I want to do.” That was Lily’s answer. Give her time to work out where she wants to go next.
And so here they were, mid Monopoly game. The last time they’ll play the game in their comfortably sized house in the busy capital city.
Vicki leans her head on Tess’s shoulder, her arm still wrapped around her waist.
Lily takes her turn to roll the dice.
“Shit.” She huffs. Her roll was going to cause her to land right on where her brother had just put down a hotel on each property of his complete set.
“Lil.” Tess lightly warns.
“Sorry.” She moves the tiny metal shoe onto Bond Street, sighing as she starts to count out the money before Arthur has a chance to tell the cost.
“That will 1,400, please.”
“Damn, Art, you’ve almost taken all I have.”
“At least you’re doing better than Mum. It’ll be this time next year by the time she get round to that side of the board.” Tess quips.
“Y’know, you’re lucky I married you for your looks and not your humour.” Vicki jabs back, the lighthearted banter between them being something that’s always been there.
“I think i’m gonna be sick.” Lily mumbles at her parents exchange.
Arthur’s go is next, his roll lands him on his own property, but he does pass go.
“200, please, Mum.” He asks Vicki who has been put in charge of the money. She untangles herself from her wife so she can get out two 100s and passes them to their son. “Thank you.” He smiles as he adds more notes to his growing pile.
Vicki take her turn and, to her surprise and everyone else’s, she get 11.
“Yes!” She cheers and looks to Tess. “Look at that, babe, I think i’m finally stealing your dice luck.”
Tess just smirks as she eyes the board, working out when that number will lands her wife.
“Yeah, definitely got my luck, love.”
Vicki moves the tiny thimble on 11 places.
“…9, 10… sh- oot.” The penny drops. She’s landed two places behind Lily which has her on another of Arthur’s hotels - Regent Street.
“1,275 please, Mum.”
“That’s all I’ve got.” Vicki says as she hands over a little less than he asked. “I guess that’s me out.”
“One down, three to go.” Arthur says mischievously, like an evil genius whose plan is finally coming together.
“Mama, I think we might need to team up to take him down.” Lily goes plays along.
“You’ll have to break me out of jail first.” Tess points out.
“Well, while you two come up with your masterplan, I’m gonna go order pizza.” Vicki announces. “Lil, Art, the usual?”
“Yeah, please.” They both nod.
“Shall I get us some of those cookies too, babe?”
“Hmm, definitely.” Tess agrees.
Vicki give her wife a peck on her lips before getting up from the floor and heading over into the kitchen side of their open plan living space to make the order.
Tess rolls the dice, the one time she needs a double to get herself out of jail, she doesn’t get one and so she has to stay where she is.
As the kids take their turns, Tess can’t help but watch her wife as leans against the counter putting the order through on the app. The way the soft light hits her features.
She’s unfairly stunning.
It’s as though Vicki knows she’s being watched, can sense her wife’s eyes on her, because she looks up and gives her a smile.
In that moment, surrounded by her wife and children, Tess has one thought standing out in her mind, drowning out any worries she might have about the next few weeks.
“How did I get this lucky?”