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"Jesus Christ..." Therese pulled the carving knife out of the drawer in front of her and slammed it shut. "Carol how many times do I have to tell you this doesn't go in here?" She waved the knife about while she spoke, the blade slicing through thin air to emphasize her point.
Carol looked up from the kitchen island, where she'd been helping Rindy with her homework - math questions and a history project on the Pharaohs of Egypt, both due on Monday morning. "Better than leaving everything lying on the draining board," she fired back, referring to Therese's insistence that the dishes dry themselves if you leave them long enough.
"If you leave dishes out they -"
"No they don't Therese," Carol interrupted, standing while she spoke to help lay the table. "It just dries the dish soap into them and leaves everything looking dirty." She went over to the drawers Therese had been looking through moments before and began pulling out forks and knives. "And anyway, there's plenty of room in this drawer for the carving knife, so why not put it there?"
"Because then I don't know where it is!" Therese huffed, feeling as if she were having the same conversation for the millionth time.
"You found it didn't you?" Carol motioned to the knife in Therese's hand.
"Eventually..." Therese muttered under her breath, turning away from Carol then to carve the chicken.
"What was that?" Carol hummed, a bemused smile playing on her face as she laid the table - she loved how simple it could be to wind Therese up sometimes.
"I said eventually..." Therese repeated, louder this time, refusing to be the one to back down from their argument.
"Are you saying you don't appreciate a challenge?" Carol cocked her head to face Therese and quirked an eyebrow playfully.
"I obviously do, living with you..." Therese shot back without missing a beat, taking plates from the press above her head while she waited for Carols response.
"Do you also enjoy the challenge of sleeping on the couch, or...?"
Therese turned to her and scoffed. "You wouldn't dare."
Carol faced her fully now, the smallest of smiles playing on her lips. "Try me."
Therese didn't reply, just turned back to the three plates of chicken and finished adding the veg and roast potatoes to go along with the meat while Carol put out glasses and a jug of water on the table for them all to share. Therese laid the plates out and Carol called Rindy over.
She was slower than usual putting down her pencil and getting up from the island to sit at the table. She dragged her feet a little too, something that didn't go unnoticed by Carol or Therese as they sat waiting on her, though neither commented until Rindy slid into her seat and began pushing her food about her plate without actually eating any.
"Rindy, darling, is everything alright?" Carol asked cautiously, putting her own fork and knife down to observe her daughters odd behavior.
Rindy just shrugged. "I don't know..." She muttered, never looking up from her plate.
"Do you not like the way I cooked the broccoli?" Therese had marinaded it in spices first then sautéd it in a pan and Rindy could sometimes be apprehensive about trying new food.
"It's not that..." Rindy still didn't look up.
"Well what then?" Carol prompted gently. "What's the matter?"
"Are you two going to fight like you and dad did and not live together anymore?"
The question blindsided Carol and Therese, both of them forgetting sometimes that just because the events from five years ago was nothing more than an unpleasant memory to them didn't mean the same could be said for Rindy. Of course she understood the divorce a lot better now than she had at the time, though she still had her hang-ups, and Therese and Carol arguing was obviously one of them.
"Darling no, of course not!" Carol reassured her instantly. "Myself and Therese are never going to break up."
"But you were fighting..." Rindy pointed.
"Well sometimes your mom gets on my nerves honey," Therese explained. "And sometimes I get on her nerves too, but we still love one another very much and we still want to live together for the rest of our lives so you never need to worry."
"It's true," Carol added when Rindy still didn't look convinced. "Me and your father broke up because we didn't love one another anymore, not because we fought. I'm never going to stop loving Therese though, no matter how much we fight."
Rindy looked between them, searching behind their reassuring smiles for the truth and deciding eventually that they were in fact being honest. "Good..." She muttered, finally returning to her dinner and actually eating some this time. "I don't have enough toys anyway," she added.
"Enough toys...?" The statement caught Carol and Therese off guard, although Rindy had just continued with her meal as if the statement had been self explanatory.
"Well yea," she shrugged and skewered a roast potato with her fork. "If you two stopped living together I'd need a room in Therese's new house too and I don't have enough toys to divide between three bedrooms."