Okay. This is ridiculous. He’s distracting me too much. This whole situation is not conducive to productivity.
‘I’m going to work from home,’ I say, snapping my laptop shut.
Art opens his eyes and sits up on the couch. ‘Oh. Okay. Probably a good idea.’
There you go. He doesn’t want me around either. I stuff my laptop into my bag.
‘See you tomorrow,’ I say. ‘Maybe.’
‘See ya,’ he says. He’s already lying down again.
It’s slightly easier to work at home. I’m taking a tea break when I get a text from Laura reminding me it’s our mother’s seventieth birthday next month and we need to sort out her present. God, it’s hard to believe Mam’s going to be seventy. I really should be doing more for my parents. After all, I wanted to move home partly to be closer to them. But so far they’ve been doing more for me than I have for them, helping me move and having me over for dinner. I haven’t even seen as much of them as I thought I would. And Laura’s been away for work a lot recently so she can’t be spending much time with them either. I think of my poor parents sitting at home, abandoned by their selfish daughters, and pickup my phone. When there’s no answer from the landline I feel a pang of genuine fear. What if they’ve had heart attacks? What if the boiler’s broken and they’ve got carbon monoxide poisoning? There was a PSA about that in theNorthsidead break on Sunday. I ring my mother’s mobile.
‘Mam!’ I say when she answers. ‘Everything okay?’
‘Sorry, love, I can’t hear you,’ says my mother. ‘Hang on a sec.’ I can hear voices and music. ‘I’m out with the retired teachers book club. We’re having post-book-discussion prosecco.’
‘On a Tuesday?’ I say.
‘Well, we are retired,’ says Mam. ‘We can drink a glass of prosecco on a Tuesday if we want to.’
‘I suppose you can,’ I say. ‘Where’s Dad?’
‘He’s having dinner with his old friends from the department,’ says Mam. ‘They’ve started doing it once a month.’
‘Oh right,’ I say. ‘That’s cool.’
‘Is everything okay with you?’ says Mam. ‘Or did you ring for a chat?’
‘Just checking in,’ I say. ‘I was wondering if there’s anything I can do for you.’
‘What do you mean?’ says Mam.
‘You know, to help out you and Dad,’ I say.
‘That’s very nice of you,’ she says, ‘but I don’t think we need any help. What were you thinking of doing?’
I haven’t actually thought this through.
‘Um, I could go to the shops for you,’ I say. ‘Or … I don’t know, take you to medical appointments?’
‘We do the big shop online,’ says my mother. ‘And I don’t have any medical appointments lined up.’
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Great.’
‘You know we’re perfectly capable of looking after ourselves, don’t you?’ says Mam. ‘We’re not decrepit yet!’
‘Of course you’re not!’ I say. ‘Well, I’ll call over for a visit.’
‘That would be lovely,’ says Mam. ‘Now, we can’t do this week because there’s a bridge tournament tomorrow and Thursday, and then we’re going to Galway to stay with your Uncle Gerry and we won’t be back until the following Thursday, and after that the choir is going to that competition in Germany, so maybe in three weeks?’
‘Sure.’ I’m slightly taken aback by their packed schedule.
‘I’d better get back to the book club,’ says Mam. ‘Mary Ryan was telling us all about her neighbour’s divorce.’ She lowers her voice. ‘Don’t put this in your show but he’s run off with a school inspector.’
‘How can I keep you from all this hot gossip?’ I say. ‘I’ll talk to you soon.’
‘Work might be a mess but it turns out I don’t have to worry about my parents,’ I tell Roo, after she gets home from an in-person meeting with a client. ‘They’ve got a better social life than I have.’