“They deserve each other.” I take myself off to bed but can’t sleep. Unable to deal with it, I ignore them. I should throw a pot of cold water over them, throw them out of the house and out of my life, but I’m so tired my face is falling off and my bones are crumbling, and this is too outrageous to even acknowledge. My husband and my mother are making out, in front of me, in my living room. While I get my sons fed and ready for bed, I can see the massage is becoming something else. There’s an undercurrent, something unspoken, between them. My husband sits on the couch and my mother’s on the floor in front of him. The baby needs a bottle and the toddler demands a hug. The tension between me and my husband escalates daily. My mother has a loving bond with my boys, and it’s good to have another pair of hands and someone to talk to. They wake every single night - my older boy is asthmatic - and I’m the one who gets up to help them.
My baby’s just over a year old and my toddler nearly 3. The author is a writer, performer and visual artist based in Melbourne, Australia.
