Free Still Thinking of You by Adele Parks

needed to go into the day bag. They really didn’t have time for this now. The cab would be here soon. It was a good job that she’d checked their ski kit last night and that their cases were full, just waiting for her to add the last-minute toiletries.
    It was clear that Jayne had fallen out with yet another boyfriend. Kate couldn’t even remember the latest one’s name. She’d given up feigning even a polite interest. Had Ted packed his toothbrush? No, it didn’t appear so. Kate went to the bathroom cabinet and scrabbled around until she found a spare toothbrush, deodorant, shaving gel and razors. She knew if she didn’t check these things it would be her finding a chemist to buy replacements when they got to France. Where were the euros that they’d brought back from Barcelona last weekend? In the drawer where they kept their passports, probably. Kate dashed down two flights of stairs, found the euros and the passports, plus Ted’s sunglasses, then rushed back upstairs to their bedroom. Ted was still on the phone.
    For goodness sake, Ted. She wished he’d get a move on. They had such a lot to do. Going away for a week-long break took at least four weeks to organize, at least it seemed that way to Kate. She had to pack for the kids who were spending the weekend with Ted’s parents. She had to leave copious notes of instructions regarding food preferences, medical conditions, school runs, extracurricular activities and other invites from which Fleur, Elliot and Aurora benefited. Her mother had kindly offered to move into their house from Sunday teatime for the rest of the week. It was best for the children to be in their own home; their schedules ought not to be upset just because Kate and Ted were having a week away.
    A week away without the children. Kate felt a confusing mixture of emotions, something between ecstatic and terrified. She and Ted hadn’t been on holiday alone together for more than seven years. Imagine, they could go to restaurants that didn’t serve food in colourful cardboard boxes. They could stay out late at night, without having to worry about interrupting sleep patterns. They could have sex at any time of the day.
    They could have sex.
    And it would be so much fun going away with the old uni crowd. Mia, Rich, Jason and Lloyd. They’d had such good times together. Never a dull moment, always laughing and joking. Of course, they’d studied, too, but that wasn’t what it had been about. It had been about that sense of possibility. Future. Kate could feel eighteen again.
    And yet.
    She caught sight of a pile of discarded children’s clothes next to the wash basket (not quite in the wash basket – her constant nagging hadn’t achieved that goal). The clothes were grubby, sticky, soiled with food and mud and child sweat. Kate felt her heart contract with love. Suddenly she didn’t want to leave them. She didn’t want to go skiing at all. She’d much rather stay with the children, ensure that the correct shoes or Wellington boots went on the right feet every morning, that hats and scarves were duly donned. It was simple and safe and comforting.
    However many notes she wrote, however competent her mother was, it still felt as though she was abandoning the children. Kate didn’t think couples ought to have children if their sole raison d’être then became getting away from them. She had friends that didn’t work, but still had au pairs to do the washing and cleaning, and nannies to do the loving. Not Kate. Kate prided herself on the fact that she had brought her children up, not hired help, even though they could easily have afforded an army of nannies, baby-sitters, after-school carers and au pairs. Personally, Kate found the concept obscene.
    Although obviously she could see the attraction. Of course she could, especially on a particularly gruelling day when London traffic jams conspired to make her late for dropping the children off at school. ‘Hurry, Mummy. I’ll be in