Free Other People's Children by Joanna Trollope

different ways – such bitter experiences of the end of marriage, ever going to risk it again?’
    Dale unfolded her arms and reached for her drink.
    â€˜But he’s lonely. Now we’re living away from home and – Josie’s gone, he’s lonely.’
    â€˜Sure. But the solution isn’t marriage, for God’s sake. The solution, for Dad, is enough work, which he has, and the companionship of a few Elizabeth Browns. All the advantages and no strings.’
    Amy said, from the sofa, ‘Would you like that, Luke?’
    He took no notice.
    â€˜Dale,’ he said. ‘Dale. Dad is not going to re-marry. Do you hear me? Dad is not
going to re-marry.’
    Dale looked at her drink for a long moment and then she looked up at her brother.
    â€˜Promise?’ she said.
    After Dale had gone – she was plainly hoping to be offered supper, but Lucas seemed to forget to suggest it and Amy, though she remembered, certainly wasn’t going to – Amy boiled some pasta and tipped into it a tub of pesto sauce from the supermarket and laid theisland counter of their tiny kitchen with two mats and two forks and a candle, to try and prevent Lucas from eating in front of the television. Amy liked television, but she didn’t like coming second best to it, as company for Lucas. She didn’t drink alcohol herself – didn’t like the taste – but she put out a wineglass for Lucas in a small attempt to compensate him for the absence of television.
    Then the telephone rang. It was the producer of the late-night phone-in chat and music show at the radio station to say that the presenter’s three-year-old had been rushed to hospital with suspected meningitis, and could Lucas stand in?
    â€˜Don’t,’ Amy said.
    It was a creepy show, the late-night one. It attracted all the weirdos and the saddies, people who couldn’t make relationships in real life so they relied on phoneins and the Internet as substitutes. They were the kind of people who liked the night-time, too, and the fact that you couldn’t see who you were speaking to. Amy thought it wasn’t good for Lucas to involve himself with people who were a bit off this way, twisted.
    â€˜Got to,’ Lucas said. He looked at her. ‘Sorry. Really. Think of the extra money.’
    â€˜I’d rather have you here—’
    â€˜Can’t do it. Think of that poor little kid, then, and how her parents feel.’
    Amy thought how nice it would be if she believed Lucas ever considered how she was feeling. When they first met, his thoughtfulness was one of the firstthings she’d found attractive, but after he’d asked her to marry him and she had moved in with him, he didn’t seem to feel that considering her feelings mattered so much. It was as if he knew them now, and that his early concern for them was really only a process of discovery, which he had enjoyed for its own sake. But there were some things he had discovered, like Amy’s very difficult feelings about Dale, which he then seemed to wish he had not unearthed. If she said to him, now, ‘I don’t want you to go back to work, partly because I don’t like that show, but mostly because I want us to have supper together so I can tell you what bothers me about Dale, and Dale and you,’ he’d look at her as if he hadn’t heard her, and change the subject.
    â€˜OK,’ Amy said. ‘You go.’
    He leaned forward and kissed her.
    â€˜We’ll go out, tomorrow, promise. Or Friday.’
    She nodded. He picked up his leather jacket and a bunch of keys and the photographer’s camera case he carried his tapes and discs in.
    â€˜Sleep well,’ Lucas said. He smiled at her. ‘Make the most of the next five snore-free hours.’
    Amy went back into the kitchen and scraped the pasta off their two plates into the bin. Then she put two slices of toast into the toaster, and plugged the kettle