Sofia sat down at the kitchen table and let out a big sigh. Every day got tougher. Federico kept offering to cut his trip short and come home but she hated to look like she wasn’t coping or be treated like some weakling. Also, deep down, she knew it was her who’d wanted a fourth baby – he would have been perfectly happy with two. She knew Carmen thought she was just showing off, which was incredibly hurtful. But it made her feel like she had to shoulder the burden herself.
Though, if she was being honest, it wasn’t nearly as bad having Carmen here as she’d feared. Work was tiring, but home was not too bad.
‘Let me make you an herbal tea?’ said Skylar, not pronouncing the ‘h’ as if specifically to annoy Carmen.
‘Oh, would you?’ said Sofia.
‘Sure thing? And I’m just off to my lecture!’
‘You’re a student, aren’t you?’ said Carmen, coming in from work, pink-faced from the cold and happy at another day’s solid takings, despite their slow start.
‘Uh-huh!’
‘You don’t know a PhD student there? Called Oke?’
‘Oke what?’
‘How many Okes are there?’
‘You mean Oke Benezet?’
‘I expect so.’
‘Oh yes! Everyone knows Oke. He circulates the departments, gives lectures on trees in literature, trees in art. Massive tree guy, right? Looks a bit like a tree.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Tall, thin, hair bun like leaves at the top … name spelled like a tree, pronounced like a Chardonnay?’
‘Oh yeah,’ said Carmen, who hadn’t thought of that. ‘How funny.’
‘How doyouknow him?’
There was something in Skylar’s tone that Carmen couldn’t put her finger on, but she disliked it.
‘He’s a customer. I thought he was just a student.’
‘Post-doctoral research fellow?’ Once again Skylar’s voice tipped into that register that implied Carmen was a total moron. ‘That means he has his PhD already – so he’s entitled to be called doctor – and he’s working in the field. So he’s lecturing too.’
‘Thanks, prof.’
‘I’m not a professor,’ said Skylar, wrinkling her lovely brow. ‘That comes after being a lecturer then—’
‘I’m only kidding,’ said Carmen hastily, as Skylar set down Sofia’s tea, adding a nutritional ball of something or other that looked uncannily like something you should be putting out for birds this time of year.
‘Enjoy your lecture. What’s it on?’
‘A history of homeopathy?’
‘Oh,’ said Carmen. ‘So, like “water through the ages”?’
Skylar smiled pityingly at her. ‘Sure, if that makes it simpler for you.’
And she swept out, her blonde hair bouncing behind her.
The oddest thing happened then. Sofia looked at Carmen and Carmen looked at Sofia, and suddenly all their antipathy melted away, and in the warm kitchen, with even more snow softly falling outside in the dark, they both started to laugh.
‘It’s not just me, right? She is being mean to me?’
