I nodded, glad that Cooper had his back to us and couldn’t see the heat flushing my cheeks. Ben was in Tuscany, Cooper was here rather than squirrelled away in a laboratory saving the world with Bridget and, for now at least, things were going okay.
I set Annie and Sofia mixing the quiche fillings. I didn’t trust anyone but me to make the pastry, but Cooper was happy cutting miniature cases out of my pastry sheets, using scientific precision to create minimum wastage.
A few minutes before lunch, the door to the kitchen swung open and Greg walked in.
Annie froze, eggy batter dripping off her spoon onto my stainless-steel worktop. Her eyes swivelled to me, then back to Greg again.
‘Anyone use a hand?’ Greg asked, already rolling up his shirt sleeves as if senior account managers at top New York advertising firms made a habit of turning up in tiny kitchens in Nottingham to bake scones.
‘Why are you here?’ Annie asked, somehow managing to get the words out without moving her lips.
‘Heard you were pretty busy.’ He shrugged, nodding hello to the rest of us. ‘All Donovan hands on deck.’
‘I told you I’m not ready to talk yet.’ Annie had subtly shifted her posture to that of a cornered animal.
Greg put his hands in his pockets, waiting in the doorway until Annie met his gaze. ‘Are you ready for me to stand here quietly and do the dishes?’ he asked, his voice soft, face grave.
‘You hate doing dishes.’
‘Honey, I’m staying at your mother’s house. You know I love your parents, but there’s only so many times a man can hear about Mrs Cumberland’s wayward grandchildren and Gwendoline Jones’s rip-off builder before any form of manual labour becomes an appealing alternative.’
Annie pursed her lips.
‘She keeps telling me stories about what an amazing, perfect daughter you were growing up, and, no offence, but she’s having to dig real deep to keep finding more of those, you know what I’m saying?’
‘Fine.’ Annie huffed and puffed, and if looks could kill she’d have slaughtered me right there on the vinyl floor, but it didn’t take long before she picked up a tea towel and started drying the mountain of clean pots piling up on the draining rack.
The rest of us carried on drizzling and whipping and cutting out pastry circles, joking and chatting about nothing as if this were a perfectly normal way to spend a Tuesday and there weren’t a marriage dangling by a thread right in front of us.
At three, when Annie had to pick Lottie and Oscar up from school, and Greg immediately offered to go with her, she shook her head tightly, marching out of the door and all the way to Orla’s car before striding back in again a minute later. ‘I’m busy tomorrow morning but will be here from two. Emma could probably do with the help again. If you’re looking for something to do.’
‘Okay. Great.’ Greg was a man used to playing it cool. He nodded, smiled gently and waited for Annie to get in the car before he collapsed his head into his hands, his body leaning on the side of the sink for balance. ‘My apologies,’ he huffed in a breathless wheeze. ‘That must have been really awkward, witnessing my critically ill marriage flailing about in front of you.’
‘Urr, hello?’ Nita rolled her eyes. ‘Given that you’re married to a Donovan, I would have thought you’d learnt by now that they aren’t bothered about awkward. Or polite. They give the phrase “life out loud” a whole new meaning, if you getmymeaning. I think you’ve probably earnt yourself a test-slice of raspberry-ripple cake.’
‘I think we all have,’ I added, fetching a knife off the rack.
Nearly everyone left soon after that, leaving Cooper and me to continue working until everything was ticked off the day’s to-do list and tidied up, by which time it was gone seven.
‘Your calendar is blanked out for nearly the whole of June,’ Cooper said as I was locking up.
‘Well, we have a wedding on the twenty-second and a fiftieth birthday cake for a few days later, but they were already booked in before Bridget’s date was set. The cakes are in the freezer. Nita’ll be able to ice them and drop them off.’
‘You must have turned away a lot of business.’ We began walking towards the bus stop.
‘Well, I’m not going to have my sister pay someone else to make her wedding cake.’
‘No. But I’m guessing the wholesaler sells mini quiches. And macaroons. And given that people are coming to donate to a good cause, they’re not going to kick up a fuss or ask for a refund if it’s not all Emma’s Cakery standard.’
‘Maybe not.’ I did a brave thing, brushing my hand against his so that he quickly wrapped his fingers around mine as we strolled through the evening sunshine, the faint scent of cut grass mingling with the birdsong. ‘But I’m not doing this for them. I can’t help my dad get better or make his life any easier. I can’t stop his muscle tremors or give him a decent night’s sleep.I can’t beaver away in a lab like you and Bridget, using my brilliant brain to find a cure, or even some sort of treatment. But I can pour some energy, along with my love, and my care, my heartbreak and my hope into magically combining flour and fat and sugar into something that looks and tastes beautiful. That makes people happy, and forget their troubles and their aches and their worries about the future as they sit and eat something so delicious they get lost in a moment of pure joy. That’s what I can give him. When he sees everyone laughing and eating and filling up his farmyard with fun, he’ll have a moment of joy, too. And that means more to me than earning money.’ I swallowed back the tears now clogging up my throat. ‘That’s priceless.’
We reached the bus stop. Cooper let go of my hand and pulled me close, wrapping his arms around me as he pressed a kiss into my hair.
‘Thank you for letting me help you with that.’
‘You’re welcome,’ I sniffed back, aware that I’d probably ended up smearing snot on his T-shirt as I buried my head into his chest.
As we stood there, waiting for the bus, I took another step closer towards falling in love with my husband.
