‘I have zero evidence for a flying bed. A lot of people saw this boy with my children.’
‘Do they also think I’m two-timing him with Theo, my brother-in-law? It wasn’t so long ago that Isla asked if he could be her daddy.’
‘Well, no.’ For the first time, Brayden started to look discomfited. Everyone else in the room was frozen still. It was the first time most of them had discovered that Brayden and I knew each other outside the course, let alone had children together.
‘Are you seeing the theme, here, Brayden? I wonder why Isla is so desperate for a new daddy. Maybe because, up until two weeks ago, the father who deserted us when she was five months old spent less time with her than he did making TikToks.’
‘That’s not fair,’ Silva interjected. ‘Cultivating our online presence is part of our business.’
‘Brayden has no business!’ I snapped. ‘He sold an app for a preposterous amount of money and now farts about while you take photos. You have less followers than Baby Bloomers!’
She opened her mouth to argue, but now we were here, talking about this, I wasn’t about to let Silva sidetrack the conversation.
‘The point is, you can’t suddenly decide you want to play daddy and expect me to hand over the children I’ve raised single-handedly for sleepovers and weeks away. You have no right to make snap judgements about me based on playground gossip and the testimony of a child you barely know. You arecompletely out of order—’ my whole body was fizzing with fury now ‘—bringing up my personal life, my children,any of thishere. Now, is anyone still eating lunch, or shall we move on to talking about sleeping patterns?’
‘Wait,’ Claudia, the single mother, said. ‘Brayve is your baby-daddy? And he’s brought his new woman to your classes?’
‘He’s my ex-husband,’ I mumbled, having started to run out of steam.
‘Talk about rubbing it in your face!’
‘Who left who?’ Claudia’s birth partner asked.
‘That’s none of your business,’ Silva barked. ‘We’ve heard more than enough for one day.’
‘Actually, now that Brayden’s started sharing, I think it’s best to let people know the situation. They’ll only be wondering, otherwise, which will make it harder to concentrate and detrimental to their learning.’
‘See!’ Claudia said, crunching on the last of her pickled onion Monster Munch.
‘Brayden and I married when I was twenty. We had our son a year later, then a girl nearly three years after that. He…’
Oh, how I itched to complete the story. He left me for Silva, the woman he’d started sleeping with before I got pregnant with Isla, leaving me with two tiny children.
‘We…’
Brayden looked as though his internal organs were shrivelling up. Silva blinked defiantly, but the knuckles clasping her falafel wrap were white.
‘It didn’t work out, for all sorts of reasons. We were young, these things happen. But what matters now is that we’re committed to parenting our children as best we can. Just like for all of you. Whoever makes up your baby’s family, what counts is that you share the same goal, to provide them with the best childhood they can have. Full of love and security. So, that brings us on to an activity that might be relevant now, thinking about your support networks…’
‘She’s wrong.’
Brayden’s voice was a rough croak.
‘Excuse me?’ I asked, wondering how much more of an arse this man could be in one lunchbreak.
‘Now’s not the time, dude.’ Gordon winced.
‘It didn’t work out because I failed as a husband and a father. Liz was amazing. Even when I was cheating on her throughout a risky pregnancy, she was strong and brave and kept on being the best mother to Finn. When she was fighting for our marriage, at the same time I was actively destroying it, she always put our children first. Silva and I aren’t here to rub it in Liz’s face, to gloat or show off or any of that. We’re here because she’s the best parent I know. And goodness knows, I’ve got a lot to learn about parenting, so we wanted to learn from the best. For what it’s worth, Liz, I’m sorry.’
You could have heard one of those unborn babies burp, the room was so still.
‘I’m sorry for failing you. I’m sorry for all the extra sacrifices you’ve had to make because you married an immature waster. I’m sorry for everything Finn and Isla have missed out on. I can’t put that right. But I can start being there for them now. I’d like to try.’
Silva was staring at the floor, face stricken.
‘Oh, and I’m sorry for accusing you of living with your teenage childminder in front of your clients.’
‘Oh no, I am living with him,’ I said, when I’d managed to get my brain back working.
