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4:T6c7,They had been cooking before Tom was pulled away by another late-night call. Kate continued without him, dicing red peppers, a pan heating on the hob close by. She put meat into the pan and stood for a moment to watch it sweat and sizzle, a dirty grey foam gathering at the side before it finally browned.

Tom came out of the office and quietly told her that he was going to bed, his head low like a wounded animal. Most evenings were like this now: the chaos and hum of the children's bedtime followed by their separate chores. There was dinner to cook, work calls to take. Lunches had to be made for school next day.

'The lunches!' Kate said out loud and jumped back, lifting the pan from the hob. She went to the fridge and took out ham and butter.

Kate looked around. Tom was still there, standing by the counter reading a supermarket flyer, his shock of dark hair falling forward, covering part of his face.

'Will you bring Kevin to swimming tomorrow?' she asked.

'I bring him to swimming every Thursday,' Tom said, and a cross look flashed across his face, so she decided against mentioning to her husband that this was not strictly true. He was often caught late in the city.

They were both silent for a moment then Tom stopped reading and looked up. 'Any news?' he asked.

Kate went to the cupboard and took out two cups, holding one up in his direction. He nodded slowly, would agree to a late-night conversation, but she knew that she had to tread carefully here, could see how this might unfold, how he would ask her if she had heard from the bank and if her response was not what he needed to hear, he could erupt. A small explosion of emotion, a slammed down cup, followed by a brisk departure to bed: all her fault.5:T6cb,It was this time two years back when they started to look for a mortgage. At first, it was a dream they both worked towards: her picking up extra shifts at the hospital; Tom working weekends to keep the business afloat. But when they sat down with the bank, reality hit. Despite the adverts, few were lending. 'You're good to repay, we can see that. But it's tight, too tight,' said the man at the bank, never lifting his eyes off the screen. He was thin and balding, but deeply tanned. One of their meetings had begun when he strode in after lunch carrying the scent of the street, a bicycle helmet under his arm.

'Tight. How tight?' Kate had asked, knowing the response. They had overspends working against them. Fallouts from Tom's business. The bank did not like those, or the time she took off each summer to spend with the children. It was unfathomable, from a financial perspective.

Tom started to unravel in front of her eyes. He became tired, weighed down by stress as each small financial detail was laid bare. There were even tears; a sadness neither of them could fathom. Eventually he saw a doctor and a year was spent assessing and talking, trying out new medications when others would not, could not return him to his old self.

'Aren't you going to answer me?' he asked now, deliberately not looking her way as she stepped back to the pan, added the red sauce and turning it down to simmer.

Somewhere in the middle of Tom's illness and recovery, it had become her job to speak to the bank and relay back the information.

'They have a few more questions, but it looks good,' she said, lying.

'Great! What do they need?'

'Don't know,' she said gently. 'He left a voice message. I'll hear from him again in the morning.'6:T15cb,Kate began to list the things she had to do next, but a silence rolled off the counters, leading her to other thoughts. This kitchen would not be her choice; ostentatious cornicing and granite worktops, large cream cupboards that she had difficulty filling. The room was long and wide, typical of a Celtic Tiger house, and large enough to need eight spotlights and three hanging bulbs, each dressed in cheap magnolia lamp shades, the type reserved for rented homes.

She spread butter over bread and stacked the lunches, one at a time on a shelf on the fridge. Slowly, in the quietness, she started to hear the small sounds; a distant car revving as it picked up speed, the leaky tap in the bathroom, the sound of her family snoring upstairs, long deep breaths.

When she woke the next morning, it was difficult to claim the day. It was a dry morning; degrees of light rising outside the window. She knew if she were to go outside, she would find it cold, would feel the crisp air brush against her cheek and the sharp new light of the day bring a tear to her eye. But she wasn't going outside, could not face another day when she would have to deal with the bank again. Instead, she moved deeper under the covers, felt the balmy sheet under her skin and let the warm air created during the night wrap around her limbs.

She turned to Tom, who was facing the other way, deep in sleep, a million words knitted into the silence between them. She reached out and touched his head lightly. *When did he get so grey?* It crept up on him, she supposed, as it had crept up on them both.

Outside on the roof a bird began to tap out a familiar noise with her wings. Kate listened as the bird made its way along the facia to the side of the house. Earlier that month she had noticed a hole in the plastic close to the down pipe that gradually become caked in bird shit, often a lone feather sticking to its round edge, fluttering in the light breeze. She had watched as the female gradually made her nest in the attic and using the hole in the facia, climbed into the eaves with food for her young. There were weekends when you could hear a constant chirp chirp, *chirp chirp*, of bird song rise and fall from the children's bedrooms. Kate had called them together so that they might listen to the orchestra coming from the other side of the wall. But they did not want to know about these creatures close to their heads, turning instead to the little lives on the screens in their hands. She had been left alone to appreciate the sounds, the industry of the mother's movement to and fro, the rhythm the bird made when she landed on the drainpipe early in the morning, worms in her beak.

Tom stirred in his sleep, his breathing louder and more laboured. These days he is more positive, and it is as if he had never been ill. There is no medication to take, and he speaks about this house as his home; plants vegetables and flowers, rearranges the furniture. Soon he will wake and the day will begin for her again. This time, instead of being led by her own thoughts, she will respond to his needs and the demands of the children.

Kate stretched out her legs, a sigh escaping her lips. The bed was getting cold. Under the covers, her toes fumbled with the cool plastic buttons on the bottom of the duvet, tangled about the edge. Then she heard the first of the children stir, a hand thrown outside of the covers, small footsteps tapping at the edge of the bed before melting into the hall floor; their indecision about which way to turn played out in their footwork. The loo, downstairs, her room; it was a short dance, *gymnastics*.

Her youngest picked the loo and she heard the low hiss and bang of the toilet being used, then a quick dash of footsteps moving downstairs towards the playroom. No flushing, no washing. An avalanche of noise followed as the older children jumped out of bed and their feet hit the floor. Steps taken rapidly in case something had been missed or some event forgotten: a TV programme, or the slow spread of butter on warm toast.

The morning was here.

They announced by their movements that morning had arrived and there was no going back.

She felt suddenly trapped; stuck.

'We need this to work,' Tom had said to her last night before going to bed. 'The bank has to get behind us this time.'

Kate had turned, registered the determination in his face as he threw the flyer onto the counter, ran his hand along the nape of his neck, a gesture she had known since their college days.

She was reminded in that moment of his vulnerability still, and of the time last year when he was discharged from hospital. Clinical illness ruled out; their marriage was now the focus of his recovery.

'How come?' she had asked the doctor, with considerable effort. *Hadn't she cared for them all while he was ill?*

But Tom was no longer interested in what the doctors had to say. He yearned for a thing Kate knew did not exist - the perfect house in which to create a perfect home - and Kate was left to fit the pieces of their lives back together again.

Kate lay for a moment, fixed between two worlds. Something has changed, she thought, something has moved on without warning, brought her to this point where her head was crowded with hurried thoughts, with decisions she alone must make, just around the corner.

She wanted to peel back the morning, take in the silence for a while longer.

'MUM,' the children started to call from downstairs. A door was opened and knocked against a wall, creating a loud clatter. 'MU – UMMM.'

So, this was her day calling.7:T739,She swung her legs out of bed and reached for her slippers. It was an automatic movement. The floorboards, cold against her feet, made her stop for a moment. Then, grabbing a cardigan from her bedside chair Kate opened the door and let in the chorus of voices seeping up towards her.

The TV was already on, but the children could be heard making their way outside. 'Mum,' called the youngest making his way back up the stairs, alone.

'I'm coming,' she said, 'I'm up!'

When she got downstairs, the children had already climbed onto the trampoline. She resisted the urge to bring them back indoors for breakfast, occupied by her own thoughts. *Why did the bank need more information? Did she even care anymore?* Two weeks earlier she had met with the man in the bank and got tough. 'It makes more sense to pay into a modest mortgage than over the odds on rent,' she had argued. 'Rent prices are going up!'

She stepped out onto the doorstep now and watched the children. They bounced high, then low, before chasing one another about. She knew that in a minute cries would peter towards her about wet socks and trouser legs, and the dressing for outdoors would start again.

'Morning,' Tom said, surprising her as he moved onto the step beside her. 'You all set?'

She looked up into his face and waited. It took a moment and then it came: a shy look of resignation that things might not go their way. He placed his arm around her, pulling her into the bulk of him, providing shelter.

Kate continued to watch as the children played. The eldest was leading the pack, swinging her hands high as she jumped. She was trying to catch the sky, she cried out. 'Watch this!' they all called out in turn, triumphant sounds whooping through the air. Up, up, up they went, confident that the tight fibres of the base would catch them each time they came down.c:X
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