The Handover

They get in his car and I stand at the door and I smile until the window is too far away to see my face. Then I close the door and the house falls silent and I fall apart.

Every time. Every single time.

People say enjoy the break. Have some time to yourself. Do something nice. Like this is a spa day. Like the silence is a gift. Like a mother whose children have just driven away with a man she left because he was destroying her should be grateful for the peace.

The house without them is a museum. Everything in its place. No shoes in the hall. No noise from upstairs. No someone calling Mum from three rooms away like the word itself is a GPS signal.

I stand in the kitchen and I can hear the clock.

That’s when it hits. Not the sadness. The wrongness. The biological, cellular wrongness of your children being somewhere you can’t see them. Somewhere you can’t control the temperature or the tone or the things that get said when you’re not there to hear them.

I trust them. My kids. They’re resilient and smart and they know the difference between the house they relax in and the house they perform in. But that doesn’t stop the worry. Because worry isn’t rational. Worry is the same animal instinct that made me stand between them and a raised hand. It doesn’t switch off because a court says he gets every other weekend.

I don’t cry in front of them. I don’t say don’t go. I don’t let my face do anything except smile because they need to know it’s okay. That loving their dad doesn’t betray me. That they’re allowed to have a good time. That this situation isn’t their weight to carry.

So I carry it. Alone. In the silent house with the ticking clock and the shoes that aren’t in the hall.

And when they come back. When I hear the car and the door and the noise and the Mum from three rooms away. Something in my chest unties itself and the house becomes a house again and I pretend I wasn’t counting the hours.

I was counting the hours.

I’m always counting the hours.