Modern Marriage

Samuel asked how the meeting went and Sarah couldn’t think what he meant.

Her hands paused in the raw chicken marinade she was massaging for tomorrow night’s dinner. She blinked at him. What had she done today?

Working backwards, just before Sam came home she’d soothed another meltdown from their ten-year-old. That always took it out of her. Her stomach was still curled and twisted, but the gin was helping. He didn’t ask about that.

Before that she’d cooked dinner while the kids sat doing their homework at the bench.

“What’s a magic square anyway?”

“What does synonym mean?”

“Can I have another cracker?”

They’d spent the two hours previous driving: swimming, dance, gymnastics. Swung by the library to return some books; Woolies for milk and to deposit the bag that had been spewing soft plastics into the hallway for weeks. Finally gone, had he noticed that?

She’d volunteered at school for an hour, paid several bills, booked the babysitter for Sam’s work do on Saturday, done a couple of loads of washing and – that’s right: the meeting. The conference call was at 2pm. Sarah was chairing even though it was her day off, in lieu of the run of Sundays sorting the intranet crashes. The meeting was to follow up on the last error reports, assign tasks and set deadlines for the new system protocols. It was done between sticking washing in the dryer and collecting the kids in the rain. Apparently it was the part of her day that counted.

She blinked again, breathing in, then out, and returned to massaging the chicken. She was too tired today.

“The meeting was fine thanks.”