“Why the long face?” asks Mike who suddenly looks dashing in jeans and tux. “You don’t want to know,” I mumble. “Oh but I do. I’ve always wanted to be an agony aunt. Besides, we can’t eat in silence,” he adds as he plonks his bulk on a chair beside me. * You’re not staying here if you come home in that state again. While you’re under this roof, you’re my responsibility. * Mike is handing me fistfuls of tissues. I try to blow my anger onto them. I stuff my face with the incredibly ugly looking but amazingly tasty pudding. Mine is on a pink plate; Mike’s on a blue. It’s a rainbow house, I think, looking at the tray and dish pile in the sink growing higher and higher. “Your mascara’s run down your face,” Mike says in a fatherly voice. I wonder where my five uncles, three great-aunts are now. The mascara weeps onto the gossamer tissue. I wiped it so roughly across my cheek that it tore. * On the count of five, four, three– * Two minutes pass. I sigh. * One. * Mike’s strong arms are around me, my head spinning and light. I am contained. There will be no breaking loose tonight.
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