Page 59 of The Inn on Bluebell Lane

“Mummy, you said crisps, not chips,” Ava piped up. “You’re sounding British!”

“So I am,” Ellie agreed with a tired smile.

The kettle clicked off, and she brought Gwen her tea, and fried the mince up with a jar of tomato sauce.

“Where’s Daddy?” Ava asked, sounding bored, and Ellie tried to answer pleasantly.

“I don’t know. He went out somewhere. Maybe he had an errand.” Although since he couldn’t drive with a broken arm, Ellie didn’t know what he’d been doing in Llandrigg. “Ben!” She picked up the open packet of crisps, her voice full of exasperation. “I told you…!”

But her son was nowhere to be seen.

Jess slunk into the kitchen just as Ellie was laying the table.

“Ew, bolognaise,” she said in a tone of disgust.

“I thought you liked bolognaise?” Ellie tried to keep her voice light.

“No, of course I don’t.” This, despite Jess having asked for seconds of it only last week.

“Well, I’m afraid it’s all there is tonight,” Ellie said as cheerfully as she could, and Jess grimaced.

“I won’t eat it. I’m not hungry, anyway.”

Ellie suppressed a sigh. “Jess, you need to eat.”

“I told you, I’m not hungry!” Her daughter’s eyes flared with sudden rage, and Ellie feared, a sheen of tears. What was really going on here?

“Jess, sweetheart, is everything okay?” she asked in a gentler tone, which had the effect of making her daughter even more furious.

“Why are you even asking that? Why would you think it wasn’t?”

“Because you seem—”

“What?” Jess flung at her like an accusation. “What do I seem, Mom? Go on, tell me.”

Ellie stared at her in helpless bafflement. “Like you don’t like bolognaise,” she said at last, on a sigh. “Oh…!” She hurried to the stove where the supposedly simmering sauce was now smoking. “None of us is going to like bolognaise tonight,” she muttered as she took the pan off the Aga. She hadn’t yet got the hang of cooking on it, and she feared she never would.

Jess huffed theatrically, as if the burned bolognaise was somehow proof of her own dislike, or perhaps just her mother’s obvious inadequacies, and something in Ellie snapped.

“That’s enough, Jess,” Ellie said shortly, and her daughter let out an aggrieved cry.

“I didn’t do anything.”

“You’ve been moaning and whinging since you came in the kitchen,” Ellie retorted, knowing she should stop, yet somehow unable to. “And I’ve had quite enough, thank you very much.”

“You’ve had enough!” Jess repeated in a voice that was half-snarl, half-sob. “I’ve had enough! I hate it here! I hate Wales! And I hate you!” With another sound, that was definitely a sob, she stormed out of the kitchen.

Ellie heaved a sigh as she started scraping the burned bits of the bolognaise into the bin. She shouldn’t have lost her temper like that, she knew, but sometimes it was so hard, one thing after another, all of it feeling so relentless, so endless.

The front door opened, and Matthew’s voice floated through to the kitchen.

“I’m home!”

Ellie closed her eyes briefly and prayed for patience. Her eyes were still closed when he came into the kitchen.

“Hey.” He sounded concerned, and wearily Ellie opened her eyes. “You okay?”

“Sort of… not really,” Ellie managed, although she was glad for the tender expression on her husband’s face.