Monday.
Maths.
The one she dreads most. Months of tutoring, a folder of marked papers, a tutor who told me with a straight face that she was ready. And still, at breakfast, she moved her toast around the plate like a chess piece.
Dropped her at the school gate at ten to eight. Epping Road already humming, parents double-parked with their hazards on, kids in clusters with clear pencil cases.
Didn't say much in the car. Had a speech ready, naturally. Dropped it somewhere around the lights.
She had the pen in her right hand. Not in her bag, not in the pencil case. In her hand, since the front door. The slim black one, the tutor's.
Watched her grip it at the gate. Knuckles pale. The way you'd hold a rail on a moving tram.
That told me everything her face wasn't.
Black ink, I said. That was all I had.
Black ink, she said back. Small smile. Then the gate, the crowd, a flash of her ponytail going in.
Half a day's leave, arranged with Mai on Friday. I didn't ask for it as a favour. Mai just said, Go. Be there at the end.
So I was. Parked early, engine off, a flask of tea on the dashboard going cold. Watched the gate the way you watch a kettle.
The first ones out looked grey. A boy with his hands in his hair. Two girls walking very fast, not speaking.
Then her. Walking slowly, in no rush, her bag swinging.
And smiling. A real one, the kind that reaches the eyes. Opened the car door and dropped in the seat like someone setting down groceries.
Didn't ask. Held the question on the tip of my tongue and let it go cold with the tea.
She told me anyway, somewhere past the first set of lights.
I did my best, Mum. Then, after a moment: I think it went okay. Really okay.
She'd checked a few answers with her tutor, standing at the gate with her phone. Quick messages back and forth. His last one was a thumbs up and three words: Matches mine. Well done.
She showed me the screen. Then put the phone face down on her knee and looked out of the window, grinning at Epping Road as if it had done something clever.
Funny. I'd spent a week collecting things to say. Be calm. Read the question twice. Breathe.
None of it was needed. A pen had already said the useful thing, handed over on a doorstep by someone who knew exactly how much to say. What was left for me was to be there at the end, and keep quiet.
Soup went on the moment we got home. Pork ribs, corn, carrot, a few red dates, the lid left ajar. Then steak for dinner — a thick piece of sirloin from the butcher on the way, the one she asks for. Salt, pepper, a hot pan, patience. She came into the kitchen once, sniffed, and said that's a lot of steak. Told her it was a lot of Maths.
Business Studies is Wednesday. Her best subject, the one she can talk about at dinner without being asked. But I know that confidence. It's the kind that gets people into trouble. She knows it too. After dinner she carried her plate to the sink, said Right, and went to her room, the lamp coming on under the door.
The house went quiet.
I sat at the kitchen table with the laptop and the last of the tea. Opened the Nuveska order page, the way you open the fridge when you're not hungry.
Ten bottles of Probio PCC. Seven for Penny, her book club and Carol, who'd both refused to let me carry the cost. Three spare, because there's always someone.
Then five tubes of AP 24 toothpaste. And five Scion roll-ons.
The toothpaste and roll-ons weren't for anyone yet. Small things that travel well in a handbag. Birthday presents, thank-yous, the sort of thing you press into a friend's hand at the door.
Thought of them like that and the number just grew. Nobody was asking. It simply made sense, one gift at a time.
Clicked through. Confirmation email, same as before.
Down the hall, the small click of a pen.
Sat there, wondering where on the cupboard shelf all of it would go.