Glasgow, Scotland
A late-afternoon note on work and childcare.
She rests her chin on one hand while staring at a spreadsheet, using her other hand to steady a plastic cup of water as her son leans heavily against her knee.
A wireless mouse sits on a cork placemat beside a half-eaten apple slice. A few colour-coded printouts have been pushed aside, with bright plastic building bricks scattered across the kitchen island.
The blue light from the monitor catches the tile backsplash as the late-afternoon sun drops behind the fence.
“Look, Mum, it’s tall.”
“It really is tall, sweetheart,” she says without looking away from the screen. “Give me one second while this sends.”
She checks the clock in the corner of the screen against the progress bar of a file upload. 4:42 pm. The quarterly regulatory filings are due before 5:00 pm.
With her left hand, she pushes the straw through the foil hole of an apple juice box. With her right, she clicks through three confirmation prompts.
A toy dump truck hits the floor with a loud crack. During an automated audio check, she mutes her headset, waits for the green light to blink twice, then unmutes.
Sticky handprints trail down the dishwasher handle.
Her son reaches across the cork mat toward the lit-up keys.
“Can I press the blue one?”
“Not that one, honey,” she says, gently angling the laptop screen away from him. “That’s for work.”
He pulls his hand back and adds another yellow brick to the tower. It leans slightly toward the laptop.
The light on the kettle is still on. Beside it, three peeled carrot sticks sit on a folded paper towel with a loose wheel from one of his toys.
She pauses mid-sentence in an email to wipe a smudge of peanut butter off the ‘E’ key with the hem of her cardigan sleeve. Next to her elbow is a lukewarm mug of tea with a tea stain around the inside.
“Is Daddy coming?”
“When the shadow reaches the fence line,” she says.
He turns toward the window for a moment, then goes back to his bricks.
The fridge clicks on behind them. The sound of the laptop keys mixes with plastic bricks knocking against the counter. From the living room comes the low sound of a television left on, followed by the rattle of something small rolling beneath the kitchen table.
The boy crouches to look underneath but doesn’t retrieve it. A moment later, he’s back at the island rebuilding the tower.
She scrolls back through the form, stops at one of the entries and checks it against a line on the printed sheet beside her. The paper lifts slightly when her wrist brushes its corner. She flattens it again with the side of her hand and returns to the screen.
The boy pushes the apple slice across the placemat with one finger until it touches the edge of the mouse. She lifts the mouse, moves the apple back onto the plate and carries on typing.
She fills out the final box, enters her employee ID, and clicks submit. The upload bar moves slowly across the screen.
“Mum, look, it’s falling!”
She reaches out and catches the top three yellow blocks before they hit the edge of the placemat. She still has them in her hand when the laptop chimes.
The upload completes with a small green checkmark. She shuts the laptop screen, and the blue reflection disappears from the backsplash.
Her son loses interest in the remaining bricks and wanders into the living room, leaving the kitchen completely quiet.