Thirty-seven

Our dinner doesn’t happen. El sends another message to let me know she will be late. Late eventually turns to 8 pm without a text from my wife. I stop checking when she misses all my calls. 

The girls munch their dinner, I drag my spoon through my plate, shoving rice that already lost its taste into my mouth. Maybe she ran into T and they decided to have lunch. I might have done the same if it was Sophia. 

Err... No. I would never go on a date with another woman except if it was for business purposes. 

“Where’s Mummy?” one of them asks, I am not sure who because I am too focused on my plate.

“She went out, she will be late.” 

I push my barely touched plate aside, earning glares from two of them. Their plates are empty, their glasses too. The rules are simple, no one wastes food. But I’m their father, I can get away with it today. 

We shuffle to the kitchen to drop our plates,