Juggling the daily struggles of a busy modern life with maintaining a vegetable garden and cooking its produce is a daunting task to many. In such times, there is no shame in keeping to straightforward methods, though even these can be easily refined. Rather than serving boiled veg as a side dish, invest in a tiered steamer to lock in those bright flavours and crisp textures. It may be a myth that carrots help you see in the dark, but properly steamed carrots will keep the rest of you fighting fit!

  The kitchen at the Marygolds’ detached suburban home that evening was in a familiar state of chaos when Ben finally arrived back from London.

  Lin was partially collapsed on the kitchen island attempting to advise her son as he awkwardly held a large meat tenderizer, all the while her daughter’s incomprehensible techno was blasting through the ceiling.

  Drew stared at her with a raised eyebrow. “So, how hard did you say I should pummel these tuna steaks again? I don’t remember ever seeing Grampa do this.”

  Lin groaned at the comparison to her father. In Vietnam, her parents’ homeland, the kitchen was meant to be a harmonious sanctuary where food grew fresh and was cooked effortlessly in a household collaboration. Not only did this philosophy travel to Lin's childhood home in Hackney, she also had professional chef Dong Nguyen as a father, whose cookbooks and TV shows were credited with introducing Vietnamese cuisine to the British public in the Seventies. While her allotment, plus the tiered herb garden outside the back door was impressive, Lin’s failure to muster up cooking skills at even a basic level gave her a slight chip on her shoulder.

  To relieve Lin from hazarding a guess on whether tuna steaks needed as much tenderizing as their beef counterparts, Ben quickly stepped in and took the lead of meat preparation.

  “Thanks for that, honey,” Lin said, looking on. “At least I’ve got the ‘gatherer’ part of hunter gatherer nailed.” She started sorting through her collection of hand-grown vegetables to back her up.

  “Hmph, we might still end up with something that looks like it was attacked by a caveman.” Drew commented, painting the meat with a spicy glaze he and his mother had collectively invented

  Before Lin could respond, an unusual face in the doorway caught her eye. Upon second inspection, the face was her daughter’s, laden with extreme combinations of mascara and foundation hitherto undiscovered by humankind.

  “Gina, just where are you and your friends planning on going this evening?”

  Gina prefaced her response with a customary sigh. “Nowhere, Mum. It’s just a sleepover.”

  “That’s a lot of make-up for a sleepover, is probably your Mum’s point.”

  “Oh, Rhonda’s gonna be filming some more videos tonight, gotta look my best.”

  Lin immediately ceased struggling with her broken mandolin and rounded on Gina. “Honey, would you like to tell me exactly what happens in these videos, in exact detail, with names and dates.”

  Gina grimaced, while the more savvy Drew snickered. “Okay, okay, that did sound so wrong. They’re not sick videos, we just film ourselves for Rhonda’s channel, doing normal stuff, hanging out, playing games and tonight we’re hosting a seance.” With her parents still not convinced, Gina continued. “It’s the popular thing now. Stay up till 3am and film yourself experiencing a supernatural event for shocks and giggles. It’ll be a laugh.”

  Lin shrugged. “Well I guess I started getting into horror movies at your age.” She moved over to the bundle of veggies next to the stool Gina was sitting on.

  “Mind you we weren't starring in them at your age.” said Ben, “How many people are watching these things?

  Gina let slip a huffy sigh. “Rhonda’s only got like, 35 subs, more people watched me trip over as Lady Macbeth in the school play. There’s no need to be in panic mode, guys.” Drew sniggered at the memory, drawing disdainful looks across the board.

  Lin absorbed her daughter’s accusatory tone like a sponge as she lined up the pea-pods for shelling. “Alright, but it won’t just be us prying if you’re putting this online.” she gently warned.

  As a pot of rice began to boil over on the stove, Drew took initiative and leaped into action. With Ben subtly searching for Rhonda’s account, Lin directed Drew in a floundered manner. “Okay, okay, move it to the back hob so the rice doesn’t burn and we can wipe the front clean!” Drew followed her instructions a minute before she’d said them. “Gina, do you want to learn how to prep veg without losing a finger? We’ve got a lot of peas to be shelled.”

  “Yeah, you could stand to learn some real skills.” Drew chimed in as he checked inside the oven.

  This was Gina’s cue to end her detached observation of this kitchen chaos and return to her glamorous preparations. But before she could leave the kitchen Gina heard a jarring screech of disgust from her mother that made everyone spin around. In this miniscule amount of time Lin had regained her composure. “Err… How annoying, some of these peas were left on the vine too long. It’s fine, there’s enough for you guys. I mean, there’s garden peas for one, marrowfat peas for two, and I’ll just have the carrots. I can take it from here, boys, if you two could set the table.”

  Gina shrugged and wandered upstairs as Ben and Drew covered the cutlery drawer. This allowed Lin the opportunity to dispose of a significant quantity of peas without a witness. They had been invaded by an army of thin, writhing maggots before she could pick them, and her family had low enough opinions of her cooking as it was.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  Dinner was served to the usual round of rapturous apathy and silence expected from two preoccupied adolescents, with the only lively conversation being the debate over who got the sweeter garden peas, settled by a coin flip in Drew’s favour. It was left to the parents to find a less combative topic.

  “So Drew, how’s the university search going?” Ben opened innocently.

  His son chewed on another mouthful of his fairly-earned peas before speaking, as he mentally summarised his morning of listlessly staring at university prospectuses, trying to parse practical information between giant photos of smiling students leaping into the air.

  “Yeah, it’s going really well.” Drew said in a guarded manner which crumbled as he rambled on. “My main takeaway is there are so many more choices than I was expecting. Like, everywhere has a great-sounding journalism course, and I found a ton of specialist courses to consider as well. At this rate choosing is going to take more time than studying to get in.” he half-joked.

  Lin spotted a minor flush of pride in Ben’s face. Despite Drew’s apparent indifference to his father’s work, they secretly hoped Ben was a huge influence on their son’s ambition to become a reporter. Drew was always fascinated by his father’s political cartoons, even when he was too young to know who the funny man with big ears and burning stars-and-stripes underpants actually was.

  Meanwhile, Gina was stifling a derisive snigger. The youngest Marygold had made known her disdain for the academic path in heated discussions with her brother, and defended her lack of an alternative career path in heated discussions with her parents.

  Ben cleared his throat. “Well, make sure to look into the campus facilities and support outside of the course. That’ll make all of the difference.”

  “Oh yes!” Gina proclaimed suddenly. “Gotta make every penny of that debt yoke count! After all, only 65% of graduates use their degrees in their career. Or is it 70%, there’s so much research coming out about it these days.”

  The sing-song cadence of her deafening critique hung in the air, leaving Ben and Lin feeling squeezed between supporting Drew’s academic ambition or Gina’s rare interest in contemporary social issues.

  Drew just blankly shrugged off Gina's shock display of facts and logic. "Don't remember asking you to get involved in my life." He muttered.

  His sister was equally unfazed by this weak rebuff and proceeded to push her point with an increasing number of factoids, and decibels, through the entire mealtime. Once they'd both polished off their tuna, rice and veg, Gina intended to pursue Drew further before he could retreat to his bedroom but to Lin's relief, Rhonda's mother rang the doorbell. Gina squealed and hastily cobbled together her sleepover essentials before boarding the Ford Fiesta that was now a reluctant party bus.

  "See you tomorrow, folks, love you both! Byyyyyye Andrew, I'm off to pursue my dream career through real life experience!"

  "Being a ghost hunter? If you summon a poltergeist, don’t let it follow you home. You bring enough mayhem here!" Drew called back.

  Soon after Gina's departure, Drew retired to his room. “Right, well, I guess I better get back to it. Oh, and thanks for the cooking lesson”

  Lin was still eating, struggling to keep thoughts of weevils to a minimum as she swallowed some rice. “Okay honey, don’t let all the research take up all your time though. Take some breaks to relax, or you’ll wear yourself out.”

  “Yeah, and we’ll make sure to knock on your door so you don’t throw the laptop across the room again.” Ben added.

  Drew groaned and left the kitchen almost bent-double from cringing. Alone together, Mr and Mrs Marygold were free to chat without interruption.

  Ben pre-emptively ended any discussions about work with a plea. “Urrgh, I’m done with them. I swear, if I hear the phrase “diversify your audience” one more time I will slip into a coma.”

  Ben always just barely survived his days in the office, thrown out of his creative kingdom in the garage and forced to grapple with his superiors. Lin was sympathetic despite her own prowess in a corporate environment. “You've imbibed near-toxic levels of bureaucratic bullshit. Let’s start the recovery process in the living room.” She massaged her husband’s shoulders.

  “When are we getting the defibrillator installed by the sofa?.”

  Lin smiled and went to find the 8 o'clock news on the television. Despite Ben's exhaustion, she knew he wouldn't miss the evening round-up of world events, to which he'd jot down ideas and sketches to satisfy the constant demands for new strips.

  “Did everyone else enjoy having an actual Saturday?” asked Ben.

  "Drew hasn’t had a fun day either, he was going back and forth between uni research and studying when I walked in." Lin recounted as she sat beside her husband. "He’s working really hard, that's why we cooked something simple and he got out of making that pulled pork lasagne we saw in the Arcadia Gazette."

  "Aww, well I liked the tuna steak, especially when you do it as an escalope." He leaned affectionately onto Lin. "And with lovely home-grown greens too."

  "Hmmm. Enjoy those, because I'm not wasting time growing peas again. After I threw out the… bad ones, there was only just enough for three meals." Lin continued. "Gina’s been alright, she was off into town with her friends, spending too much.”

  “As is a teen’s right." Ben said, with a slight laugh.

  "I’m hoping we could spend more time with Gina tomorrow, I don't want her to feel ignored. I'm worried she's crying for attention with that macabre stuff she's getting into on social media."

  "You think that's what she's doing? I saw her movies on YouTube, they've put a lot of effort and production into them to just be a cry for attention. I think she’s just being creative?"

  Lin thought on this and shrugged. "I'll admit I don't get the creative mind. Not when I've been translating instruction manuals five days a week."

  "Well, we can chat to her when she gets back if you’re concerned." Ben’s pencil had stalled as the news began its third talking head interview about the mass resignation among the Brexit negotiation team. This shocking political outburst had happened three days ago, and drafting any more funny sketches about it was reaching the stone-bloodletting stages of desperation. “This is going to be a tough week, hopefully the plan to have Monday’s meeting as just a video call still holds.”

  Lin nodded in agreement and suggested a pick-me-up. “Ice cream? Weekend special.”

  Ben stood up whilst pulling his wife into a hug. “I’ll get it, We could get comfy upstairs to enjoy it.”

  He was content to abandon the news as it wrapped up with a fluff story about Cambridge University throwing their money around by offering a bounty for the still missing meteorite.

  Thus the couple decamped to their bedroom to grab a moment’s calm before the storm.