Linda returned to the living room and resumed watching TV. There wasn’t much on at this time that interested her, so she just switched to the local news. After a while, Jon entered and announced that dinner was ready.
Linda nodded and followed her son to the kitchen where she found Mikey finishing setting the table and Zoe was helping Jon with the final stages of the cooking. She could hear the washing machine going so that must have meant that Mikey and Zoe had got the laundry loaded. Linda took her seat and waited for the meal to be served. She had to admit that it felt a little odd as normally everyone else was at the table while she did the cooking.
“Dig in mom,” Jon told her as he set the pasta on the table. To Linda’s surprise, it actually looked quite good, as in it wasn’t laid out in a heap of mess, it was actually quite well presented for pasta.
“Zoe helped me with the sauce,” Jon admitted as he sat down and helped himself. “But everything else went ok.” Linda nodded.
“I have to say, Jon, this looks really good.” Linda took a mouthful. “And it tastes delicious.” She added. Jon smiled proudly.
“Thanks, mom.”
“I might even let you cook more often at this rate.” She continued, half-jokingly.
The rest of dinner went smoothly with the conversation turning to how Linda’s children did at school. Again, surprisingly, they were more animated about the subject with Mikey even going into great detail about one of the projects that he was working on in class. Normally they just answered with one-word sentences, like fine.
When everybody had finished their meal, Linda got up to load the dishes into the dishwasher and clear up the table, but Jon stopped her.
“Don’t worry mom, we’ll handle this. You go back to the tv.”
“Are you sure?” She looked at all three of her children who nodded. “Ok then,” She shrugged her shoulders and left the kids to it.
“I’ll wash the pots and pans while Zoe, you can load the dishwasher,” Jon instructed. “Mikey, the washing machine should be done by now so you can move the clothes over to the tumble dryer.”
Both Mikey and Zoe acknowledge his instructions before setting to their tasks. Once Zoe had loaded the dishwasher, she helped Jon dry the pots and put everything away.
“All done, mom,” Jon announced as he poked his head into the living room. Linda turned her head.
“Already? That was fast.”
“Yeah, Zoe helped me tidy everything up,” Jon explained. “We’re going upstairs to do our homework. And Mikey asked me if I could help with his.”
Before Linda could say anything, all three of her kids bounded up to their rooms.
