Page 22 of Textbook Romance

Feeding time is suddenly disrupted by a key in the door, a familiar sound once upon a time, but now we all look up at each other in surprise, knowing who is there. I gulp quietly, trying not to let the panic reach my eyes.

‘He really should ring the bell,’ Lottie snarls, grabbing her chicken and heading to the small cupboard next to the kitchen that acts as a utility room, presumably to finish her dinner by eating it off the tumble dryer. Dylan looks up at me curiously, wondering what to do next. Leave or stay or squeeze in that cupboard, too.

I hear his footsteps in the hallway and turn to see his face at the doorway. That face. I’ve known that face for over twenty years; I’ve seen the lines carve themselves into his brow; I know his eye colour is hazel, not green; I know he can’t quite grow a beard on the sides of his face so his stubble at times makes him look like Dr Strange. It’s a face I’ve known and admittedly loved for years but to see it now, the emotion hits me differently. Dread. I dread seeing it because I don’t know what emotion will emerge. Do I hate it today? Do I miss it? Do I want to punch it? He’s come straight from work. I know this because of the shoes but every time I see him now, I see the parts of him that are only there because of me, that only I know about: a button I re-sewed onto a coat; a shirt I bought him for Christmas; a way he walks which makes me think he’s using haemorrhoid cream.

‘Brian…’

‘Nando’s? Is it someone’s birthday?’ he asks. No greeting, no acknowledgement. He puts a hand to Dylan’s back, and I see him shirk from the physical contact.

‘Just a back-to-school treat,’ I say. I hate that he lets himself in here like he still has ownership over this household.

He glances around the place to see if anything’s changed then casually walks over to switch on the kettle. ‘You didn’t reply to my message. Where is Lottie? Can we chat?’

‘I was busy.’ I was eating chicken with a fit younger bloke. Tell him. But I don’t. ‘I guess I’m free now, though.’ I lower my voice so that Lottie won’t hear. ‘You just need to go easy on Lottie. Give her time.’

‘How much time? She’s been angry with me all summer. This can’t go on,’ Brian says, opening a cupboard to retrieve a mug. I hate how natural the movement is, how he knows where everything is in this place. Maybe I need to move things around. I hear the tumble dryer go on in the cupboard and I smile.

‘Are you saying she’s not allowed to be angry?’ I ask him. He makes himself a cup of tea and paws through some bills and letters on the counter.

Dylan gets out of his seat and takes a mug from the cupboard. I see him avoid eye contact, not saying a word, but making a cup of tea and placing it in front of me, an arm going to my shoulder.

‘Thanks, Dyl,’ I say, putting a hand to his arm.

Brian takes some of the junk mail and places it in the recycling bin. Once upon a time that would have been fine, but again, his presumptuousness riles me. I may have wanted to read about getting some new double glazing. He turns from the bin to confront me, his mouth puckered in the way he does when he’s stern and wants to start a fight.

‘Well, I don’t know what you’ve said but you have to help me.’

‘What I’ve said?’ I repeat.

‘I am not the enemy here. I am her father, and she is my daughter. Nothing’s changed there.’

‘Nothing’s changed?’ I repeat back at him, hoping he can hear how idiotic he sounds. You ripped the arse out of their world. You abandoned us, so we sit here, almost grieving you, the life we had. You were there when they were born, we had such dreams for them and the life we wanted to give them and you’ve taken that away from them, our beautiful children. But yes, nothing’s changed, Brian.

‘If you were a good mother, you’d want to help me fix this.’

‘If I was a good mother…’ I repeat slowly. What was that word Kate used? Shitspoon. I want to reply but instead I hear a sound from the cupboard that sounds like someone throwing something. Just not at the dryer, we need the dryer. I don’t have words for Brian, just deep disappointment that he doesn’t realise that something like this, to have found out in the way she did, would be world-ending for Lottie. For our daughter, a child. Before that, Brian was a pitch-perfect father – his emotional intelligence and connection he had with both kids made me so proud. Now? Now it feels like he’s embedded in his own affair, and it feels selfish, it feels miles away from the person I knew and loved.

‘Also, in two weeks we have those tickets for that concert in Manchester. I’m making plans. She was part of those plans.’

She was before you callously flaunted your affair in public. All these sentences play out in my head. In some alternative reality, I have the sass, the confidence to tell him what I think, but I need to maintain some sort of calm. In the face of him misbehaving so badly, I can’t run riot with my emotions too, and confuse the kids even more – I need to be reasonable in a wholly unreasonable situation.

‘We were looking forward to it… Right, Dyl?’ Dylan doesn’t look up but nods, half-heartedly.

‘Is she here? Can I go up and see her?’ he asks. He heads into the hallway and starts shouting up the stairs, treading each step carefully.

I open the door to the utility room where Lottie’s face is like thunder. ‘No!’ she loud whispers at me.

‘Just hear him out?’

‘I will literally shank him with a chicken bone.’

Dylan can’t help but smirk. ‘Well, you wouldn’t because you have super weak forearms.’

She sneers at me from beyond the laundry basket, almost barricading herself in there.

‘Just don’t touch my clean sheets with your chicken fingers… You were looking forward to Manchester?’

‘I was.’

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