Page 24 of Textbook Romance

‘He did a shit thing, kids, but he’s still your dad.’

‘We’re only bound by genetics. I can make choices if I want to see him or not. I saw a TikTok about toxic parents,’ Lottie mumbles. ‘He made a choice. He doesn’t want us. He doesn’t want this…’

‘Lottie,’ I say, pushing her curls away from her face. ‘He just doesn’t want me.’ The words escape out of my mouth so very quietly. He stopped loving me, not you. The emotion would hit me at that moment, but it’s interrupted by Dylan clawing his arms around me, squeezing me so very hard. This is when the emotion kicks in. To have my big gangly son envelop me like this and tell me his love still perseveres, that he still wants this, he still needs me. The tears well up in my eyes. Thank everything for the both of you.

‘Hate him,’ Lottie says, pushing us away.

‘We don’t use the word hate,’ I tell her.

‘Then I am not keen on him,’ she retorts, echoing a time when she was little and I said she wasn’t allowed to hate broccoli. She spies my phone on the counter and picks it up, starting to scroll through it. I close my eyes slowly.

‘Lottie, you’re not posting passive aggressive memes on my Facebook again, are you?’ I ask, panicked. She did this in the summer. I had to delete a lot of things.

‘Chill your boots, Mother. I am just doing…’

Her fingers move mercurially over the screen until I hear a familiar sound which lets me know she’s connected the phone to the speaker in the kitchen. And then a song starts blasting through, one I only know because I spend a lot of time scrolling through my Instagram Reels at night trying to sleep. Lottie pulls me to my feet.

‘Come on. We’re dancing this shit out.’

‘Don’t swear,’ I snap.

She ignores me. ‘Dance. You too, Dyl.’

Dylan rises to his feet. We used to do this a lot, the four of us. Some kitchen dance break around bubbling pots, the windows all steamed up, chopping boards full of half-peeled carrots. It’s like she’s doing this to prove we can still do this as a trio.

‘And it’s better now,’ she says, throwing her arms around in wild abandon. ‘Dad can’t tell me my music is unlistenable noise and try to make us listen to Oasis.’

Brian did do that. You can’t dance to Oasis. He wasn’t a graceful dancer in any case. It was like dancing with a turkey who had limbs. Dylan joins in reluctantly, the dancing more restrained, but he looks at me the whole time, waiting, hoping this might help. It does. I sway and pump to whatever this viral pop track is about being back on seventy-four. Whatever happens next, we keep dancing. I feel Lottie’s arms around me in a strange hugging sway when suddenly my phone pings on the counter, breaking the music for a few seconds.

We look down as a message appears from The Anti-Wanker.

‘Who the hell is The Anti-Wanker?’ Lottie says. I smile, too shocked by his name coming up to even try to hide the message from them. ‘And why is he sending you a chicken emoji?’

Jack

She’s not replied to the emoji. I may not have thought that one through. I’m not even drunk. I just went home with half a chicken in a bag, and wanted to end the evening on a nice succinct message that would make her smile. I wanted her to know that I enjoyed her company. I should have just said that. Emojis are immature and lack a certain eloquence. She’ll think I’m an idiot.

I sit here at my kitchen table staring at my phone, willing her to reply at least, but nothing. Damn. My phone starts ringing, and I jump a little at the interruption. I look down at the name of the caller. We’re safe. I click to accept the Facetime.

‘UNCLE JACK!’ shriek two faces into the screen and I laugh at the sight of the very snotty insides of my nephews’ nostrils.

‘George, Barney. To what do I owe the pleasure?’

‘We’re shopping with Dad and we’re bored,’ they tell me. To prove this point, they show me around the supermarket, going up close to a lovely row of tinned vegetables, just in case I’d never seen sweetcorn like that.

‘But you’re helping your dad, yes?’ I ask them. George makes for quite an erratic cameraman – there’s quite a fair bit of heavy breathing and shots of the floor. I am so glad to be witness to this, especially when they zoom in on my brother’s arse hunched over a trolley, examining a very scrappy list.

‘Daaa—ddd.’

My brother turns around. ‘What the… are you filming me? You didn’t record my fart, did you?’ I see Barney keeling over with laughter as my brother, Dom, grabs the phone and suddenly sees my face. ‘Bloody hell… Boys!’ I hear them howling and running off down the aisle. ‘STAY CLOSE!’

He returns his attention to me. It’s a Dom face I know well, one that looks like he’s trying really hard to work out a tricky sum.

‘Well, I didn’t hear a fart.’

He laughs, rubbing a hand across his stubble, his brown hair slightly frizzy at the edges. ‘They’re out of chopped tomatoes. I can just chuck in passata to a bolognese, yes?’

‘Yes, you can.’

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