Page 71 of One Night on the Island

We both laugh a little at my rubbish joke.

‘You okay, love? You don’t sound yourself.’

Ah, mums. They just know, don’t they? I scrunch my nose up and burrow deeper inside my hood, so the cold doesn’t freeze the tears on my lashes.

‘I’m all right,’ I say, trying not to sound as if I’m lying.

She pauses for a moment. ‘Why don’t you come up here for a few days when you get back? It’s been too long since I last saw you. I could do coffee cake. Shall I make your bed up?’

I picture my childhood bedroom, pink fairies on the wallpaper and curtains Mum sewed herself. It’s been redecorated since, but I still feel eight years old again whenever I sleep in there.

‘You do make the best coffee cake in the world,’ I say.

‘Yes, then?’

In my head, I curl up in the armchair by Mum’s fire with a huge slice of cake and a cup of tea, Mum in the other chair with the same. Her book is open on her knees and there’s an afternoon game show on in the background, Countdown or something similarly benign. The pull is powerful.

‘Can we say maybe, for now? I’m not sure when I’m heading back yet, and then there’s work and everything.’ I grimace because I know it sounds as if I’m putting her off.

‘Have I got to come over there to fetch you, young lady?’ she says.

‘Not you as well.’ I smile. ‘Tom’s already booking his ticket.’

‘Road trip,’ Tom shouts loud in the background.

‘We just worry about you, Cleo,’ Mum says, gentle in her reproach.

‘I know. And I appreciate it, but I’m a big girl now. Thirty.’

‘You’ll always be the baby to me,’ she says.

‘The annoying baby,’ Tom calls.

I laugh with them, clinging to their familiarity, wanting to pull them close. My time here has helped me see the parts of my life I need to jettison and the parts I need to hold tight. ‘I better go,’ I say. ‘I’m in danger of freezing solid.’

They hang up in a flurry of goodbyes, and I shove my hands in my pockets to warm them up. The weather up here is extra harsh today, the wind feels as if it could take my skin off.

I get to my feet and jiggle my numb bum, my guts full of pent-up, nowhere-to-go frustration that escapes my body in a long, loud growl. It feels unexpectedly good to let it out. I glance around. There’s no other human for miles so I do it again, a louder and longer animal howl this time, and then again, and then again and again until I’m hoarse and exhausted by the effort but strangely exhilarated too.

Mack

30 October

Boston

THERE WILL BE OTHER PLACES AND OTHER TIMES

I park a little way down the street from the house, in need of a couple of minutes to get myself together before I walk up the familiar driveway and ring the bell. I have a key, of course, but I don’t use it these days when I go over. I feel in my pockets for my cell. I should call, maybe, let Susie know I’m coming rather than drop in, as I often have in the past. It’s never been an issue, but now there’s Robert, it feels like it could be. I don’t know if I have it in me to make nice with him, especially after too much coffee to stave off the jet lag. I’d rather not be put to the test any time soon.

It’s such a beautiful house. Not the biggest or grandest on the street, but Susie cried the first time we saw it, and I knew I’d move heaven and earth to make it ours. I look at it now, remembering the hours spent comparing similar shades of blue to paint the clapboard exterior, the graceful curve of the ivory wrap-around porch, the turret room at the far end that made this house the one Susie had to have. Our bedroom is up there; a rocking chair still in the window where Susie used to sit when she nursed the boys. The house was sold to us as a fixer-upper and, man, did it need a whole lot of work. I’ve replaced pretty much every board on that front porch. I didn’t need a hobby for the first couple of years after we bought it, I acquired several new ones when the realtor handed the keys over. Floor sander, kitchen builder, rudimentary plumber – you name it, I learned it, and without the benefit of my father’s experience to lean on. It was okay though because I had Susie’s dad instead. My gut twists at the thought of Walt, and Marie, Susie’s tiny, hilarious mother. I miss them all; I wonder sometimes if Susie realizes how much, how hard it is for me when they’ve been my family too for so many years. The fallout from a separation ripples out across every area of your life; you lose a damn lot more than one person. Friends are forced out to the edges, relationships you count on struggle, people feel compromised and forced to pick sides. Marie won’t bring my favourite apple cinnamon muffins over at Christmas, my mother won’t stay in the yellow bedroom for Thanksgiving. Change after change. It’s bleak.

Susie’s car is in the driveway, telling me they’re home. No other cars around. That’s good too. I wonder how often Robert visits, if my kids’ hearts sink or leap when his car pulls in. Objectively, I know he’s no threat to my boys, a decent-enough man. Dull, but decent. I huff, pushing him out of my head, and then I forget him completely because Nate comes flying out of the front door and runs down the driveway, waving his arms at me.

‘Dad!’ he yells, high-pitched, blond hair flying, all flailing limbs as he runs along the sidewalk. I’m out of my truck, laughing, arms outstretched, and he flings himself at me. I haul him up; God, I’ve missed him. I close my eyes, relieved, and his skinny arms grip tight around my neck. The smell of his shampoo. The slightness of his body. The childish sound of his voice. I blink away the tears and laugh instead, pulling my head back to drink his face in.

‘Hey, you,’ I say, ruffling his hair. ‘How’re you doing?’

‘I caught the biggest fish this year,’ he says, bouncing in my arms.

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