Page 25 of The Family Across the Street
‘You’re a good kid. I’ll get back on my feet again soon.’ He was positive about getting a job after his fourth beer. Not so positive after his seventh. He lost the job because the manager of an appliance store needs to be able to account for missing stock. And because a beautiful woman is always worthy of an expensive gift. I only put those things together later. He could have bluffed his way into a new job but he turned up to a few too many interviews slightly hungover because, ‘Your bitch of a mother has sapped my confidence. If it weren’t for her, I would have had my own shop.’
He aged as I watched him, day by day and week by week, only happy when he had enough beers in him to point out all the things my mother had done to screw up his life.
‘And she wouldn’t have another kid.’
‘And she hated cooking.’
‘And she was just lazy and didn’t want to get a proper job.’
‘And, and, and.’ He never ran out of complaints about her.
I could see, on some level, that he was blaming her for his mistakes, but then I would go visit her and she would say, ‘You don’t want to turn out like your father. You need to study to get somewhere in life. I want you to have choices. You need to stop hanging out with those boys, they’re not good people. Maybe you should get a haircut, perhaps you should join a gym…’ and on and on. I didn’t care if what she was saying was right or not. Telling someone else how to live their life is never right, and I imagined that once I found a woman who I could be with, she would not be that kind of woman. Children are not chess pieces, but back and forth I went between them, until that wasn’t possible anymore.
Now, as I tear myself away from the past forever boomeranging in my head, I realise that the kids have been gone for a while, longer than they should have been. She is quiet on the sofa, watching me.
‘They’re taking a long time,’ I say to her.
‘Oh, you know… they put the iPads down and forget where they are.’ She swallows quickly, swallowing down the truth. They are not just looking for their iPads.
‘They’re not stupid.’
‘Of course not, they’re just looking for their iPads and maybe… I don’t know, going to the toilet. They’re just little.’
Her eyes dart to the door of the family room and I know that something else is going on up there. They ran up the carpeted stairs together but they’re quiet now and they should only have been gone a few minutes.
‘I might just go and see what’s happening,’ I say.
‘No, please, they’ll be back in a minute. You don’t have to.’
‘I know I don’t have to,’ I laugh, ‘I want to.’
12
Katherine
She sits on the sofa, cradling Sophie’s stuffed monkey. ‘Stay here,’ he warned her, and then slowly, horrifyingly, he followed them up there. She stands up and sits down again quickly. He told her to stay.
She is trying to think of a prayer, any prayer beyond the words ‘please God’. She wants to say something different but her mind is incapable of forming proper thoughts right now. She closes her eyes so she can hear better but only silence wafts down from the children’s bedrooms.
He has taken the gun with him. She could, theoretically, run now. She could get up and race to the front door and outside. Theoretically – but as if she would leave the children, as if it would even be possible. And he knows this.
She looks over to the window that faces out onto the garden. If it were closer to the street, she could open it and call for help, but all the houses in this road have large gardens and thick walls. And it would only anger him further if he heard her.
Glancing at the shelves above the television, she studies the rolls of wrapping paper, waiting to be used. The twins will be six years old in three days. She drops her head into her hands. They have a party planned for Sunday afternoon. They have hired a jumping castle for the garden. Her pantry is filled with party bags and last night she wrapped the first of the presents she had bought them. She has possibly gone overboard this year because as she was shopping for them a few weeks back, she thought, What if John and I are no longer together next year? A stray thought that shocked as it appeared. This is not a space she expected to be in, not now. She believed she had chosen John so carefully, been so sure. This shouldn’t have happened.
But by last night she was certain that she was headed for a divorce, that it was only a matter of time, and John knew it as well. ‘You can’t do this,’ he’d said to her a week ago, when she first suggested that they take some time apart. ‘It’s starting to affect the children,’ she’d said. ‘We need to just give this marriage some space to breathe. You’re always angry at me.’
‘You make things so hard.’ His jaw clenched; his crossed arms locked out any real discussion.
‘I understand you think that. I know you’re unhappy and I’m unhappy too and… maybe we need some time.’ She had rubbed her eyes, keeping away tears, needing to show strength.
‘You can’t do this,’ he’d said, shaking his head. ‘I won’t let you do this.’ What had she felt then? Relief, she thinks. She had assumed it meant he wanted to really talk, to understand her concerns.
And then everything changed. Last night’s argument, over texts from another woman, and now Katherine is here… her world upended.
Standing up, she goes to the door of the family room. She’s not going to sit here any longer. But then she panics at what he might do if she disobeys him. If something happens to the children… I will not be told what to do. Easy to say if there were no children involved. They make a woman, a mother, so vulnerable. She is terrified to disobey him. Terrified for her children. Quickly, she sits down again.
Last night’s argument repeats itself, John pulling at his dark hair, frustration making him grit his teeth.
