Page 38 of The Interview
“How’d you feel about that?” Kiki asks him.
“Yeah, Dad, how’d you feel aboutallof this? We’ve kind of grown up knowing Mum had this whole other life before you: another husband, two babies who died. And you know what, sometimesIget sick of hearing about it. Everyone bangs on about Maca and how tragic his death was, how Mum was left with nothing. People actually say that to me,‘Oh, your poor mum. She lost everything.’Yeah, she did, but then she found it all again with my dad, and if all of that hadn’t happened to her, me, Kiks, and George wouldn’t be here, but nobody thinks ofthat. Nobody thinks about how what they’re saying might make me or my brother and sister feel, but especially, how it might make mydadfeel. So, tell us, Dad. How does it make you feel?”
Tallulah’s words cleave me in half. If I wasn’t already sitting, I’d probably have fallen to the floor. My arms feel like lead, my legs like jelly, my body like I’ve been punched in the gut, then thrown into a turbulent sea while winded. I’m drowning, and I can’t think of a single word to say.
“Let’s start with how I don’t feel, shall we?” Cam says, low and quiet from beside me. “Never, not once since we got back together, have I doubted how much your mum loves me. Never, not once, have I doubted how much she loves you, your brothers and sister, and I’m including Harry in that statement because she’s never treated, loved, or thought of him as anything but hers.”
On cue, my nose tingles and tears burn at my eyes.
“Why does this assumption that if Sean and their babies had lived, you wouldn’t be here, only apply to your mum? I had a wife and child who died, too. Why do you assume if that hadn’t have happened, I wouldn’t have still ended up with your mum?”
“Because your first wife wasn’t the love of your life. Mum is,” Kiks says quietly.
“She is, but I was married before I ever met your mum, and probably would’ve stayed married to Chantelle, raisedourkids, never known your mum existed, and you wouldn’t be here. Or I could’ve met your mum, left my wife, your mum left Sean, and we still could’ve ended up together, right? Who the fuck knows, and you’re going to drive yourself insane trying to work the answers to all that out. Life’s full of what ifs, twists, and wrong and right turns.Ourlivesespeciallytook us on the longest fucking journey to get to each other, but hereweare. Hereyouare. How far do you want to take it back, Lu? What if your nan’s dad hadn’t moved over from Ireland, my family hadn’t moveddown from Scotland? It’s taken around fifty-one generations of what ifs, of right place, right time, or wrong place, wrong time moments for you to be here. Why are you so focused on your mum’s path? You were praising her earlier, telling her she was the bravest person you know?—”
“She is,” Lu interjects, her eyes shining with tears. “I just worry about how all this makesyoufeel?”
“You sure? Because it sounds a lot like you’re questioning your mum’s love for me and our family.”
I love him. How? How did I get so fucking lucky?
“I’m not. I’m not, Mum.” Lu fixes me with her blue eyes. “I’m just explaining how I feel when people say that shit.”
“And your feelings are perfectly valid, Lu,” I whisper. “I’m sorry people are insensitive enough to say that shit to you.”
“People are dicks, Tallulah. Fuck ’em all,” Ash advises.
“Fuck ’em all,” is chanted by everyone around the table as we, once again, raise our glasses.
Cam leans back in his chair and lets out a long breath. I still can’t look at him.
“We told you kids what we thought you needed to know at an appropriate age about our lives when you were growing up, but you don’t know everything. You don’t know all there is to know about me and her.” I catch sight in my peripheral of the finger he points my way. “I’ve been in love with her since she was twenty, and what I didn’t know until years later, after she’d married Sean, was that she’d never stopped loving me.”
Both my daughters switch their attention from me to Cam; I look between them and my brother’s.
“Did you have an affair?” Kiki asks.
“Oh, my God, did you two have an affair while Sean was alive? Is that why you reconnected so quickly after he died?”
Another punch to the gut delivered by Tullulah.
Marley sits up straighter.
I finally look at Cam and find my voice. “We did not have an affair. I only saw your dad a handful of times once we split up and I got back with Sean.”
I don’t mention that on one of those occasions we fucked, but when I’m ready and not feeling as emotionally vulnerable as I do right now, Iwilltell my daughters, and maybe even my sons. Perhaps then they’ll understand the connection Cam and I have always shared, or they might judge as harshly as Lu is judging me right now. Who the fuck knows?
“You didn’t split up with Dad then get back with Sean? You left DadforSean,” Lu states, her words delivering another blow, confirming now is not the time to share my and Cam’s past.
“Yeah, I did,” I snap back, feeling defensive. Combative, even. “You all like to joke about me being a control freak, but what I’ve never told you is that when I was being treated for my eating disorder, I was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder.” I swallow down the bile rising from my belly to my throat as I prepare to share things about myself that no one except my parents knows. Things I locked away long, long ago.
“OCPD is different to OCD, which is more to do with anxiety. What I have is an extreme focus on order, control, and perfectionism.”
As if in practised unison, my girls slump back in their seats.
“Something else you decided not to share?” Jimmie asks.
“In all fairness, that is her to a T. How did we not know? When I go on a rampage and scream at everyone to tidy up, we just always call it Georgiaitis in our house,” Ash adds.
