Chapter One Fiona
If you want to get depressed or drunk, this will get you there. If you want literally anything else, you know you’ve headed down the wrong path, right?
‘All right, girly-pops.’ I squatted down to Rosie and Georgia’s level so I could hug them goodbye, careful not to let the hem of my grey court dress touch the muddy ground. ‘You have a good day at school, okay?’
‘Yes, Mummy,’ my eight-year-old daughters chorused.
I kissed them each on the cheek. ‘Remember, it’s Thursday, so Uncle Jonah and Auntie Sadie will pick you up so you can stay the night with them.’
‘Yay!’ Georgia said. ‘Thursdays are my favourite!’
‘Uncle Jonah makes the best dinners in the whole world,’ Rosie said.
My offended face was not entirely faked.
Intellectually, I understood the novelty for them of spending one night a week with my brother and his wife.
The regular presence of Jonah in their lives at all was still a novelty, really – he and Sadie had only moved to Hobart eight months ago.
Emotionally, though, it was still difficult to hear that the twins preferred their Thursdays with them to every other night of the week with me. ‘And what am I, chopped liver?’
They both giggled. It was one of my favourite sounds in the world, that identical laugh of theirs, and I couldn’t resist hugging them again. ‘Be good, okay? I’ll see you tomorrow. I love you.’
‘Look, Georgia, there’s Madison!’ Rosie said.
The twins scrambled free of my embrace and ran after their friend, the backpacks they still hadn’t quite grown into bouncing around on their backs.
Just like they had too often over the past year, tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. Watching them run away from me always made me conscious of the fact that my heart lived outside my body.
‘Mum?’
I blinked the tears back. ‘Yes, sweetheart?’
‘Do you want me to come with you today?’
Lex had a serious expression on their face.
They were twelve now and approaching the end of Year 6, so they were usually out of the car at school drop-off the second I turned off the engine, too cool to be seen with their mother or little sisters.
Today, though, they’d lingered, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot.
‘I didn’t want to say anything in front of the twins, but I heard you on the phone to Uncle Elias the other night.
I know you’re seeing Dad today. I thought maybe it would be good – maybe it would be helpful – if I went with you. ’
‘Oh, Lex.’
I pressed my tongue hard to the roof of my mouth.
I was not going to burst into tears at school drop-off.
I was not. There were several other mums and dads watching us curiously, and I was already the laughing-stock of the Parents and Friends Association.
If I started crying now, I would never hear the end of it.
‘That’s so lovely of you to offer,’ I said, ‘but you don’t need to worry. Your dad and I are going to figure things out like grown-ups. It’s going to be fine.’
‘You don’t have to lie to me.’
‘Sweetheart, I’m—’
‘You don’t,’ Lex insisted. ‘You don’t have to say it’s fine. I know it’s not. I know Dad hasn’t paid you any child support. I know you had to ask Grandpa for money.’
I scribbled patricide on my mental to-do list. I’d tried to keep the worst of the brutal realities of the split from Lex and the girls, but when my parents had come to Hobart a few months ago to visit Jonah and me, my father had bellowed, So when exactly is that chump going to pay up so you can stop bleeding me for money?
at the top of his lungs over the dinner table.
The girls hadn’t understood, but Lex had, and the ugliness of that realisation written all over their face had made me want to vomit up all my internal organs.
‘That’s true,’ I said, tasting bile in the back of my throat, ‘but that’s what today’s meeting is about. We’re going to get that sorted. And your dad—’
‘Don’t say he loves me.’
Of course he loves you, I wanted to say, but I didn’t like lying to my children. I had to press my tongue to the roof of my mouth again.
‘I just thought it might be helpful to have me there,’ Lex said stubbornly. ‘So if Dad really doesn’t want to have anything to do with us anymore, he has to say it to my face – and everyone has to hear him do it.’
‘Sweetheart, can I give you a hug?’
Lex paused for a moment – they weren’t much of a hugger, preferring fist-bumps to most other forms of physical contact – then nodded.
I wrapped my arms around them, jaw aching from how tight I was clenching it, my eyes feeling like someone was inside my skull scrubbing them from behind with steel wool.
‘You,’ I said into their shoulder, keeping my voice low so no one around us would hear, ‘are the best, bravest kid in the entire world, okay? And I love you so much.’
They tolerated the hug for a few moments before they drew back, the flag pins on their collar catching briefly on my hair. ‘So can I come?’
I shook my head. ‘It’s going to be very long, very boring, and very, very sensible. And I’ll have my lawyer and Auntie Chess with me, making sure everything goes smoothly.’
Lex studied me. I had to resist the urge to hold my breath.
‘Okay,’ they said at last. ‘But Mum… don’t be nice to him.’
‘Sweetheart—’
‘I mean it. You’re so nice to people, all the time. Don’t be nice to him. He doesn’t deserve it.’
They were completely right, but it wasn’t the kind of thing I could say aloud, not with the prying eyes of a thousand school parents nearby.
‘Tell you what,’ I said instead. ‘How about next Tuesday, when the girls have indoor soccer training, you and I go and have a hot chocolate at Tsundoku? I bet Satoshi has some new books for you.’
Lex gave me a withering look. ‘Cool bribe, Mum.’
‘Is that a no, or…?’
They sighed, exasperated in the way only a pre-teen could be. ‘Obviously not.’
I grinned, then pecked them on the cheek. ‘Have a good day, okay? And don’t let the girls terrorise Uncle Jonah and Auntie Sadie too badly.’
‘I’ll try,’ Lex said long-sufferingly, ‘but I don’t have magic powers.’
I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth again as I watched them walk through the school gates. I’d fucked up so many things in my life, but somehow, in the midst of it, I’d produced three perfect children.
And Matt had walked away from them.
I dug my keys into the meaty part of my palm as I headed back towards the car.
I had to face him today – in person for the first time in a year, instead of over Zoom – and I was going to have to find a way to keep calm and behave like an adult and not just scream how could you?
! and leap across the table to scratch his eyes out.
‘Fiona!’
Fuck.
‘Michelle!’ I pasted a smile onto my face. ‘How are you?’
Once upon a time, Michelle had been – if not a friend, then a friendly acquaintance.
Her son Henry was in the same year as Lex, and we’d volunteered together in the school library every second Friday.
We were in the same parent WhatsApp groups and we’d bonded over our shared dislike of some of the sleazier dads.
But then Matt had left.
I couldn’t volunteer anymore, needing every spare second of every day to either work or look after the kids. I’d tried to keep the more salacious details of Matt leaving out of circulation, but Hobart was small. Once it was out, it was out – and the humiliation began.
‘I’m doing well,’ Michelle said. ‘How are you, honey? That dress looks great on you.’
I submitted to her hug, which came complete with a patronising rub of her hand up and down my back. I’d learnt the hard way that the quickest way out of these interactions was through. The trick was to be as boring as possible.
So instead of Thanks, I’m wearing it because I’m about to go to mediation with my almost-ex-husband, I just hugged her back and said, ‘I’m fine, thanks.’
Michelle pulled back, both hands on my shoulders. ‘You don’t need to put on a brave face for me. How are you really?’
I thought about saying late and making a dash for it, but then Oh no, poor Fiona’s run off her feet, she might be about to completely lose it would go circulating through the WhatsApp groups.
The last time that happened, a group of parents had organised a fundraiser for me, and it had been the single most excruciating experience of my life.
‘Oh, you know,’ I said, mentally crossing my fingers and praying she hadn’t overheard any of my conversation with Lex. ‘It’s not easy, but I’m managing. My brother and his wife moved down in February for work, and they’ve been a huge help.’
‘You’re so brave.’
I resisted the urge to grit my teeth. ‘Just doing my best.’
Michelle leaned in closer, and I braced myself. ‘So, have you met her yet?’
I didn’t need to ask who she meant. ‘No,’ I replied, keeping my voice breezy and businesslike. ‘I don’t want to, to be honest.’
‘Oh god, Fiona, you’re a better person than me!’ Michelle rubbed my arm. I dug my keys harder into my palm. ‘If I were in your shoes, I’d be hunting her down like a stalker. So I could try and understand, you know?’
I might be the only one of my siblings without a PhD, but it didn’t take a genius to read the subtext. Tell me why Matt picked her and not you. What does she have that you don’t?