Five
Harper
I stare at the screen for a full minute before opening it, as if maybe the pixels will rearrange themselves into an apology or a panicked, regretting-everything confession.
But no. There’s the number, formatted in the rigid way of a lawyer’s business card, a name I’ve never seen before, not even a “hi” to pad the impact.
No greeting. No mention of Leo. Just the legal equivalent of “you deal with it.”
I don’t reply. I copy the contact, paste it into a new text, and forward the whole thing to Clara.
My thumb hovers over Ethan’s message, for one second, considering, should I say something?
Should I at least acknowledge the bat-signal level of emotional cowardice it takes to put your entire family on Do Not Disturb, all before sunrise?
I decide that it’s not worth it. No point in throwing more energy into the black hole.
I sit up, my legs dangling over the edge of the bed, yesterday’s sweater pulled down over my knees.
The house is silent, the kind that reminds you, every time you breathe, that something is missing.
Down the hall, Leo is still asleep; I can hear his tiny, congested snores like the world’s saddest white noise machine.
For a second I consider going back to sleep, but there’s no chance of that. I set the phone on the duvet, face-up, as if daring it to light up with something worse. It doesn’t, but two minutes later, Clara calls.
I answer before the first ring finishes.
Her voice is clipped, a single inhale away from a deposition: “Are you OK financially? I know you said last night that you were, but I got the impression that you needed a minute.”
I wince at the reminder of my harsh tone. “Sorry about that. Yea, we are fine. He may think otherwise but he has no idea what I made off the books last year, we’re better than OK.”
Clara’s laugh is a dark thing, so much so that I should probably be concerned, but it makes me feel vindicated in my petty level right now.
“Good. I’m going to put in a motion to freeze the joint account.
See how he likes it when he can’t run up a bar tab at the golf club or withdraw cash for a new girlfriend.
He cannot run away, not from you, not from Leo. ”
It’s the mention of Leo that grounds me. “I don’t care if he ruins his own life, but he’s not going to leave Leo holding the bag. I’ll buy him out of the house if I have to, just tell me how.”
Clara changes into the gentle, lethal tone she reserves for only the most spectacular train wrecks. “I think that’s an honourable aim, but you need to prepare yourself: you can’t force him to step up as a parent. I can force him to pay, but I can’t force him to love your son.”
There’s nothing to say to that. I don’t even know how to come to terms with that being a potential outcome. That thirteen years together doesn’t mean that I know this version of Ethan, at all. Clara waits, maybe sensing that if she pushes, I’ll hang up.
“Thank you,” I say. My voice is weirdly even, no evidence of the mess that’s happening under my skin.
“We’ll win this,” she says, and hangs up after a quick goodbye.
I set the phone down. The room is grey with the morning light coming in through the gap in the curtains exactly the way it always does, and I feel the edges of the duvet under my hands, the small pilings of the knit.
For a second, I just sit there, soaking in the stillness, watching my own breath make the faintest mist in the morning chill.
Down the hall, Leo’s snores turn to a cough, then silence.
A minute later I hear him pad toward the bathroom.
I realize I’m not going to spend the weekend in this house, waiting for disaster to arrive by mail or phone call. I’m not going to let Leo see me dissolve, not even on a Saturday.
I grab my phone again. I open the group chat, Luca, Adrian, Liv, Elsie, and Noah, and type a single line.
Zoo. Today. I need to watch Milo terrorise a penguin. Who’s in?
Within sixty seconds, the responses start rolling in. First, Luca, who has never met a social event he couldn’t overschedule.
Hell yes. I have an outfit for this.
Then Liv: I want it on record that I am doing this for Leo and not because I want to go.
Adrian simply says, I’ll drive.
Elsie’s message is a sticker of a raccoon with coffee, which I interpret as an enthusiastic yes.
Noah’s message is just I’ll pack snacks.
Which is his way of offering support without wasting words.
I let the phone vibrate itself out on the pillow. I get up, stretch, and wander toward the main bathroom. Leo is at the sink, hair already vertical, blinking at his own reflection with the abject horror of a child not expecting to be awake on a weekend.
“Are we doing pancakes today?” he asks, voice thick with sleep.
“Even better,” I say. “We’re going to the zoo. You, me, the whole crew. And you get to pick the first animal we see.”
He considers this, one eye still half-closed. “Can I wear my dinosaur shirt?”
“You can wear both dinosaur shirts at once if you want.”
He grins, toothpaste foam pooling at the corner of his mouth, and disappears back down the hall.
In the kitchen, I make coffee, then savour the first sip, feeling the effects of it already working through my muscles.
I check my phone again, but the group chat is already planning logistics, who’s carpooling with whom, whether “snacks” includes the illicit kind you sneak past the zoo entrance, whether it is technically illegal to bring your own sprinkles to an ice cream stand.
Not a word from Ethan. Not a word from the universe about when or how any of this is supposed to start feeling normal.
I take another sip of my coffee and let the heat comfort me slightly. I am not alright, but I am not ruined, either. Maybe that’s the best anyone can do.
I sit at the kitchen table and open my laptop. I draft a new message to my editor, Rachel. “Book progress update: I’m on it. Expect chapters soon. P.S. If you need a plot about someone murdering her ex with a frozen ham, let me know.”
I send it, then close the laptop. I watch Leo outside, already in the backyard in his pyjamas, kicking a soccer ball despite me telling him about our outing.
I put my phone in the middle of the table, let the notifications ping around me, and make a silent promise to myself: I will not disappear on him, I won’t loose myself to the sadness or the drama.
I will go to the zoo and watch the penguins. I will cheer for the underdog. I will bring my own sprinkles, just to prove I can.
I finish my coffee. The house fills with light.
At 8:36 a.m., Leo has already mapped out a complete zoo itinerary.
I find him at the kitchen table with a pen, a highlighter, and three pages of the printable zoo map that he asked me for the second he came back inside, cross-referenced with a list of the animal feeding times.
He’s eaten two bowls of cereal, lined up all his plush dinosaurs on the windowsill for moral support, and re-packed his backpack twice because “my diplodocus needs to see the lemurs, Mom.” It’s not even 9:00 and the kid is vibrating with purpose.
I love him for it. I love him so much I want to hide in the pantry until this entire phase of life is over, but here we are.
He starts with a direct order. “We need to get to the main gate before ten, because they open the doors at ten and I want to be at the penguins before they get fed.” He pauses, eyeing me over the map. “Can we stop for a chocolate croissant on the way? For energy.”
“Two, if we’re making record time,” I say, and the smile I get in return nearly decimates me. Who in their right mind could not want him? I try to focus back on the present and not the crushing pain I feel on Leo’s behalf.
We load up the car. I let Leo sit up front, even though I’m technically supposed to wait until his next birthday.
He holds the zoo map flat on his lap the entire drive and narrates a minute-by-minute game plan for the day, which includes, but is not limited to, “Milo will definitely try to eat a snack off the ground,” “Liv will want to see the snakes, but pretend to hate it,” and “if you see a guy in a huge hat it’s probably Luca, and you have to warn me so I’m ready. ”
We park. Leo’s already unbuckled and out of the car before I can even grab my bag. He has his backpack on. In one hand, the map; in the other, a new dinosaur necklace he made for Liv in class, because he’s decided she should have it for “good luck in case of wild animals.”
The zoo at opening hour is a weird, hopeful place.
The other families are still soft, a little glazed, like they are not entirely convinced of the day’s merits.
The smell of baking pretzels mixes with sunscreen and the faint undertone of animal shit that never really goes away, no matter how many zookeepers you throw at the problem.
The sun is already bright, but the shadows are still cool.
Elsie arrives next, predictably, and I see her before I hear her: a double stroller gliding over the stones like a tank, Maisie in the front seat with both hands neatly folded, Milo in the back, arms windmilling at a frequency previously unknown to science.
Elsie herself looks put together, but only if you compare it to her usual get up, her shirt is inside-out, her shoes are mismatched (one with a visible Sharpie patch), and there’s a juice box wedged in the crook of her elbow.
Noah walks beside her, hand on the stroller, the picture of calm.
He has a canvas backpack slung over one shoulder and a paper bag in his free hand, which I know without asking contains at least two kinds of muffins and a litre of coffee.
He looks happy, in the resigned, peaceful way of someone who has accepted their fate as a pack animal and found it’s not the worst thing in the world.