Chapter 10
FRASER
‘Don’t let Parker get attached!’ Maggie had warned that first week, over an emergency coffee to ‘strategise’ the apparently wild development of my having uncharacteristically blurted an invitation for Josh’s ‘Sully’, of all people, to become my part-time nanny, dog-minder, music-teacher and flatmate, even temporarily.
She could never abide the label ‘fickle’ (It’s outrageous internal misogyny from your mother, Fraser), but that was before Audrey was quasi parenting her child, and she went into panic mode, reminding me in no uncertain terms of the holy trinity: ‘Parker needs stability and certainty and predictability.’
Was she always this rigid?
‘It’s for Parker,’ I’d explained. ‘You remember the demands of my work. And Audrey understands her, musically.’
Parker had been delighted from the start.
Daddy’s pretty friend from Uncle Josh’s concert moving into her house?
Once the two of them gravitated to the piano together, I had no hope of deescalating the budding attachment, no matter how nervous it made Maggie.
And now, several weeks in, my house is alive with music, all the time, whether Parker is home or not.
When she’s not working through an increasingly complex classical repertoire, Parker has been teaching herself pop songs—on a specific mission to learn the entirety of Taylor Swift’s discography.
I catch Audrey in the doorway now, in jeans and a bulky bottle-green cardigan, nursing a hot cup of tea and listening, her face bright with interest.
‘May I join you?’ she asks at the end of Parker’s emotional rendition of ‘All Too Well’.
Parker launches into the piece again—she has the hyper-focus you’d expect from a neurodivergent child—and shuffles along the piano stool, making room.
Audrey sits beside her, pulls her brown hair up out of the way, and places her hands on the keyboard, effortlessly turning Parker’s piece into a duet, mashing it with ‘Champagne Problems’.
I know that’s the song because, as a single dad, I’ve made it my business to study all things Taylor Swift, keen to stay relevant in Parker’s life.
Up until now, they’ve only listened to each other play. So I’m astonished at how seamless this first go is. The way they anticipate each other’s every move, as if they’re a seasoned duo, their first duet soaring.
Forget Maggie’s instruction not to let Parker get attached. Audrey is bonding with our daughter in a language Maggie and I don’t speak. If this is what it was like between Audrey and Josh, it’s no wonder their reunion seemed so charged. Nobody can touch a shared passion like this. It’s poetry.
When they finish the piece, Parker is wide-eyed. She’s never experienced this sense of being met exactly where she is, only to be so expertly lifted higher.
‘Should we mix “Enchanted” with “So High School”?’ Audrey asks before glancing at me and smiling. My daughter has stars in her eyes. It’s as if Taylor Swift herself has moved into our house and taken a seat beside her at the piano.
The whole scene chokes me up when I realise this is the first time in years that I’ve felt liberated to truly enjoy my child.
Watching her play, I’ve always felt this pride.
Excitement for her. Hope that she’ll cherish this love for the activity she adores and that it will soothe her through all the hardest parts of her life.
Watching Audrey and Parker together, there is nothing but music.
It’s a sharp contrast to the tension that permeated my and Maggie’s moments with Parker, which is not a fair comparison, of course.
Audrey and I haven’t been through the split of the finances.
We haven’t spent years nursing each other through stressful work deadlines or interest rate rises or viruses.
There hasn’t been time to build up a loathing of the way the other stacks the dishwasher or reverses into a car park.
This isn’t that sort of relationship, which puts it at a distinct advantage from the start.
I tell myself not to conflate the two, the way I’ve been ordering myself, ever since the night she moved in, not to think about her in the next bedroom. This is nothing more than the short-term, mutually beneficial rental solution we negotiated. No matter how comfortable it’s all becoming.
No sooner do I allow myself this glimmer of contentment than it’s chased by that familiar pang in my chest. The one I routinely ignore, because I am the parent here. A single one, at that. I cannot afford to feel anything less than strong and stable.
Parker looks at Audrey and says, ‘“Cruel Summer” and “Love Story”?’
Audrey catches my eye. Look at me! Hitting it off with your daughter when I said I’m not good with kids!
‘Why not, Parker? What’s the worst that could happen?’ she says.
They throw themselves at the goal, stumbling and laughing through the duet until the melodies slot into place and float through our house, and I catch a starstruck expression on Parker’s face that I fear is mirrored on my own.
The worst that could happen? We’re only a few weeks in and that’s already becoming obvious.
Parker and I could get used to this. Worse, we could fall in love with this woman.
She could pull her life together.
And she’d leave.