Chapter Twenty #2
I walk with her to the door. Inside, I feel as if I’m flailing about, my arms windmilling as I try to keep my balance, but outwardly I stay calm.
When we get to the door, panic briefly rises to engulf me, and I pull her into my arms. I don’t know how to comfort her.
How can I say everything will be okay when I’ve proven myself to be completely unreliable and irresponsible?
How can she possibly think I’d make a good father for her unborn child?
She rests her forehead on my shoulder and returns the hug. We stand there like that for about twenty seconds, our hands not moving, like two statues, Rodin’s The Kiss, carved into marble.
Then she moves back. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says brightly. “You and Queenie have a good evening!”
“Yeah… you too.”
She opens the door and goes out. A few seconds later, I see her on her bike, pedaling toward the gate.
I close the door, go back into the kitchen, and stand by the counter, staring at the unbaked pizza.
I’m still standing there looking at it a few—five, ten minutes?
—later when I hear a car pull up outside.
My head snaps around, and I stride over to the window.
For some reason I expect Beth to get out—come back to tell me she loves me; or more likely that I’m fucking hopeless and she doesn’t want me to have anything to do with the baby. But it’s my sister, Kath.
Frowning, I go to the front door and open it as she walks up. “Hey,” I say. “Everything all right?”
Kath is forty-five and fighting perimenopause with every cell in her body. She’s recently been promoted to partner at her law firm. She stays fit by playing netball and swimming regularly, and she’s active in the local community. She’s definitely her father’s daughter.
She’s carrying a bag. “Yeah, I’m fine. I’ve brought you some veggies from the garden. I keep promising, and I finally got around to it.” She looks at my face. “You okay? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Uh…” I shove my hands in the pockets of my jeans.
Her expression softens. “Going to invite me in? I could do with a coffee.”
“Um, sure.” I can’t think of an excuse to say no. I back away, and she comes in, smiling as the Spoodle runs up to her. “Oh, this must be Queenie! Hello, aren’t you a sweetheart?”
While she fusses her, I go into the kitchen and start making the coffee. While the espresso pours, I glance at the uncooked pizza, feeling a surge of frustration. I should have convinced Beth to stay. Irritated with myself, I pick the tray up and tip the pizza into the bin.
“Oh dear,” Kath says. I hadn’t realized she’d followed me into the kitchen. “Things must be bad if you’re throwing pizza away.” She leans on the breakfast bar and tilts her head with concern. “What’s up, honey?”
I’ve always been more like our mother, and Kathy’s more like Dad.
She was always the apple of his eye too.
Even though she fell pregnant at the age of twenty while still at university, she was already engaged to the father, and promptly married him, and so managed to avoid Dad’s ire in a way I’m sure I wouldn’t right now if he was still alive.
Despite all this, losing Mum from cancer when I was only fifteen brought us closer together. And when Dad was sick towards the end of his life, we both paid for a nurse, but Kath was forever thankful when I eventually moved back home to look after him.
I trust her, and therefore when she asks, the words come tumbling out. “I’ve just seen Beth.”
“Oh, she’s the one you’ve been dating, right?”
“Kinda. But not really. It’s complicated. It’s even more complicated now. She’s pregnant.”
The full force of it hits me like a saucepan to the head. She’s going to have a baby. My baby. I turn to make the coffee, fumbling with the cups and spilling espresso, and I wipe it up like an automaton.
Her eyes widen. “Fuck.”
“Yeah.”
She studies my face. She can clearly see that I’m not celebrating.
“How far gone is she?” she asks.
“She’s only just found out.”
“Early days, then.”
“Yeah. She did point that out.”
“She wasn’t happy about it?”
“I think we were both just numb. We’re not even dating properly, not really.”
“What do you mean?”
I tell her about Jude, and how Beth and I slept together the night they broke up.
“They were on a break?” she asks, lips quirking up.
“Don’t start.”
“Sorry. It sounds as if they were over, though.”
“Yeah.”
“I mean, it’s awkward, I get that. But you like her, right? I don’t quite see the problem.”
I slide her cup over to her and frown. “We’re supposed to be grownups, not teenagers. When you get to our age you’re supposed to act responsibly, not knock girls up every which way.”
“You’ve knocked other girls up?”
“No…”
“Accidents happen, bro. I know that better than anyone.”
“Yeah, but you were nineteen when you fell pregnant.”
“Archer, you sound as if you’re fifty, not thirty. Honestly, it happens.” She frowns. “You told me you really like her.”
“I do. I love her.”
“So… I’m guessing you’ve told her that? And you said you were thrilled, and proposed on the spot? What happened, did she say no?”
I blink.
“Archer… What did you say?” she demands.
“I apologized for being irresponsible, said I’d be happy to pay for private care, and that I’d support her whatever she decides to do about it.” Even as the words leave my mouth, I realize how cold and heartless I sound. Fuuuuuuck. I am such an idiot.
Kath looks down as Queenie puts her front paws on her knee, and she bends and lifts her up into her arms. She kisses her head and fusses her for a moment. Then she looks over at me. “This is about Dad, isn’t it?”
“What?”
She gets up and wanders over to the window, looking out at the garden, holding Queenie and rocking her like a baby. The Spoodle leans against her uncomplainingly, content to be adored.
Confused, I just watch them, thinking about Kath’s words. What does this have to do with Dad?
I’m guessing you’ve told her that? And you said you were thrilled, and proposed on the spot? My heart bangs against my ribs, and I get a heavy feeling inside. I think I’ve fucked up on more than one level.
Eventually, Kath puts Queenie down, turns, and comes back to the kitchen.
She sips her coffee. Then she says, “Mum once told me that Dad was the most amazing guy she’d ever met.
I mean, your partner should always say that about you, but I could see she really meant it, and I understood why.
He was smart, and generous, and he held everyone to the highest standards, including himself.
” She looks me in the eye. “But he wasn’t perfect. ”
My heart continues to bang. “What do you mean?”
“I know you’ve always placed him on a pedestal, and I’ve never said anything, because I knew you adored him, and, well… Mum asked me not to.”
My head spins. “Not to what?”
“Tell you.”
“Kath! Tell me what?”
“That you were an accident.”
“You mean she was fibbing when she said ‘you were a gift from God’?” My voice is sharp. “I’d guessed that.”
“It means Dad was careless, Archer. Think about that. Our perfect father made a mistake. But it’s not only that.” She hesitates. Then she says, softly, as if she’s afraid he might somehow overhear, “Dad had an affair.”
My jaw drops. For the second time in about fifteen minutes, my brain screeches to a halt. “What? When? With whom?”
“I was eleven. Dad went to Christchurch for a conference with some of the lawyers at the firm. And while he was there, he slept with one of his colleagues. Her name was Anthea. When they got back, Anthea wanted to continue seeing him, but he refused. She turned up at the house one night and caused a scene. I can remember it happening, although I didn’t understand what was going on at the time. ”
I’m so shocked, I can’t think what to say. I walk around the breakfast bar and sit heavily on one of the stools. “I don’t believe it.”
“It’s true. I remember the smell of Anthea’s perfume—it was so exotic and sensual.
Mum sending me to bed. Raised voices. The door slamming.
And afterward Mum crying while they talked.
Later, not long before she died, Mum told me what had happened— that Anthea came to the house to tell her, thinking it would break them up.
But Mum just told her their marriage was strong enough to withstand anything, and Dad told her to go away, and in the end she did, and she resigned the next day. ”
“And it never became public?”
She shakes her head. “Mum said Dad was terrified everyone would find out, but as far as I know, Anthea never told anyone.”
She falls quiet, and we sit there, me breathing heavily, Kath looking upset. “Maybe I shouldn’t have told you,” she says, “but I’ve watched you beat yourself up so many times because you thought you’d let Dad down, and I couldn’t bear it anymore.”
“No,” I say quietly, “you did the right thing.”
“Mum made me promise not to tell you because she didn’t want you to think badly of him.
But they’re both gone. It’s just me and you now.
And I can’t bear to watch you punish yourself because you think you’ve let him down.
He was a great man in many ways. But he doesn’t deserve to be worshiped.
He was just a man, Archer, and you are every bit as good a man as he ever was. ”
“I’m not,” I say automatically.
But she leans forward and taps on the table, saying, “You are, and in fact you’re better than he was because you have a much kinder heart.
We both tell ourselves that we’ve only gotten where we are because he pushed us, but he did it by making us think that if we didn’t meet his high standards, we were a failure.
He made no allowance for the fact that we’re human, and we made mistakes, even though he was clearly fallible. ”
I’m having trouble processing it all. First Beth, and now this.
Dad had an affair? And he forgot to use a condom.
I had so many lectures as a boy and a teen about being careful and responsible, and about what makes a man great.
I thought I could never aspire to his dizzy heights.
And now I find out how flawed he really was.
I feel as if there’s been an earthquake, and my whole worldview has crumpled to the ground. At the moment I’m still trembling from the aftershocks.
What will be left standing when the dust clears?