Chapter 1 #5
Grace: By the time the weekend rolled around, I’d sung the ‘Hokey Pokey’ a hundred times and I needed a break.
He had this plastic ball with holes in it and different shapes that you could slot inside through the holes, and I sometimes felt that if I had to pick up those pieces, all wet with slobber, and put them away one more time, I would just start screaming and never stop.
Ken: When six months had passed, I asked her again. I laid it on thick, said I thought Zak needed a little buddy to play with, which was true. And yes, I seduced her. Made dinner, arranged for Zak to be with my parents for the night so we could have some guaranteed privacy.
Grace: You hear about people spending years trying to get pregnant, don’t you? Not us.
Zak: I was two when AJ came along. I don’t remember him being born, obviously. It was like he’d always been in my life.
Danny: That’s AJ’s older brother, Zak.
Grace: AJ was such a different baby. He slept well, he grew at exactly the rate he was supposed to according to all the charts, and he ate everything I put in front of him.
Plus Zak adored him. I thought it would be harder with two, and it was in some ways.
Getting out of the house was a nightmare, getting anywhere on time was impossible.
But the long hours I’d spent with Zak, not knowing how to fill them, that didn’t happen so much the second time.
We’d go to playgroups and toddler classes I’d been doing with Zak and AJ would just slot in.
And when we were at home, Zak kept AJ entertained because all AJ wanted to do was follow him around the room with his eyes.
He started walking before he was one, AJ, because he just wanted to be able to do things with his big brother. And his first word was Zak.
Ken: Grace loosened up a lot that second time. It was a lot of fun, being a family of four. We did trips to the zoo and took them camping. All of that. As Zak got a bit older, I started teaching him practical things, like how to fish and how to swim. Everything my dad had taught me.
Zak: I loved doing stuff with my dad. I think it was just about having his attention, looking back. I think I always had this sense that Mom loved AJ more, and the way I dealt with that was by getting closer to Dad, I guess.
Ken: All the stuff I did with Zak, I thought I’d do with AJ too, when the time came.
But he just wasn’t interested in any of it.
He was always off in some imaginary game or other, making up songs, putting on shows.
He learned how to do magic tricks, loved playing pranks, that sort of thing. Always a performer.
Grace: AJ was born to be a star. He went to this club for kids who were into theatre after school and on Saturdays. They would put on these shows every few months, and AJ was just head and shoulders above everyone else. He had talent to burn.
Zak: I remember going to see AJ’s early shows, yeah. Mom was always super nervous and pretending not to be, and Dad was tapping his legs with his fingers like he was playing an imaginary piano because he hated being still. I loved to see AJ on stage. He was my little brother, and he was awesome.
Ken: I don’t remember when Grace started talking about getting him signed to a talent agency.
He was young, I know that much. Maybe first grade?
Or second? I wasn’t sure at first, but she was the one who’d taken him to all the classes and spoken to the people who ran them and she said it was essential if he wanted to have a career in show business.
Grace: Yes, I signed him up to an agency young. They wouldn’t have taken him if they couldn’t see the potential, would they?
Zak: Mom was obsessed with AJ’s ‘career’.
That’s what she called it, even when he was auditioning for the odd commercial or to model kids’ clothes in catalogues.
It was all about him. I wouldn’t say I was jealous, because I never wanted to do that kind of stuff, to be in the spotlight.
But I did want my mom to notice me. Doesn’t every kid?
Ken: It felt like it happened kind of gradually.
He was doing some acting, some modelling.
Sometimes, at weekends, Grace and AJ would be off doing auditions or whatever, and Zak and I would go camping or fishing.
I asked Zak what he thought about it all once.
We were sitting by a campfire, and I remember the way the flames were reflected in his eyes when I looked at him.
He was maybe ten or twelve. I asked whether he minded that we were so rarely all together, and he shrugged, and I thought I wasn’t going to get anything out of him, which wouldn’t have surprised me.
He was a fairly quiet kid. Always lots going on in his head but he didn’t often give you access to any of it.
But then he said something. He said it didn’t feel like we were a family any more.
That it felt like the AJ show. I knew I had to talk to Grace about it, then.
Grace: Ken engineered this big family talk about where AJ’s career was going. He took us to our favourite Chinese restaurant and waited until we’d ordered. I guess so no one could storm off if the conversation didn’t go their way. He said he wanted to hear from everyone, starting with AJ.
Zak: Oh yeah, that dinner. AJ said he didn’t care much one way or the other about all the performing, and Mom looked horrified.
It was like he’d gone off-script and she didn’t know what to do with him.
It was kind of funny. The wait staff were bringing out sweet and sour noodles and chow mein and every time we thought they’d finished, they’d bring out another dish of rice or some prawn crackers.
So AJ was saying he could give it all up tomorrow but he quite liked the money, and Mom was staring at him like he was an imposter, some kid she didn’t even know.
Grace: AJ had had a bad audition that weekend.
He’d just heard he hadn’t got the part. It was for this candy bar commercial, and it was massive.
I’d thought it was going to be his big break.
But they went for this goofy kid with teeth like a beaver.
I have no idea why. AJ had great teeth. But who hasn’t felt like giving up now and again? It doesn’t mean you give up, does it?
Ken: I looked at Grace for a long time after AJ finished speaking but she would not meet my eye.
Later, in bed, I said to her, as gently as I could, that I thought some of what she was doing with AJ was more about her than him.
That she was trying to make sure he had the fame she missed out on with her dancing.
She was lying very still, next to me, not speaking.
For a second, I thought maybe she was asleep.
But then she sat up, very suddenly, and said that I might not care about helping our son to be the best he could be, but she did.
And she wouldn’t be talked or bullied out of it, or made to feel like she was doing the wrong thing.
She picked up her pillow and left the room.
She slept in the spare room. Started sleeping there a lot.
Zak: Do I think Mom and Dad would have stayed together then if it hadn’t been for the situation with AJ?
I don’t know, man. I doubt it. It’s never just one thing that leads to divorce, is it?
I feel like most of my childhood they were heading that way.
Not screaming at each other, no violence.
Just quietly living different lives. So I think it would have happened regardless, but I also think that AJ’s fame probably sped it up a bit.
Ken: I still thought it was worth rescuing, then.
Our marriage. I asked my mom to watch the boys for a week and I booked us a holiday in Miami.
Did it all as a surprise. I even talked to her boss and got her the week off work without her knowing.
And then the day before we were due to leave, I told her to pack some swimsuits and she asked me what I was talking about.
I showed her the brochure, which I’d stuffed in a drawer.
It was like she didn’t understand at first. But then she did.
She started asking why I’d done it and saying she couldn’t go tomorrow because AJ had an audition and he couldn’t miss it.
I said I thought he could, just this once.
I had honestly never considered a scenario where she refused to come with me.
My mom arrived and there was this heavy silence in the house, and I opened the door and said something like, ‘Shit, I forgot to cancel you,’ and then she was furious because that’s no kind of welcome when you’ve driven three hours to your son’s place to take care of your grandsons for a week.
I was making Mom a coffee when Grace came into the kitchen and said she wasn’t going and that was final.
She looked at Mom and said, ‘We don’t need you here, it’s all been a misunderstanding.
’ They’d never got on, Mom and Grace. Mom thought Grace believed she was better than her, and to be fair, Grace probably did think that.
And Grace thought Mom was a busybody. She was, a bit, but she was still my mom, you know?
So there I was, with these two tickets to Miami and a half-packed suitcase.
I went upstairs and started taking things out of it.
Shorts and T-shirts and a book and my toothbrush.
All of it. Zak came into the room then and asked what I was doing.
And when I told him, he asked whether we could go. Me and him. I stopped unpacking.
Zak: I know a week in Miami with me isn’t what Dad had been planning, but I thought it was probably better than wasting the money altogether. And we had a good time. Days on the beach, nights in the hotel restaurant, me with a Coke, Dad with a beer. It was pretty sweet.