Chapter Twenty-One Fiona
Low alcohol, high sugar, gentle acid: the perfect wine for beginners just trying to find their feet.
On Monday, I sat at my desk, staring into space.
I really needed to take advantage of the quiet.
Lex was at their first day of high school; my parents had taken the girls, who didn’t go back to school until tomorrow, to MONA (Let’s check out this ridiculous gimmick of a museum your uncle has thrown his career away for, Dad had grumbled); and I had several copywriting jobs I needed to knock over so I could focus on my next wine column.
It was useless, though. The ache of longing and wanting and grief hadn’t abated, no matter how many times I chanted you did the right thing to myself.
Worse, though, was the guilt. You’ve done enough, I couldn’t stop hearing Isamu snarl.
Because he was right. I had done this to Satoshi.
Helped to, anyway. I wasn’t the only factor – there was the bar and Birdie quitting and his studies and all the extra hours he’d been putting in to get ready for the Young Somm competition – but I was a major one.
He – like half my family, it turned out, reorganising their entire lives around my needs – had run himself ragged trying to make me happy.
I buried my face in my hands. I had done the right thing – but it had taken me so long to do it, and Satoshi was the one who’d paid the price.
I probably could have sat there for hours – days, even, weeks – torturing myself with all the ways I’d hurt him, all the signs he was struggling I hadn’t seen, but eventually, I had to pull myself together and go and pick up Lex from school.
‘How was your first day, sweetheart?’ I asked, when they emerged from the gates.
They didn’t reply, their flag pins crooked on their collar as they walked straight past me to the car, and something inside me clenched with worry. ‘Lex—’
‘Fiona!’
Fucking hell, not now. ‘Hi, Michelle,’ I said wearily.
‘Long time no see!’ Michelle put her hands on my shoulders and kissed the air six inches away from both my cheeks in quick succession. ‘I’ve been thinking about you all holidays. How are you?’
‘I’m a mess. Is that what you want to hear?’
‘Oh, Fiona, hon, I’m so sorry to hear that.’ Her face was a mask of earnestness. ‘Is there anything I can—’
‘No.’ I walked away.
Lex was silent the whole car ride home, and quiet all through dinner as well, speaking only in monosyllables when my parents asked about their day.
‘Good isn’t an answer,’ Dad boomed, jabbing his finger into the dinner table.
‘Is that what you’re going to write in your essays?
They’ll ask you to give an informed critique of a text, and you’ll just write good? ’
‘No.’ Lex stabbed morosely at a pea.
‘Dad, leave them be, okay?’ I topped up Lex’s water glass. ‘They had a big day. Give them time to process.’
‘This is important, Fiona. You might not understand—’
‘Christian,’ Mum said sharply, ‘listen to your daughter.’
Dad looked at her, startled.
‘Mummy,’ Rosie said, ‘did Daddy write back anything about the flower girl video?’
‘Yes, he did,’ I replied. ‘He said you both looked gorgeous, and you did a great job.’
‘Is that all?’ Georgia asked.
‘I’m sure he’ll have more to say when you see him.’ I would text Matt back and make sure he knew he better.
My dad and Lex made identical scoffing sounds in the back of their throats.
After dinner, once I’d got the girls to bed and my parents had gone back to their hotel, I tapped on Lex’s door. ‘Sweetheart? Can I come in?’
They grunted in response, which I chose to interpret as assent. ‘I just wanted to check in and see how you were doing,’ I said, perching on the end of their bed.
‘I’m fine.’ They hadn’t emerged from behind their book.
I hesitated for a few moments. ‘Starting high school is a big leap. And maybe there are some kids who don’t know you yet, who haven’t quite got their heads around your pronouns, or—’
‘School’s fine. I met another non-binary kid within, like, the first five minutes. It’s heaps better than primary school.’
‘Oh, that’s great!’
I held out my knuckles to them, but they didn’t move.
‘Lex, sweetheart, please tell me what’s wrong.’ I paused. ‘Is it Dad?’
‘It’s you, Mum!’
I blinked. ‘What?’
Lex put their book down. ‘You broke up with Satoshi, didn’t you?’
I stared.
‘You both disappeared at the wedding,’ they said. ‘Then when you finally came back, it was obvious you’d been crying, and he didn’t come back at all.’
‘He – um—’ My mind, normally so far ahead, was struggling to catch up. ‘Lex – how did you…?’
‘I’ve known for ages. Henry’s mum saw you kissing at the graduation barbecue last year. He told me the next day.’
I closed my eyes. Goddamn fucking Michelle.
‘And I was really happy,’ Lex said. ‘But now you’ve ruined it.’
It took me a few moments to get my thoughts together enough to speak. ‘Yes, Satoshi and I were… seeing each other. But it’s complicated, sweetheart. He’s – well, he’s in a different place in his life to me. Sometimes the kindest thing you can do is set someone free.’
‘It’s not complicated. He loves you. You love him.’
‘Lex—’
‘And it’s not like he doesn’t know you. Do you really think he started dating you not knowing what he was getting into? He knows we’re a package deal.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘If you’re worried about me and the twins, don’t be.
’ Lex’s jaw jutted out stubbornly. ‘It’d suck if you went out for a long time and then broke up, but do you think anything could be worse than when Dad left?
And we got through that. It wasn’t fun, but you know what we found out? We don’t even really need him.’
I had to press my tongue to the roof of my mouth, hard, against the tears that were threatening to fall.
‘You’re all we need, Mum,’ Lex said. ‘We could lose everyone else in the world, and as long as we have you, we’ll be all right.’
I sniffed. ‘Sweetheart—’
‘And you deserve to be happy. Like Satoshi makes you. Whenever you see him, your eyes light up. They sparkle. So do his, when he sees you.’
A tear escaped. I wiped it away roughly with my wrist.
‘Maybe you’re right, and it won’t work out,’ Lex went on. ‘It’d be sad, but we’d be okay. We’d all be okay, because you have us and we have you.’
More tears now, inexorable, unstoppable.
‘But maybe it will work out,’ Lex said. ‘Because Satoshi loves you. He really loves you. And if you don’t at least try, then – then I think that’s pretty stupid, actually.’
Unsurprisingly, the next couple of days were a blur. By day, in the few moments where no one needed me, all I could do was stare into space. By night, alone in bed, all I could do was stare at the ceiling, and think.
On one level, Lex was right. Satoshi loved me. I loved Satoshi. It should be simple.
But I still didn’t think I’d been wrong. He might love me now – love me so much that he tore himself apart for me – but I knew better than anyone that love didn’t always last.
And Isamu was right too. We’d only been together for a little while – barely together, at that – and I’d already hurt him so badly.
On Thursday, as I sat at my desk staring into space again while the kids were at school and my parents were out sightseeing, I got a text from Matt.
Babies born, was all it said, with a picture of two tiny red-faced infants in fluffy blue blankets attached.
Know our agreement is once a month but would like to call kids to introduce them.
I looked at the picture, and – for the first time in the last few days – felt almost nothing. Ok, I texted back.
We did the call when the kids got home from school. ‘This is Stephen,’ Matt said, voice tinny through my laptop speakers, ‘and this is Blair, your new little brothers.’
Lex didn’t say anything, and Rosie was gnawing at her bottom lip, but Georgia leaned forward, peering. ‘Is their last name Sinclair too?’
‘It sure is. You’ll get to hold them when you and Mummy come to Melbourne in a few weeks. Are you excited—’
‘Blair is a stupid name.’
‘Georgia!’ Matt and I exclaimed in unison.
‘Well, it is!’ Georgia looked to me for validation. ‘Blair Sinclair. It rhymes.’
Lex turned away from the camera. I could sense, rather than see, them laughing.
After we hung up, Georgia’s expression was still thoughtful. ‘Mummy,’ she asked, ‘is it silly that we have Daddy’s last name instead of yours?’
‘Well, it’s your last name as much as his,’ I replied. ‘You have as much right to it as he does.’
‘But it’s not your last name. It’s not even part of it anymore. If you had another baby, their last name wouldn’t be Sinclair, would it?’
‘I’m really not planning to have another baby, Georgie-girl.’
The words tasted sour as soon as they came out of my mouth, Kieran’s voice echoing through my mind. Can’t you just see him with a baby in his arms?
‘Georgia’s right,’ Lex said. ‘We should be Fishers. Not Sinclairs.’
Their eyes met mine. Satoshi loves you, I heard them say again. He really loves you. And if you don’t at least try, then – then I think that’s pretty stupid, actually.
‘I think so too,’ Rosie said. ‘Because you’re here, Mummy. And Daddy isn’t.’
‘Changing your names is a big decision.’ I swallowed down the inevitable lump rising up in my throat. ‘But we can talk about it, all right?’
… which was what I hadn’t done with Satoshi. In my effort not to be selfish – to minimise the hurt for us both – I’d—
Oh shit. I’d tried to do exactly what Matt had. I’d tried to make a clean break.
I had to resist the urge to bury my face in my hands and groan. Why hadn’t I stopped? Why hadn’t I thought? Why had I let myself get carried away at the wedding and do to him what had been done to me?
I owed Satoshi far, far better than that. Even if I’d hurt him too badly for us ever to come back from it – even if I couldn’t give him what he really wanted – I owed him a conversation.
Sadie and Jonah were on their honeymoon, so the kids weren’t going to their place that night, but my parents were coming around again, and after dinner, I pulled my mother aside. ‘If I go out for a bit,’ I asked her quietly, ‘can you put the kids to bed?’