Chapter 23 #3
I roll my eyes and keep feeding Maeve. She seems to love the banana, mashed though it is. We are, I suppose, back to pretending I do not know he and Laura have retired from the team babysitting game for good. It is a pity I am not in the mood for pretending. I am ready for the big reveal.
‘I doubt you’ll be doing much babysitting together in the new year, though,’ I say, eyebrows raised. Good one, Nora.
Luke stares hard, and I do not blink or look away.
‘You really are fucked in the head, aren’t you?’ he replies, taking his mug of coffee and leaving.
I look at Maeve, stretching my mouth in an exaggerated downwards motion, and she watches me from her chair, taking it all in.
Fran looked at me in that share-house dirt garden like I was joking, like I was being a bit mean.
‘I’m serious. We should kiss and you should come home with me,’ I said, holding on to a scrap of hope that he might go against his better judgement, just this once. For me.
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ he replied.
‘I want to, I do.’
I clutched tight to the delusion that I was gifting him something, I was opening a door that had been closed, and getting the timing right for once in my life, even as every sign pointed in another direction. Of course, I was a fucking mess who knew nothing.
‘I don’t, though,’ he replied, firm, staring straight into my eyes.
‘Oh.’
‘I don’t want to keep doing this. You haven’t talked to me for a year, you can’t act like I don’t exist and then act like I’m everything you want just because you ran into me on the street,’ he said, with an anger I had never seen in him before.
‘I’m sorry, I –’
‘No, don’t. It doesn’t matter. We aren’t friends, Nora. Friends don’t treat each other like this. I’m sorry I came, and I’m sorry I let this drag on for as long as it did. I can’t do it anymore.’
And he left. It was months before I took stock of the situation, only really starting to unpack it since I have been home.
And now I cannot breathe for the shame of it all.
My face had been covered in mascara, eyes puffy, hair a rat’s nest that stank of cigarettes.
My body was bones because I could not care for myself well on my own.
I had slept with him and then abandoned him because I did not know how or even want to be around him while I was pearl-diving at rock bottom.
Of course he hadn’t wanted to kiss me. Of course he would never want that again, or to even be friends.
He had finally seen the whole mess, just like I had always feared he would.
Maeve blows a raspberry with perfect timing, and we both end up laughing, covered in disgusting sticky mess. Mashed banana’s cursed texture aside, we continue our morning together and it is atonement for my brittle soul.
By the time everyone is awake, showered, caffeinated and ready to exchange presents, I am sick of the day and the sight of them all. I know I am the problem; I am the one who is making things difficult, but I cannot seem to redirect. Mum is the most offended with my lack of Christmas spirit.
‘Cheer up, Nora. You look as though someone has died,’ she says with a joyless laugh. ‘And don’t tell me that’s just your face. I saw you smiling earlier with Maeve, so I know you’re capable of it.’
‘Sorry my poor mental health is ruining your view,’ I reply, reverting to a teenage state I perhaps never left.
This house, these people.
‘Hey now, it’s Christmas. Let’s try to get along.’
Dad only intervenes when things are dire, and even then the most he can say is barely anything at all.
It gives his input more weight, where I think it should give it less.
He isn’t on the field with us, contributing to the emotional back and forth that keeps things moving from one end to the other; he is in the stands, a distant observer of all of these feelings, and all of this hurt.
He should not get a say. I plan to tell him as much, but there is a rap on the door. Grandma Sue has arrived.
If only I could say Fran’s rejection of me on Park Street was my rock bottom.
It is certainly as deep as my mind has allowed me to venture until now, but something about Christmas Day has beckoned to me to look again.
Maybe it’s not even about digging deeper, or about any kind of depth at all.
Perhaps it is more like the formation of a planet – enough memories have been out there, floating in orbit for long enough that they have now combined, creating a magnetic field of their own.
And what is being pulled into my perception is another night, a worse night, the worst night.
A night that started with a wedding and ended at the hospital, my world obliterated.
Cleo was invited to the wedding of a classmate, and begged me to come along as her plus one.
It seemed bizarre to me that people our age were even allowed to get married, but apparently this couple, Amanda and Daniel, had been together since they were kids and got engaged when they graduated high school.
This filled me with inexplicable rage, and I took every opportunity to poke fun at their life choices, my stick burning and little humour in my jokes.
They were boring, sad, pathetic normies, recreating the lives of their parents because they had no imaginations.
I said yes to Cleo’s invitation because I could not think of what I would do at home alone for a weekend, and because of the open bar.
The wedding was being held at a historic estate home two hours out of the city.
We left the city after breakfast in a car Cleo had rented for the weekend.
Cleo had organised a room for us to stay the night in at one of the cottages on-site.
She even lent me a dress to wear, flouncy and floral, putting every piece in place for the night to go smoothly.
Clearly, she did not know me well enough.
I had seen to that. Or, she did not understand how little I knew myself.
I was all reaction, nothing solid, so her trying to predict an outcome only ensured it would go the other way.
‘Let’s get some snacks for the road,’ she said when she pulled over to use the toilet at a petrol station on the side of the highway.
I had gone before we left, and would give myself one hundred consecutive UTIs before I would ever use a roadside public toilet.
‘I’m not hungry, but you go ahead.’
‘You’re never hungry – I’m starting to worry about you. I would never comment on someone’s body . . .’
‘Great, neither would I. It’s weird how people get so obsessed with how another person looks, isn’t it? Like, get a hobby, weirdos.’
‘Yeah . . .’
Cleo took the billboard-sized hint and went for her pee and pretzels.
A more put-together woman than Grandma Sue does not exist. Everything about her is as it should be – her waist and feet are tiny, her voice smooth, and her clothes have never once contemplated even the idea of being creased.
Her nails and lips are always glossy red, and her silver bob curves under her chin as though moulded that way.
‘It dries like that naturally,’ she once said when I asked her how she managed it. ‘She uses hot rollers every day,’ Mum had whispered out the side of her mouth, taking on the petulant role that I inhabit in our mother–daughter dynamic.
Grandma stands in the doorway with her leather carry-all, waiting to be invited in.
‘Gran!’ Olivia exclaims, rushing forward to envelop her in a gentle embrace, Maeve hanging from her hip.
‘You’re a model, look at that hair.’
Grandma cannot get enough of Olivia’s hair.
Olivia cannot get enough of Grandma’s complimentary attention.
It is a dance, and they both know the steps.
Luke hangs back, waiting in the wings for his turn.
Maeve squeals when her cheek is pinched, and Olivia retreats to manage the fallout of that, holding her daughter close.
When Grandma gets to Luke, she takes his face between her hands and kisses him once on each cheek.
‘So handsome,’ she exclaims.
Dad takes Grandma’s bag and makes himself scarce.
‘You’re early,’ Mum says with a stiff smile, getting up from the couch strewn in wrapping, kissing her mother on her cheek.
‘I thought I could come and give you a hand with your salads. I know how difficult you find hosting,’ Gran says.
Her eyes scan Mum, up and down, up and down. I feel as though we are all holding our breath.
‘It’s a good thing you’ve put on a bit of weight, it helps your face have a bit more volume,’ Gran says, pushing her own cheeks up to signify what she means.
I am impressed and terrified that she managed to fit two insults within the one compliment.
She does not look my way or say a single word to me.
Though uncomfortable in its pointedness, I am content with how this has played out, knowing it could have been much worse.
I included her on my ‘surprise, I’m autistic’ text message that I sent to everyone I thought deserved an explanation after my official diagnosis.
In hindsight, it was a little too much too soon; I should have given myself more time to process, I should have at least waited until I was home.
She replied with an ‘X’. We have not communicated since, and I do not believe today is the day we shall rectify that.
I back away slowly and leave the production behind.
Out on the balcony, the table is already set and I dare not touch a thing.
I lean on the railing to look and breathe.