CHAPTER 16
Poppy turned a slow three hundred and sixty degrees and exhaled. Who knew you could clean an entire three-bedroom house while wearing a three-month-old? She could be hired as a back-up dancer and tour the world; she had the core strength of a stripper!
The floors were mopped and vacuumed, the toothpaste spit had been scrubbed off the bathroom mirror and she’d degreased the shit out of the stovetop. It was a scene from The Stepford Wives , minus the dystopian robots. She wasn’t sure whether the clean grout would be visible to the naked FaceTime eye, but hopefully the cumulative shininess would create an aura of domestic bliss. At the very least, the cleaning had been a distraction from her anxiety.
By the time Poppy settled onto the couch in a shirt she’d spontaneously ironed, Maeve—who sat on her lap—had even deigned to stop crying. She tapped her phone and the FaceTime dial tone jingled through the living room before a giant smile filled the screen.
‘Hey, Mum.’ At least, she assumed it was her mum. She couldn’t tell under the blowfly sunnies and face-scaldingly-pink visor.
‘Darling, how are you? Have you washed your hair? You look lovely.’
‘Yep.’ Poppy swelled with pride. ‘And Maeve is wearing the new outfit you bought her.’
‘Oh, good girl. It’s pure wool so make sure it doesn’t go into the hot wash pile.’ (Poppy made a mental note to commence the adult practice of separating her laundry. Maybe after she finished the ironing. Ha!) ‘What’s the occasion?’
‘No reason,’ lied Poppy. ‘Just wanted to show you Maeve in her outfit.’
‘Oh, thank you, darling. I’m just about to tee off for Twilights but should I pop over afterwards?’
‘No thanks, Mum.’ (Who knew how long they’d be on the phone to Patrick? There was a lot to catch up on.) ‘Good luck with the bunkers. I’ll chat to you later.’
Her mum rang off, and Poppy re-hoisted Maeve on her lap and relaxed her jaw into a breezy smile. She’d left nothing to chance. This was it.
The FaceTime dial tone filled the room again, and Poppy and Maeve stared at their faces on the screen, Poppy noting with satisfaction that her experimental contouring had dulled the black circles under her eyes. She couldn’t wait for Maeve’s eyes to blink in surprise when Patrick’s face popped up. Finally, her daughter was going to have a father—on screen, if nothing else. This was a momentous day.
Regardless of how the conversation went, Poppy had resolved to be positive. Today wasn’t the day to confront Patrick about his hurtful behaviour. She’d ease into that conversation after a few more FaceTime chats. Confrontation had never been her strong point and she didn’t want to lash out during Maeve’s first meeting with her dad. Kids ended up in therapy for much less.
The dial tone rang out.
Poppy checked her watch. She had purposefully waited until 4.30 pm to call. Patrick ritually moved to the pub by 4.30 pm on Fridays. She decided to try again. Maybe he was still in the elevator.
It rang out again.
Frowning, Poppy opened up her text thread. His message had definitely said K —she hadn’t imagined that. And surely that was short for ‘OK’? Poppy checked her watch again. She’d try in ten minutes. Maybe he had a new boss and had been held up in a meeting.
At 4.40 pm, he didn’t pick up.
She tried again at 5 pm, but he still didn’t pick up.
At 5.15 pm, he didn’t pick up.
At 5.30 pm, he didn’t pick up.
Poppy pinched the bridge of her nose, determined to stay optimistic. She’d give him until 6 pm. It was time for Maeve’s bath anyway.
As she ran her hands under the water to test the temperature, Poppy forced herself to attempt some yogic breathing. Inhale for four, hold for four, exhale for four . There was no reason to get upset. It wasn’t even that late. It wasn’t Patrick’s fault that she’d been up since 4.45 am with a clingy baby. Lots of people’s days—Patrick’s included—only started once the sun went down. Poppy lowered her daughter into the bath, cradling Maeve’s head on her forearm as she filled a cup with bathwater and poured it over her daughter’s belly. It wasn’t Patrick’s fault she was already thinking about bedtime routines. He had no idea their days began winding down now.
At 6 pm, with Maeve in fresh pyjamas, she tried again. The ringtone pitter-pattered up and down and up and down, like her rollercoaster of a day, then abruptly cut out. FaceTime Unavailable it said.
Breathe . Poppy punched out a text.
Hi I thought we were going to FaceTime? Maeve is about to go to bed .
Instantly, three dots appeared. Proof of life! Poppy waited, but the three dots disappeared.
Swallowing hard, she punched the green button and called him. It rang out.
Breathe, breathe, breathe . It was proving hard to exhale through her rigid jaw. She knew he had his phone with him. Why couldn’t he just pick up? Why was he forcing her into this obsessive version of herself? She couldn’t give two shits if he wanted to ghost her, but this was about her daughter— their daughter. Maeve’s future self-worth depended on it.
Her phone beeped with an incoming text : FT not gonna work today. At Ryan’s .
Poppy’s neck muscles went stiff. We don’t mind. Just call us from the beer garden
Nah—will call later
When?
The air outside was now liquid black. Poppy waited and waited. No three dots appeared.
Screw it . She called him again. This time it didn’t even ring. She tried him again and again and again. She carried Maeve to her bedroom and lay her gently in her cot, kissed her goodnight, closed the door, and she called him again.
A text arrived. FFS Poppy! I’m meeting with clients .
Poppy barked a bitter laugh. Of course—so-called ‘clients’ appearing on the very day he’d agreed by singular consonant to meet his daughter. How convenient.
She stormed to the kitchen. She needed to do something with her hands—squeeze the life from a broom, scrub the bench till her elbows ached, scrape a cloth against the oven racks until her fingertips bled—but her house was already spotless. For him.
A fat tear slid down the curve of her cheek. She’d wasted a whole day worrying about this FaceTime call, wilfully ignoring the fact that Patrick had never—not once in the last three months—shown any interest in contacting his daughter. She’d buried that truth bomb in the unused part of her brain (the maths part) and pretended she was being optimistic when, really, she was being a naive imbecile.
Poppy wiped her cheeks roughly. There was no-one she could call about this. Dani would declare that Patrick was an arsehole who deserved to have his balls chopped off in a speed-boat accident. Her mum would insist Patrick had the potential to be a great dad. The problem was, depending on the speaker and audience and time of day and astrological moon patterns of Venus and Saturn and the NASDAQ, Poppy could agree with both of them, which confirmed her theory that when she was in Patrick’s orbit, she became a spineless idiot, incapable of autonomous or rational thought.
A familiar pressure was building in her rib cage, squeezing her organs and tightening her throat. The gleaming benchtop jeered at her. The stovetop sparkled in pity. Everything was too clean and too shiny, her gullible face reflected off every surface and she couldn’t stand it a second longer. Poppy grabbed her phone and ran for the door.
The air outside was white-hot ice. It scalded her bare feet, the freezing chill warping her toes, but she would run until she couldn’t feel them. She would run until her sweat soaked into the fabric of this stupid ironed shirt. She would run until the voices in her head dissolved like steam in this chill-ridden air.
A bat flew overhead, its wings spread wide. Poppy stopped abruptly and a sob heaved from her chest as she sank onto the kerb of her driveway. The concrete beneath her was an arctic tundra, but that seemed inconsequential at this point. Sports bra or no sports bra, she couldn’t run further. This was the outermost edge of her bubble and she already felt guilty for being so far from Maeve. If the police found her now—crying like a madwoman in her gutter, neglecting her daughter who slept peacefully inside but could wake at any moment due to any number of life-threatening issues—they could whisk Maeve away and hand her to Patrick. He knew how to play the game. He’d definitely pick up calls from the police.
‘Poppy, is that you?’ The voice came from across the hedge.
‘Mary? What are you doing outside?’
‘I could ask the same of you, love.’
‘I was …’ Poppy looked at her bare toes, already blueish in the cold. I was losing my mind . ‘I was just going back inside.’ She stood up and pulled her sleeves over her hands. Her toes were a lost cause.
‘You okay, love?’
Not really. Not at all. But totally fine, if anyone’s asking. Fine enough to raise a daughter . ‘Yes,’ she called back.
‘You sure?’
Poppy had lost all feeling up to her ankles. ‘Never better, Mary. See you later.’ Poppy hurried to her front door. She stepped into the warmth of her hallway, where the light from the tulip-style fixtures cast a peachy glow. Quietly, she turned and padded towards her daughter’s bedroom. Opening the door, she could hear the tiny whisper of Maeve’s rhythmic breathing, as soft as an eyelash fluttering in the wind.
Poppy curled her still-unthawed toes against the tiles. A painful lump had thickened in her throat, making each breath razor-sharp. She may have already lost Patrick and her right to a safe, predictable future, she might soon lose whole limbs to hypothermia and properly lose her mind, but that didn’t mean that her precious, unprejudiced daughter had to lose her father. Poppy closed the bedroom door and prised her phone from her pocket.
A fervent need throbbed in her chest. She wasn’t sure if she was doing this for herself or her daughter, but her fingers tapped the keypad on the screen.
Hope the client meeting goes well. We’re always free to talk, whenever you are