‘But how do you do it?’ he asked. ‘Like, practically – how do you do it?’
His mum was standing at the back door of her unit, watching him work in her small back garden. She was leaning on the doorframe. He’d expected her to be livid on his behalf, but, actually, she didn’t seem shocked; actually, she looked as happy as he’d ever seen her.
‘You just do it, Josh,’ she said. ‘It’s a choice. Like everything. Whenever you feel that anger and injustice, you let yourself feel it, but then you let it go. If you can’t, you’re not forgiving, so don’t pretend you can, and move on.’
‘When did you become so Zen, Mum?’ He looked back to the chair in hand.
She laughed. ‘A very, very long time ago. No choice.’
‘Hmmm.’ Josh turned the chair over, wiggled it to see if it was sturdy. ‘And you think I should forgive, right?’
‘I can’t answer that for you,’ said Emma. ‘But I’d say that a family is full of secrets and mistakes. You know that. At the end of the day, you just have to be able to live with yourself.’ She paused. ‘And so does Lou.’
‘How long does forgiveness take?’
‘Depends how much you dwell,’ she said. ‘Decide what you need to know, Josh, that’s my advice. Not more. Not less.’ And she turned and headed into the kitchen to put the kettle on.
He smiled to himself, perhaps for the first time in a long while, because all these years he’d thought he was pushing his father’s rage down inside him, but it turned out he really was his mother’s son.
‘One chair down,’ he said as his mother returned to the doorway. And then, ‘You don’t seem surprised.’
‘She’s a woman who wants,’ said Emma. ‘She always has been. She thinks she’s so different from her mother, but she’s not – not really. She wants things.’
‘Fuck.’ Josh started on the next chair. ‘That is depressing. Lou would hate it if she heard you say that.’
‘What’s wrong with wanting?’ asked Emma. ‘It’s human. Your wife is human. And she’s lucky to have an anchor like you.’
Josh wanted to hug her, this small, slight woman with her soft, lined skin and her non-grey hair. But he had a crappy table to build.
Don’t ever die, Mum, he found himself thinking. Don’t ever leave me.
*
Emma held him hard on the deck in the backyard as the birthday party rolled on around them. ‘Happy birthday, Josh,’ she said into his chest. ‘Love you.’
‘Love you, Mum,’ he said, and he knew his voice was thick as he said it. Must be the beer.
‘Happy you didn’t throw all this away?’ she asked him, motioning to the back garden, where Lou and Gretchen were now dancing with the girls, who should have been in bed hours ago and would be feral tomorrow.
‘Shush, Mum, not now,’ he said, but he put his arm around her and pulled her close to him. Yes, he thought. And I’m glad it wasn’t taken from me.
‘Anika wants to talk about Christmas and Maya’s avoiding her,’ Emma said. ‘You might need to go try some peace-making.’
‘Sure.’ But Josh was watching Lou, laughing with Gretchen. She was wearing a blue-and-white sundress that he knew she’d bought in the sales last week because she’d shown it to him and asked him if he liked it, saying it was for the school Christmas picnic, the liar. Her hair was down and she looked happy. Actually happy. Maybe things were going to be okay after all.
Josh looked around, his mum still tucked under his arm.
He could see Rob, Lou’s brother, talking to Mick about the renovation he was planning for his new house in Paddington. Rob was thinking about starting his own practice and converting his house with a surgery downstairs and a two-storey home upstairs. Josh knew Mick would be seeing dollar signs in his eyes about that one.
He could hear, behind him, his brother-in-law Ed, talking about trees. About how one of his wealthy finance clients had just paid someone to poison a row of gums that stood between his new house and a harbour view. How now the council had strung up a huge sign between the dying trees, calling out poisoners, and Ed’s rich mate had to look at it from his balcony every day. ‘As if he gives a fuck,’ Ed was saying. ‘He knows the sign will be gone one day and he’s tripled the value of his property.’
Brian, his father-in-law, had mercifully stopped talking about Brexit and was now complaining to one of the school dads about the plans for the new light rail. ‘Why we all have to pay for public transport whether we use it or not, I’ll never know,’ he was saying loudly. ‘I’ll never set foot on the thing, but my tax dollars are being handed over to some bloody foreign company to build it, aren’t they?’
Sydney conversations, thought Josh.
Emma slipped away to find Anika, and Josh’s eyes went back to Lou, spinning around with Stella, hair flying, their heads back in a laugh. This is one of those rare moments, he thought. When they come, you’re meant to remember them. He should go and join them.
‘You know, all of this is despite you,’ a voice said at his shoulder. The accent was unmistakably Annabelle’s. ‘Not because of you.’
He looked around and his mother-in-law was standing close behind him. She had a glass in her hand, and the way she was holding it, gripping it tightly around the sticky-finger-marked bowl, made him think she must have had several of them. ‘Hello, Annabelle.’
‘Happy birthday, Joshua,’ she said.
‘I don’t think I heard what you were saying before,’ he said. ‘But I hope you’re having a good time.’
‘This house . . .’ She gestured with her glass, the white wine sloshing slightly. ‘This family. Lou’s done it all. With our help, obviously.’ And she coughed a dry laugh that didn’t sound like a laugh at all. ‘Women are the builders, Josh, no matter how many tables you make.’
Josh nodded. ‘That’s true, Annabelle.’
‘I’m glad you know it is,’ she said. ‘You are a lucky, lucky man, marrying my daughter.’
‘You should tell her that,’ Josh sighed. He suddenly felt exhausted, heavy, his buoyant mood of seconds ago evaporated. How were they here now? He looked over to Lou, hoping to signal for help, but she was still lost in her dance. He looked around for Rob, but he was still deep in conversation with Mick. ‘She’d like to hear it from you.’
‘Don’t tell me about my daughter,’ Annabelle hissed. ‘One day she’s going to realise how much you hold her back.’
‘Excuse me, Annabelle.’ Josh turned to walk away but Annabelle grabbed his sleeve.
‘You know it’s true.’
‘I’m going to find my sister, Annabelle, thank you.’
He had only gone a few steps when she called after him, ‘It’s not too late for her to realise this lovely home might be lovelier without you in it.’
She’d said it just loud enough to cause heads to turn, including Lou’s.
Josh kept walking. But Annabelle wasn’t finished.
‘That’s if she hasn’t realised already!’
The music clicked off. The evening suddenly felt chilly, and Josh, heading for the stairs at his surprise birthday party, could sense people around him going quiet. He could hear his wife saying to her mother, ‘Mum! Stop it! Dad, help me!’
‘She knew you’d never be enough for her,’ Annabelle called to Josh’s back. ‘We all knew it!’
Lou
Ryan Harcourt had started hanging back at lunchtimes, kicking his feet on the linoleum floor to make an infuriating squeak as he sidled up to Lou at her desk.
Squeak, squeak, squeak.
‘Need anything, Ryan?’ she’d ask him, half smiling, half stern. ‘What can I help you with?’
‘Nothing, miss,’ he’d say. But then he’d find a reason to linger. ‘I don’t think I got that numbers thing today, miss,’ he’d say. ‘I’m too dumb for it.’
And Lou would look at Ryan’s pout and tell him no, of course he wasn’t too dumb for it, and of course she’d go over it again with him.
When the bell went
at 3 p.m., Ryan Harcourt never wanted to be the first one on the playground. He knew his mum wouldn’t be there early, and that he hadn’t been signed up for after-school care like some of the other kids, and he had no desire to be the last one standing by Lou’s side as the suburb’s pick-up parents watched on.
Often, he just hung back near the door, but today Lou had taken the class out and stood nodding and smiling through all the collections, all the parents who, ignoring the stern emailed warnings that this was not the time to talk, asked for ‘a quick chat’. At some point, she turned around and realised she’d lost Ryan. That he’d never left the classroom.
Squeak, squeak, squeak. She heard him before she reached the door.
‘What’s going on, Ryan?’ she asked as she entered the classroom. ‘Why aren’t you outside?’
‘Is my mum there?’ he asked, looking at his feet.
‘Not yet, Ryan, but we can wait together. She’ll come – she always does.’
And she always did. But Ryan Harcourt’s mum worked as a cleaner at the local club, and if they’d had a big morning function, like the seniors’ bingo, she’d be stuck sorting it out way past lunchtime, and there was no way she could tell her boss she needed to leave early.
Lou had learned all this holding Ryan Harcourt’s hand as they waited for pick-up on many days this year. She had also figured out that if she put him far from Andrea Frick and next to Jose Taos, who was quiet but tough as nails, Ryan would be less likely to erupt and that would buy her some time to deal with Amber Lin, who’d just had her ADHD medication changed and was impossible to keep still after lunchtime, or Daniel Olsson who was so anxious about maths that every time a number flashed up on the interactive board he’d start to cry.
As she and Ryan sat in the playground this afternoon, Lou was assessing her campaign to get some flexible after-school care places funded by the P&C for kids like Ryan.
His mum finally turned up, her face pinched with stress, gushing her apologies while avoiding eye contact, in case Ryan’s teacher should look disapproving.
I’m not judging you, lady, Lou thought. You should see the mess my life is in right now.
There was a staff meeting scheduled for 4 p.m., and she was going to bring up the after-care places again. Not, as Gretchen suggested, purely as a distraction from thinking about the trial separation, but because it was something she could control. And getting life back under control was part of Lou’s new plan.
8. Be the very best you can be, she’d written in her notes app. Stay strong for your girls. Test your limits.
She’d signed up to train for a marathon, something she had never done before, and had stepped up her running training on nights she didn’t have the girls. Reacquainted herself with the local athletics field, assigned herself some achievable goals. It’s what all the self-optimisation experts advised.
‘Self-optimisation?’ Gretchen had asked as she cleared the spare room so that Lou could stay there when it wasn’t her turn in the nest. ‘That sounds inhuman.’
‘It’s the more positive version of self-help,’ Lou told her. She’d been reading a lot of blogs. ‘Needing “help” makes you sound like a victim. Optimisation says you know you’re already pretty excellent, you just need some strategic upgrades.’
‘This version of you is killing me,’ Gretchen told her, with arms full of shoeboxes. ‘It’s like living with fucking Oprah. If you post an inspirational quote on Instagram next, we’re done.’
‘I’m just trying to keep my shit together,’ Lou said. ‘Bit of support might be nice, Gretch.’
Support was also what she was looking for at the staff meeting. But instead, there was Theo. Rumours were swirling that Theo was leaving, but since Lou still had him blocked on her phone, and was making an extreme effort not to talk to him about anything personal at all, she didn’t know if this was true.
She slipped in late to the meeting and stood near the door, her back against the wall, trying not to make eye contact with him.
A lot had changed for Theo since their ‘thing’ almost three years ago. His Melbourne fiancée never had moved to Sydney, and they had split. He’d bought a house near the school, to show his commitment to the area and was supposedly dating a local councillor with a special interest in local education. He was still ‘holding on’ for Gabbie’s job, since if the grapevine was to be believed she had been tapped to head up a new state-of-the-art public school in the eastern suburbs. He was trying hard not to be bitter about that.
Theo was almost as cocky as he had been when they first met, but his bravado was sagging a little at the seams, around his chin, his waistline. He didn’t do fortnightly WIPs with everyone in his bucket anymore; he just stuck to the staffroom meetings, like everyone else did. He’d stopped telling people they ‘added value’. No-one had seen him doing chin-ups in the male toilets for some time.
‘Hi, Lou!’ he called across the room loudly as she came in, as he did to everyone individually. ‘Good day?’
She nodded and smiled politely, seeking out Beth to talk to about Ryan Harcourt. But then Theo was there, next to her. ‘Have you heard about your job yet?’ he asked.
‘No,’ Lou answered. Theo knew that was the answer, of course he did. As deputy principal, he would know if she’d been made head of the year before she would.
‘I’m sure you’re a shoo-in,’ he said. ‘Just waiting for the rubber stamp.’
Lou nodded. ‘Thanks.’
‘You should probably ease off on this after-care project though,’ he added quietly. ‘Not core school business. Probably won’t help in the selection.’
‘That’s not why I’m doing it,’ she answered.
‘Oh.’ Theo looked genuinely confused. ‘Then why are you?’
Lou shook her head, turned back to the room, just as Gabbie was coming in to start the meeting.
‘Have you been working out?’ Theo whispered. ‘You look great.’
Lou pushed off the wall and moved away to stand near Beth.
*
‘JoJo’s pissed that you’re taking her room,’ Gretchen said that evening as Lou, tired from the long day – she wasn’t used to the commute – walked down the hall to the spare room to dump her coat and bag.
‘I won’t be here that often.’ Every time Lou thought about it, staying here while her girls slept forty minutes away in a house without her in it, she wanted to cry.
‘I think she’s reconsidered that divorce advice she gave you.’ Gretchen lounged against the doorframe. ‘Smart kid’s figured that bit out.’
‘I can’t believe I did that.’ Lou slipped off her shoes and sat on the bed. ‘Pumped a teenager for marriage advice.’ She smoothed the linen bedcover with her hand. Staying at Gretch’s place was a little like staying at a fancy resort. Someone had clearly ironed these sheets, and Lou doubted it was her friend.
‘Any regrets?’
Lou shook her head, but her shoulders were slumped. ‘We’ve got to figure it out,’ she said. ‘Sooner or later.’
‘Well, you can stay here as long as you want,’ said Gretchen. ‘But as much as it’s like old times, I hope it’s not for too long. I’m rooting for you two to get back together. It’s not about you – it’s about me. I need a functional role-model relationship in my life.’
‘For you and Kim?’ Gretchen and Kim were planning a trip together, which counted as a major commitment for Gretchen.
‘And for JoJo,’ Gretchen said. ‘She needs to see that not everything has to go to shit. Even though it usually does.’
‘Have you spoken to Josh?’ Lou looked up at Gretchen, who grabbed her hands to pull her off the bed.
‘No, I don’t need that kind of negativity in my life.’
‘That’s not fair, Gretch.’
‘He’s sad, Lou. You can’t pretend he isn’t.’
Lou hadn’t spoken to him either, other than to talk logistics about who needed to be where with what to deal with the girls at any one time. They were meant to b
e confining any more communication than that to Sara’s office. They had an appointment next week and Lou was almost looking forward to it, which was not what she was expecting.
‘Come on, Gwyneth, you’re not self-optimising sitting there looking like someone stole the olive out of your martini. Let’s go.’
‘Where?’
‘Gym and Japanese. Come on.’
‘Theo asked me today if I’d been working out,’ Lou said.
‘Blatant come-on. No-one has ever asked anyone if they’ve been working out if they didn’t want to see them naked.’
‘Well, technically, he already has . . .’
‘I know that. I don’t want to talk about him, Lou. You’re not thinking of going back there, are you?’ Gretchen was looking as seriously disapproving as it was possible to look in day-glo activewear. ‘I mean, I know you could technically be dating at the moment. But there are less troublesome options for sex, my friend, I’m sure of it.’
Lou didn’t say anything. She wasn’t thinking of it. She really wasn’t. But there was just a tiny piece of her, the same one that had sat behind the red car in the car park with her keys in the ignition, that thought, Why not? It might make you feel better.
No, no, no. What will make you feel better is discipline. Eating vegetables, staying positive, working towards your goal, being a good mum, steps clocked up on the running track, helping Ryan Harcourt to overcome his dread of the school bell. Come on.
Josh
I will not be sad today, Josh thought, as he parked his car in the underground car park.
I will not be sad today, he said to himself, as he pushed the parking ticket into the back pocket of his jeans and pushed the button for the lift.
‘I will not be sad today,’ he whispered almost silently as he bounced in place, watching the numbers move up through the floors, all the way to the therapist’s office.
The lift doors opened and he immediately saw the back of his wife disappearing through the door at the end of the hall that led to Sara’s office. His heart rose at the familiar sight of Lou. In that momentary glimpse, he’d seen she was wearing school clothes – a shirt dress, a denim jacket, those trainers Gretchen had brought back from New York that she said were smart enough for class. That bag over her shoulder was the one her mum had told her she needed to replace because it had scuffs, and Lou had laughed and told her that leather looked better battered and the kids had laughed at the way that sounded. Her hair was down, which meant she’d washed it this morning. In their shower at home, with the kids not putting on their shoes downstairs after breakfast. Lou’s was the most familiar back in his life. Heading into their marriage counsellor’s office.
I Give My Marriage a Year Page 27