One True Thing

by Nicole Hayes

  And I’m standing here alone.

  CHAPTER 22

  ONE VOTE, ONE VALUE

  I turn the corner into my street, and that’s when I see it. Or them. Is a media pack singular or plural? Because they sure look like a plural – a seething mass of arms and legs, cameras and microphones, lights and sounds – but they move as a united force, pushing and pulling in the same direction, demanding the same thing …

  I stop and check my phone, realise it’s still off. I switch it on to find multiple messages from the whole team, several from Mum and even one from Dad. I listen to his first, but it cuts in and out. Something about checking in soon, that he loves me and we’ll talk when he’s back. Useless words when I need him now.

  I weigh my options, then turn on my heels and head back the way I came, around the corner, around the block, heading to the house behind ours. I cross the front lawn without letting myself think for too long and knock on the front door.

  Travis Matthews answers. The shock on his face is almost worth the effort it took to face him, but it quickly disappears.

  ‘I can’t get to our front door,’ I say.

  In the background I hear his mum calling out to see who it is. He doesn’t even look over his shoulder, his focus squarely on me.

  ‘Can I go through the gate?’

  He doesn’t have time to answer one way or the other because his mum appears beside him, a polite smile already in place. ‘Francesca? How lovely to see you!’ She beams at her son and pats his arm like he’s done something right, which seems to anger Travis and humiliate me in one brutal stroke. ‘Did you want to come in?’ she asks.

  Mrs Matthews has never read a newspaper or watched the news in her life. She actually made that claim once when we were kids, in reference to the latest of Mum’s accomplishments, of which she was proudly ignorant. I didn’t mind, to be honest. She let me forget about it too. But it stuck with me, the idea of actively avoiding connections with the world outside your own residential block. I remember being horrified and impressed in exactly equal parts. Right now I’d give anything to trade places.

  Looking at her polite smile, the resigned, lonely eyes, I can see that she’s still avoiding the world of news, even this news. She has no idea what’s happening in the Mulvaney-Webb household, which is about as perfect a neighbour as I could want. Despite her son.

  ‘I’ve lost my front door key, Mrs Matthews. Any chance I can sneak in through the back gate?’

  ‘Of course,’ she says, pleased to help. She opens the door, and I slip in.

  I can feel Travis’s gaze hard on me, but he doesn’t speak. He just turns away from us both and disappears into the house.

  I watch him leave, wondering why he stayed silent about the iPad. Did he do that for me? I brave a smile at Mrs Matthews. ‘I can let myself through if that’s easier.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ she says, offering that listless smile that’s been permanently etched into her face ever since Mr Matthews died.

  Although it’s been ages since I last cut this path, I find my way through to the backyard and am met by Travis’s German shepherd, Brody, who assaults me with that long, slobbering tongue. I pat his head and gently shove him aside, then head for the back fence. I fiddle with the gate, rusted and heavy but still unlocked after all these years of disuse, and then I’m in my own backyard, staring up at my parents’ house, wondering what the hell is going on inside.

  CHAPTER 23

  CROSSING THE FLOOR

  I guess Mum decided she had to come home after all. Harry is on the phone as always, but he’s half-slumped in the lounge chair, his voice urgent and pleading. He glances up when I come in, waves distractedly, then tells whoever he’s talking to that their position still stands. ‘No comment,’ he says before hanging up.

  No one says anything as I prop myself up against the doorjamb, too drained to speak. I’m not sure Mum knows I’m here as she talks to Christie about rearranging her schedule, but I’m in no hurry to change that.

  ‘You need to call a presser,’ Sarah says, her head in her hands, like she’s fighting to hold it together. Harry is nodding but doesn’t contribute.

  ‘My answer is still no.’

  Everyone in the room groans, their frustration almost physical.

  ‘We have to get ahead of it.’ Sarah glances at Harry.

  He shakes his head, sprawling dejectedly in the chair. ‘I don’t know how many times I have to say it.’

  ‘We’re already playing catch-up,’ Christie says, her usual optimism nowhere in sight.

  Mum sighs. ‘They’ll write what they want to write.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean we can’t fight,’ Sarah snaps.

  Everyone stares at her, stunned by the blatant anger. Even for Sarah, it was pretty harsh.

  ‘Where’s Dad?’ I ask.

  Mum looks shocked, then relieved. ‘Frankie! Where have you been? Everyone’s been looking for you.’

  I shrug. ‘You can’t have looked too hard.’

  Mum flinches. ‘There’s a lot going on.’ She adjusts her position, folds her arms across her chest.

  ‘Dad …?’ I prompt.

  ‘We just got hold of him. He’s driving back tomorrow. He hasn’t seen the … latest.’

  Everyone seems to be looking everywhere but at me or Mum, while Mum seems determined to drill a hole in my brain with her eyes alone.

  ‘Tell me what’s going on,’ I say, refusing to budge. ‘Tell me about the photos.’

  Mum takes a deep breath. ‘The media have found something about my past. It’s not terrible but it’s not good.’

  I wait for her to continue, but Christie’s phone rings. She hesitates, as though afraid to interrupt. ‘It’s The Hatchet,’ Christie says quietly.

  Harry reaches across to take it but Mum intervenes, grabbing the phone from Christie. She covers the mouthpiece. ‘I need a few minutes here,’ she tells me. ‘Bear with me, okay? Wait in your room. I’ll be there in a minute.’

  ‘No rush,’ I say, not bothering to keep the sneer out of my voice. ‘Whenever you’re ready.’

  ‘Hail, Hail’ is pounding through the stereo, loud enough that I can almost block out my thoughts. The TV news is muted in my bedroom. I’ve seen the same loop of photos of my mum and that man over and over, the same relentless ticker tape at the bottom of the screen.

  It’s almost twenty minutes later when Mum sticks her head in. I can barely stand to look at her.

  ‘Love Boat Captain’ kicks in, mellow and smooth, filling the room like a warm bath. If I wasn’t so angry, I would smile. When he was really little, Luke called Mum the Love Boat Captain, because, Luke informed us, she’s all about love and guiding us to the clear, just like the song says.

  Oh, the irony.

  ‘Hey.’ She glances over her shoulder, then back at me. ‘This isn’t how I imagined this conversation would go.’ She smiles sadly at me.

  ‘Little late for that.’

  Mum pushes a hand through her hair and shuts the door behind her. I turn off the music.

  ‘I guess I need to start with who he is.’

  I nod, though a part of me doesn’t want to know.

  ‘It’s kind of a long story,’ she says. ‘I wanted to sit down with you and Luke and your father.’

  ‘That’s not going to happen, is it?’

  She blinks, a trace of confusion there. ‘Did Dad say something?’

  ‘No,’ I spit. ‘I mean, he’s not here, is he?’

  ‘No …’ Her voice trails off. ‘We can’t wait for him. Not now.’

  ‘If he even wants to come back.’

  Mum blanches, shocked. ‘He’ll be here,’ she says firmly. ‘As soon as he can.’

  I snort my disgust. ‘Whatever that means.’

  Mum stiffens. ‘You’re not making this any easier.’

  ‘They’re saying you’re having an affair, Mum! Why should I make it easier?’

  She flinches visibly, and I feel a twist in my chest. I want to hurt he
r, and then when I do it hurts me.

  ‘Just tell me what’s going on.’

  She sits at the end of my bed, bending to remove her shoes, placing them on the floor beneath her. She’s gathering her thoughts. It’s how she keeps her cool in The Zoo, and why she rarely screws up interviews. She’ll fix her collar or straighten her cuff; it’s a trick she’s been using forever.

  ‘Mum!’

  She sighs. ‘Okay, but there’s a lot I don’t know too. The things the media are saying … a lot of it – most of it – isn’t true.’

  ‘What part don’t you know exactly? The dude’s name? Or if you’re sleeping with him?’

  Mum flinches. She presses her lips together. ‘No one’s sleeping with anyone.’

  ‘Then who is he?’

  ‘It’s not like that.’ Mum says this with such a deep, heartfelt sadness that I suspect she’s telling the truth. I remember Dad’s voice last night when they were arguing. He meant it too. One of them is lying. I twist the quilt in my fingers.

  Mum reaches for me but I pull away and fold my legs in tight, curling my whole body away from her.

  ‘His name is Colin.’ Her voice cracks at his name. ‘That’s what the orphanage named him.’ She takes a deep breath, crosses her legs at the ankles and stares at her stockinged feet for a long moment. ‘He’s my son.’

  ‘What?’ I croak.

  ‘Colin is my son.’ She looks up, waits.

  I’d imagined a million different possibilities but not this. ‘What?’ I say again.

  ‘It was before your dad. I was young.’ She smiles gently now, blinking back tears. ‘About your age, actually.’

  My age. ‘You gave him up?’ I can’t picture my mother – the woman who sat up with me during fevers, held my hand when I couldn’t sleep, kissed me even when I was angry – giving up her child.

  She clasps her hands in her lap, locking her fingers together. ‘There was a couple – a family – that couldn’t have children, and they wanted a boy so much.’ A tear slides down her face. She wipes it quickly. ‘I couldn’t keep him. I was so young …’

  ‘What about his father?’

  ‘It didn’t matter. It wouldn’t work.’ Mum flattens her skirt against her knees, smoothing out the creases. ‘We were both very young. I was stupid and naive. I thought I was helping them, helping the baby.’ She draws in a ragged breath. ‘I can’t tell you what it felt like,’ she says, her voice barely above a whisper, ‘handing him over.’

  ‘But you did.’

  She nods, swallows.

  ‘How could you?’ I stare at my mother, this stranger. She’s been lying to me my entire life. ‘You said he went to an orphanage.’

  The pain on her face is so sharp I have to look away. ‘In Dublin.’

  ‘When you went to Ireland?’

  ‘The adoption fell through. The couple gave him back a few months later.’

  I hug my legs tighter. ‘You didn’t try to get him back?’

  When she looks at me finally, her face blotchy and pallid, it takes a second to see the fury behind her expression. ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘They didn’t notify you?’ I ask, incredulous.

  She doesn’t respond immediately and I can see that she’s carefully choosing her words. ‘I didn’t know,’ she says.

  ‘Gran?’

  Mum hesitates. ‘Please. It’s a lot, I understand. I should have told you years ago. I wish I had.’

  ‘Did Dad know?’

  She sags against the wall, as if the weight of this secret has literally been lifted from her shoulders. She gives a small nod, then stiffens and wipes her eyes. ‘He wanted to tell you and Luke. I couldn’t speak about it. I couldn’t … think about it.’ She looks up miserably. ‘He helped me through it, to move on. And then so much time passed.’ A small sob escapes her. ‘For the longest time I couldn’t even say his name.’

  ‘So everyone knows? Sarah, Harry … Christie?’

  ‘They do now. I wanted to tell you first – we’ve been looking for you.’

  I shudder, thinking about where I was. ‘What about Luke?’

  ‘He’s at your gran’s.’ Mum looks at her watch. ‘It’s late now. I’ll talk to him tomorrow. He doesn’t really understand the worst of it. That’s something, I suppose.’

  It takes all my effort to keep my voice steady. ‘Do you want me to be there?’ I’m angry and hurt and spinning. Everything – my entire world – is spinning. But Luke – he’ll need me.

  Mum’s face crumples. She touches my cheek again, but this time I don’t move. ‘No. I’ll do it,’ she says.

  A thousand questions clamour to be answered, but where to start? I think about the photos. The public humiliation. The media. Jake.

  The memory of us together in those moments before he told me the truth, that delicious terror of what might happen, the magic of feeling loved and then –

  No. I have to separate them out, piece by piece – my family, the photos, the scandal. There’s no room in this horror for Jake too. At least this bit, this small thing, can be fixed. I push Mum’s hand away. ‘When will you go public?’

  She smiles wanly. ‘I’m not.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I can’t go public.’

  ‘That doesn’t make sense. I mean, however you do it, you have to tell people he’s not your –’ I struggle to find the right word – ‘lover.’ I pause, cringing at the crassness. ‘That he’s your son.’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘What? You have to! They’re saying you’re having an affair! Not just Seamus, but the newspapers too.’

  Mum shakes her head. ‘Ridiculous, I know.’

  ‘No!’ I say. ‘Not saying anything is ridiculous! You can fix this in one press conference and then it’s gone.’

  ‘It will hardly be gone, Frankie.’ She’s frowning like it’s perfectly clear what she’s saying, even though it’s the craziest thing I’ve heard. When she continues, it’s barely above a whisper. ‘It’s not my story to tell. It’s up to Colin.’

  Colin. The other face in the photo, the one at the other end of this story – or at the beginning. I shake my head, not ready to deal with it. ‘What about Dad?’

  ‘I’m sorry, but that’s between your dad and me. We both love you and we’ll find a way to get through it.’

  ‘Bullshit!’ I shout. ‘Bullshit you love us!’ I stand up, unable to contain my frustration. ‘Not as much as you love your job! Everything you do is about bloody politics. Every. Single. Thing.’

  She’s standing beside me now, that perpetual calm evaporating. A part of me is triumphant I did that. The other part is terrified. I’m not sure which of the two pushes me to continue. ‘You don’t deserve us. You don’t deserve Dad. You’re the most selfish person I’ve ever known and you deserve to be alone. It’s what you want, anyway.’

  I feel the sting of her palm against my cheek a full three seconds after impact. I count them, or I think I count them.

  Mum stands there, examining her hand in a kind of horrified wonder. Two tears slide down her face. Then two more. Slowly, her body unfreezes as she raises that hand, gently this time, and presses it against my burning cheek. ‘Frankie?’ Her voice is faint and broken.

  I push her away.

  She tries again, and I shove her this time, not hard, but enough that she doesn’t try again. I barrel towards the door, pain and fury battling inside me. I open the door, willing her to leave.

  She smooths her skirt across her knees, stands unsteadily, then walks out, her eyes not even trying to find mine.

  PART 2

  CHAPTER 24

  ISOLATIONIST POLICY

  The beach near Gran’s is mostly empty. It’s not quite school holidays yet and it’s still a little mild for young families to spend too much time outside. The cool breeze has made a distinct shift to cold wind since I’ve been sitting on the sand waiting for Luke to finish his endless laps. It’s kind of hard to create a lap on a beachfront but the M
cRae Council has conveniently placed some orange buoys in the water, marking out what looks a lot like the length of a pool, and it’s enough guidance for an Olympian-in-the-making to carve out an hour or two each day in pursuit of that perfectly straight line.

  I rub my arms, then stand up to jolt my body awake. The tingling feels good in that weird way.

  I see Luke heading back to shore, and pick up his towel, shake it off and wrap him in it. His face is red from the effort, a smile cutting through. I take a second to help dry him off, and he lets me, even though only weeks ago he wouldn’t have dreamt of it. That’s how it goes, I guess. It’s the little things we return to, the familiar things, even if it’s just temporary.

  ‘Good swim?’ I ask, giving his hair a last tug with the towel.

  ‘Pool’s better.’ He frowns, the glow of the swim already starting to fade.

  It’s been six days but I can still feel the sting of Mum’s hand against my cheek. I didn’t get out of bed all the next morning, ignored Mum’s knocking until she fell silent. There was no way I was going to school. No way on earth. I was having breakfast, sometime after Mum left, when Dad walked in.

  The TV was on, volume turned low. Dad watched from the doorway, almost in a trance. Wordlessly, we stared at the screen, maybe feeling the same thing, maybe feeling nothing at all. Numb shock still thickening my thoughts. The stream shifted to include file footage, stopping on the image of Dad scurrying into work, the old photo with the bad jacket, his face hidden as though in shame.

  I saw his whole body transform before me. He squared his shoulders, pushed his glasses high on his nose and nodded, as though in answer to a question. Suddenly that lanky, thin frame seemed to fill the doorway.

  The news moved on to something else, releasing us from its grip, and Dad turned to me as if I’d just walked in the room.

  ‘So you know about …’ He cleared his throat. ‘The boy.’

  ‘Yeah. Some of it.’

  ‘Are you okay?’

  I turned over my hands, palms up. ‘I don’t know.’