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 . . .’
