19
Maya hammered on the front door for the third time when Conrad didn’t answer. She knew he’d want her to use her key – ‘treat this place as your own’ he’d say for the umpteenth time – but today, she couldn’t because she was carrying a rather heavy container with a casserole as well as a bag of fresh fruit and his medicines, which she’d picked up for him yet again. He was giving her the run around with so many trips to the pharmacy but the fact that she’d bumped into Noah again when she was there had made it easier to bear. It was tempting to tell Conrad she’d seen Noah just like the last time because watching him mentally kick himself for sending her in the first place would be fun.
When Conrad finally opened the door, she warned, ‘Do not tell me I should’ve used my key, kind of got my hands full.’ And the July temperatures meant she was also hot and bothered, not a good combination when she needed to find the patience for this man.
‘Wasn’t going to say a word.’ He closed the door behind her and followed her into the kitchen. ‘Something smells good.’
‘Did you get a visit from the doctor?’ She couldn’t help snapping; she was hot and pissed off at him for the latest game he’d introduced with their son.
‘No need to take that tone, Maya.’
Oh, there was every need. Coming here interfered with any down time she might have in her own busy life. She was well and truly over it, especially given what he was up to with regards to Isaac. And now she had an alternative option, a beer on a porch overlooking the river with Noah, an escape from all of this, spending time with her ex-husband was even less appealing. To others, including Bess, she looked crazy running after her Conrad like this, but she wondered how many of them would do the same thing in her shoes. She suspected most of them would do anything to keep the piece of their life they were most ashamed of buried deep.
Isaac had called her on her way here. She’d answered on handsfree in the car with the usual excitement she felt when her son phoned but when he told her what Conrad had been up to, she passed from a state of excitement to one of frustration.
Conrad had called Isaac earlier today, probably when she was running around after him, and told Isaac that he wanted Christmas with his son this year. Not just Christmas but New Year as well. And he wanted to do it in Ireland at some fancy hotel. Sometimes she wished divorce came with a forcefield around her and Isaac that Conrad had no means of penetrating, but unfortunately real life wasn’t like that.
‘He can’t make me go, can he?’ Isaac had moaned on the phone, tired after working all day in his friend’s parents’ café. ‘I don’t want to travel to Ireland on my Christmas break, Mum.’
‘Nobody can make you do anything, Isaac.’ She flicked her indicator off angrily when it failed to do the job itself after she turned at a roundabout.
‘It’ll make things hard for you if I say no.’
And then it dawned. ‘So I take it from that you mean he’s not including me in this invite for the festive season.’
Isaac swore, which he rarely did when she was within earshot. ‘He said you’d be welcome to come along.’
‘I’ll be working over Christmas so I won’t be able to go away anywhere; I’ll need to be in Whistlestop River. He knows that. I’ve already told him.’ But she hadn’t realised why he’d been so interested when he asked her a couple of weeks ago. She did now.
‘I want to be home, Mum.’
‘I know you do.’ Her heart went out to him. He’d want to come back to Whistlestop River, catch up with friends, have a proper break. ‘Do you want me to talk to him?’
With a sigh, Isaac said he could fight his own battles. He could but Conrad liked to fight dirty and that was what she was worried about.
‘You never know,’ she said, upbeat, ‘it might be fun in Ireland. Knowing your dad, it will be a nice hotel, maybe with a golf course.’ She injected a bit of enthusiasm she hardly felt.
‘I don’t like golf. I like tennis. And it’ll be winter, Mum.’
She wished she could take away all of his angst. ‘Isaac, I really wish?—’
‘Do not say you wish we could get on. We don’t hate each other, Mum, but Dad only thinks of himself and I can’t see that changing any time soon.’
And neither could she. It hurt all the more because of her emotional distance from her own father, but she’d never thought her dad only considered himself. He thought deeply about others, he put them first, which made it harder to grasp why he seemed so against Maya’s life choices. Whatever was going on between her and her dad seemed to run a lot deeper than Isaac’s problems with Conrad. Conrad wasn’t a complex character; he was shifty and prone to moods but he wasn’t hard to work out.Isaac had got it pretty much spot on when he claimed Conrad thought only about himself. Even what he’d done for Maya all those years ago when she’d left her family home at such a tender age, what she’d seen as an action to rescue her and help her had really, all along, been for his own benefit. It had taken years, however, for her to see it that way.
Maya suspected there wouldn’t be anything she could do to convince Conrad not to enforce this trip. And she knew if Isaac turned him down, he’d put pressure on Maya instead and she’d have no choice but to do her very best to persuade their son to change his mind. If she didn’t then Conrad would remind her gently of how difficult he could make her life if things didn’t go his way.
In Conrad’s kitchen now she found three old plastic containers from the back of a cupboard and spooned the casserole into separate portions. ‘This will keep you going a few days. I’ll pop them all into the freezer.’
She felt him watching her as she divided up the casserole that he liked, but didn’t love. It was somewhat childish to have made it for him knowing that, but it was something Maya could do to keep her sanity and feel that in some situations maybe she got a turn to have the upper hand.
‘Are you going to tell me what’s bugging you?’ he asked. ‘There’s obviously a reason for the casserole and the attitude. I’m sorry I’m such a burden.’
‘Stop being dramatic. I said I’d cook for you for a while seeing as you can’t manage it. And I made the casserole for myself as well; I’ve left half of it at home.’ She hadn’t, but he’d never know that.
‘There’s something going on,’ he huffed. ‘We were married long enough that?—’
‘You know exactly what’s going on.’ She didn’t need to hear about their marriage, whatever spin he was going to put on things with examples of how they knew each other.
