She thrusts a charged finger at me. ‘Iknewit!’
‘It wasn’t a big deal.’ Yet another lie. ‘We were there an hour, swapped pleasantries?—’
‘You lied to me.’
‘I know, and I’m really?—’
‘And I also know you’re in a relationship with Jack Bowden, and that picture wasn’t,’ she makes incisive quote marks with her fingers, ‘“a stupid drunken mistake”.’ She folds her arms like she’s in one of her beloved true crime documentaries.
‘Wrong,’ I snap, her smugness sending me over the point of apologising. ‘Actually, we’re not in a relationship. If you must know, we’re just sleeping together, and have been since May. Look, I’m?—’
‘Six months?’she screeches so loudly Coco flinches mid-hump and slinks off. ‘What else don’t I know? Are you joining the French Foreign Legion? Have you changed your perfume? Do you like cats now?’
Jesus Christ. ‘Stop being so melodramatic.’
‘I thought we shared everything, Minnie. Imagine if I did this to you?’
My stomach twists. That would break my heart. ‘How could I tell you? How? You have such entrenched views and you force them on me.’
‘Oh, so this is my fault,’ she says flatly.
She’simpossible. ‘What if I came to you and said I’d like to reconnect with Dad? What would you have said?’
‘I’m not angry because you went, I’m angry because you lied to me.’
Bullshit. ‘What would you have said? Honestly. After all these years, I had an opportunity to reunite with my dad and have a relationship if I wanted to. What would you have said?’
‘Why would you want to? Look what he did to us!’
There it is – the truth.
‘He’s still my father.’
‘He gave up that right a long time ago. There’s more to being a father than sperm, you know. Why didn’t he message beforeif he’s such a great dad? Why didn’t you get Christmas cards? Where was he when your business fell apart?’
She’s poking on a bruise and she knows it. I wonder about these things too, but agreeing with her isn’t going to make her see my point of view. ‘He’s done some shitty things – I don’t forgive him, and I never will – but I’m doing this for me, not him. I have issues I need to work through.’And so do you.
‘He left me too and I’m fine.’
And she’s accusingmeof lying? She can’t truly believe that, can she?
‘Don’t you like our life?’ Mum asks plaintively.
She always does this. Everything’s so black and white with her. I’m through with her making me feel like a troll for wanting what most people take for granted. ‘You’re guilt-tripping me and that’s not fair. I love our life, you know that. But being proud of you and wanting a coffee with Dad aren’t mutually exclusive.’
She’s silent for a long moment and I’m crazy enough to believe it might be sinking in. ‘He’s a cock,’ she says at last. Maybe not then.‘I’ll never condone this.’
I’ve skidded through anger, betrayal, disappointment and frustration, but now all I feel is hurt. ‘You don’t have to. I’m a grown woman and I can make my own choices.’
‘I always thought you made good choices, but now…’ she peters off, and I hold my breath, knowing I won’t like what comes next. ‘I don’t know who you are anymore.’
It’s a kick straight in my stomach. Before I say something I’ll regret, I turn and go upstairs. She’s being a spiteful bitch, but that’s not what kills me the most. There’s always going to be a chasm between us. We’re never going to agree because we grieved the loss of our family differently. Tears pool and I let them spill over. I thought all the lying would end and we could go back to how we were, but I know now we can’t.
I should empathise and see her for the survivor she is, just as I would a friend or someone I meet in the girls’ bathroom, but it’s hard to be mature when it’s my own mother. She should be the mature one. She should make the effort to see things from my side.
Dad stopped being her husband, but he never stopped being my parent. Our relationships to him aren’t the same. I respect the fact that she doesn’t want to see him again and she’s entitled to despise him with every fibre of her being – if I were Aunty Debs, I’d even encourage it – but it’s selfish of her to project that on me.
My door nudges open and for a breathless second I think it’s Mum coming to apologise, but Maple pads in. She tilts her head as if to say, ‘are we doing this again?’ I stop my epic voice note to Jack, gather her up and press my wet face into her soft brown back.
