“You’d never had a relationship before. And I just thought that if things didn’t work out and I ended up breaking up with you, I’d do you so much damage. You were this gorgeous, confident boy on the outside and when I got to know you, I saw how you hid yourself behind all that. I didn’t know if I could be enough for all the feelings you had and if I’d be strong enough to catch them when they came pouring out.” She was standing up again.
I didn’t react. I’d spent most of my life not reacting. I didn’t cry or get that feeling inside when something was really good, not much scared me. Not much made me happy, not really happy.
“What do you want me to tell you about my father that you don’t know already?”
“Anything you want to. Whatever you want to tell me about him. The first thing that comes into your head.”
“I never understood why Marie loved him.”
She sat back down, tucked her feet under her. “Tell me why you think she loves him. Because she must’ve done to have taken on you four and had two more. She left her business in New York, didn’t she? For a widower with his four kids.”
I hadn’t thought about it as bluntly as that. “He’s a workaholic. He didn’t know how to hug us…”
“Did he hug Marie?”
“Yes. He would put his arm round her and I remember once I saw them kissing. I was really young but I remember it. They were under an apple tree in the garden and she put her arms round him. I thought he was eating her. She found it hilarious and kissed him again. My dad laughed like he was embarrassed.”
She smiled and I felt better. I didn’t want Wren to be mad at me, that old nag in my head where I needed people to give me their approval. I’d rebelled against it as I got older, but it would still be there.The only approval you need is your own, Callum. One of the few things my therapist had actually told me.
“What was your dad like with you?”
“You sound like the shrink I went to see when I was thirteen.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s what I don’t want to become. But I am interested. What I saw was a middle-aged guy who is distraught that the woman he loves is ill and has a son he’s desperate to have a relationship with. But I know you don’t see that and I don’t get why.”
“He was distant. He worked all the fucking time. When he came home in the evenings he’d go straight to his office and sometimes not even come to see us. We’d lost our mum and we lost him too, if we ever fucking had him in the first fucking place.” I knew I sounded bitter.
Wren didn’t shower me with words of comfort and I was glad. I didn’t need them.
“How was he with your mum – your birth mum?”
I shrugged. “I was too young to remember. But he worked a ton. Max said that mum was lonely and that was part of her depression. She had us and she needed a break, time to be with an adult. I don’t know. I get the feeling she wasn’t the most stable of people either. But he should’ve helped more.”
Wren tucked her legs up to her chest and I remembered the girl she’d been at university and how we’d kind of talked about this before one night, back when Jonah had gone home for the weekend and we’d stayed in and eaten pizza, binged watched trashy movies from the fifties.
“My dad left my mum for another woman. I was nine. He came and saw me at weekends, most weekends at first, and then it went to every other and then once a month. By the time I was sixteen I heard from him at birthdays and Christmas. He hasn’t remembered my birthday since I was twenty-seven. His new wife does. She sends a hamper every year with a card and wine, loads of chocolates. I appreciate that.” She spoke calmly and I wasn’t sure how. I wanted to right hook her father for her.
“Why? Why did he leave your mum?”
“He said they weren’t in love any more. And they weren’t. They argued some and spent very little time talking to each other. He met someone else, although that relationship didn’t last.” She shrugged. “He’s been with his new wife for a few years and she has her own kids. I think he actually has a lot to do with them.”
“That must piss you off?”
“Occasionally. But then I rationalise it. No one teaches you how to be a parent and his parents – my granddad and grandma – weren’t the best. I don’t doubt that he loved me, I just don’t think he knew how to show it and my dad is one of those who lives in the moment. He’s only aware of what’s going on right under his nose.” She stretched out her legs and my attention was caught by the golden skin. “I can get hung up on what he did and how he didn’t morph into the perfect father, or I can get over him and accept him for what he is. He isn’t a bad man; he’s human like the rest of us and not perfect.”
“How can you be so rational about it?”
“Why wouldn’t I be? What do I gain by being angry and confrontational? It won’t get us anywhere except into a load of drama and no one needs that.”
“How do you get to be so calm about it?”
“I made a choice.”
I leaned back against the headboard, the quiet breeze rustling through the windows, the sounds of the call to prayer echoing through, the heartbeat of a city.
“Was it that easy?”
“Yes. You accept things for what they are and choose to work with it rather than fighting it.”
