“Harper, could you—”
“Oh, just let her,” Natalie says. “If I had a phone when I was her age, I’d be texting all the boys too.”
Harper glances at Natalie, and I see the disappointment in her face as she watches her mother drink her wine like it was juice. I want to save Harper from this, I want to show her that this isn’t what family is, and that it’s not how it should be.
But I can’t.
I’m helpless. Even if I had the guts to tell my wife to leave, I’d let her back as soon as she barged through the front door drunk later that night.
And Harper would be a child of divorce, just like I was. Resenting her father for breaking up her family when she sees him every weekend.
No, I am doing everything I can to hold this family together.
“I just feel,” I say cautiously, “that when we’re at the table—”
“What?” Natalie barks. “We’re going to talk? Share stories about our day?”
She laughs as she chokes on a mouthful of chips. She leaves the carrots.
“It’s polite,” I say.
She laughs again, her chuckles mixed with a cough.
Harper looks back at her phone and, in a way, maybe it’s better she’s on her phone. That way she doesn’t have to look at what her home’s become.
“Are you going out again tonight?” I ask Natalie as I take a polite spoonful of carrots on my fork.
“Probably.”
“Could I be excused?” Harper asks, suddenly.
“Why?”
“I just…”
She doesn’t say it, but I know what she wants to say.
She doesn’t want to sit there and hear more about her mother’s plans to get wasted.
She doesn’t want to sit and hear her father speak like a pathetic, scared little boy to his own wife.
She doesn’t want to be in this family.
And I wish there was a way to make her love me. Like she did when she was little. Like she did before she learned I’m a screw up.
“Yes,” Natalie says, breaking the silence, and Harper gets up before I can object.
“Don’t forget your tea,” I say, but she leaves it, engrossed in her phone, and she stomps upstairs.
I drop my head. Close my eyes. Pretend this isn’t how things are.
“What?” Natalie grunts.
I look up at her. She’s staring at me and her eyelids are drooping and her eyes are bloodshot.
“Why?” I say, barely audible.
“What?”
“I just… What did I do?”
“What? You didn’t do nothing.”
She shoves the last few bites of her tea in her mouth and pours herself another glass of wine.
“Why don’t you stay in tonight? We can have a nice night in. Watch a movie.”
“Don’t want to watch a movie.”
“Then we can—”
“I said I don’t want to watch a fucking movie.”
She gets up, goes upstairs and comes down minutes later in a short dress.
I don’t bother to object as she leaves.
And I’m left alone. Sat at the head of the table.
I clear away the plates and wash up. When I’m done, I go to bed. I’m tired.
I’m always so tired.
13
Harper
I lie upside down on my bed, feeling flutters of excitement send tingles up and down my body.
It turns out he likes all the stuff that I like.
His favourite band is Paramore, his favourite movie is Lord of the Rings, and he says that, once he gathers the courage, he’s going to get a tattoo of The Eye of Mordor on his bicep.
He says he’s been on the message board for a few years as well and, even though I don’t remember seeing his username before, it’s pretty awesome.
What’s more, he actually seems to care. When I send him a message, he’s so eager to talk. I even sent him some poetry I wrote and he said he loves it.
You don’t have to say that.
I’m not.
I mean, I know I’m not Carol Ann Duffy or Rupi Kaur.
Please, if only Duffy was as good as you!
Now I KNOW you’re lying! Lol
I don’t lie.
Everyone lies.
Everyone you’ve met lies.
You haven’t met me.
Not yet, anyway.
Not yet?
Someday.
And what would we do if we did meet?
Go to the beach.
Have fish and chips.
Avoid the seagulls and stare at the sea.
You could read me more poetry.
Please, it’s not that good!
I love it.
Like how you open with that line ‘Sometimes I have a memory and I’m not sure if it was a dream or reality.’
I TOTALLY know what you mean, that happens to me all the time.
Seriously?
And you know what?
I don’t care.
Reality be damned.
That could be the name of my poetry book.
Haha! YES!
He writes haha. Not lol.
Never lol.
He’s too sophisticated for that.
Kids write lol. He isn’t a kid. I mean, he’s seventeen, but he’s a grown up seventeen. Not the kind who spend all day on their Xbox, but the kind that spends all day reading, or watching foreign films, or going to gigs.
God, am I making up his personality now?
But what if I am! He was right when he said reality be damned!
Then he types something that makes me feel tense. Scared. Like this is all one sided.
Hey, we’ve been private messaging on this site quite a bit.
I’m not sure if I like it.
I don’t reply.
He doesn’t like it?
What does he mean?
Can I have your number to iMessage you instead?
I breathe out a huge sigh of relief.
He just wanted my number.
God, I panicked.
I reply:
Of course : )
And I smile.
And I give it to him.
14
Will
We go through another previous exam paper in today’s lesson. My students’ attention wanders to the window or the door or, in some cases, a gormless stare at their pencil case.
One student stares at their crotch. I know they’re on their phone; I’m not an idiot. But, you know what — they are doing it subtly. I can pretend I don’t notice. I can ignore it and not have to create a meaningless confrontation.
The only person who seems to be paying attention is Destiny. She is transfixed, an adamant gaze following my every move. She doesn’t look down at her exam paper once, she just stares at me. I can see her short skirt under the desk. She leaves her legs wide open. I don’t know if she does this out of immature naivete, and that she doesn’t know she is displaying her underwear to me — or whether she is doing it intentionally, purposefully, with complete knowledge of what she is doing. Either way, I do everything I can to avoid looking toward that area of the classroom. I sit on the desk and face the other way, or keep my head buried in the test paper I talk through, or aim my eyes at the ceiling, terrified that she may misinterpret my noticing as appreciation rather than horror.