“One,” she said. “Two. Three!”
We both launched our eggs at the house. Mine hit the front door and cracked. Runny, sticky egg dribbled down the blue painted wood. Everleigh’s hit the plant pot beside the door and the stone path. Both cracked, creating a mess, so I was satisfied with that.
She giggled. “That was fun.”
“Yeah it was.” I didn’t feel that much better, probably because I wasn’t fifteen anymore but Abby would have to clean it up, so that gave me something. “Now we run,” I said and grabbed her little hand.
Her deep giggles made me laugh. Maybe it wasn’t a waste of time after all.
I sat in front of Carol, wondering what the hell I was doing here.
“Jasper, what brings you here?”
Thank God she’d said something. We’d been sitting in silence since I walked in, five minutes ago.
“I don’t know. My marriage is over.”
Her perfectly plucked but too thin brows arched. “Oh? Why is that?”
“Because she was sleeping with a guy from work.” I shook my head. “I knew it too. There was something off. She was distant and kept meeting this Brett for ‘work’ related reasons. I’m so stupid; I wanted to believe her.”
“That doesn’t make you stupid. Nobody wants to believe the worst in someone they love.”
I still felt like an idiot.
“I don’t really know what to say in here,” I admitted.
“Sometimes just talking helps. I don’t have the miracle cure that’ll fix every problem you’ve ever had. You’re the only person that can change your life.
“No miracle cure, huh?”
“I’m afraid that doesn’t exist. Unless you put the work in and deal with your problems, everything else you try is just masking it.”
I felt like she was saying ‘so don’t think a baby will be what fixes everything’. I wasn’t that stupid; I knew babies were huge amounts of stress, work and worry bundled into a tiny little person.
“I was so close to getting everything I’ve wanted, and now…” I closed my eyes. “Now I’ve got nothing.”
“When did you know you wanted a family?”
Weird question. Where was she going with this? “When we moved back to England.”
When Oakley spoke out about the abuse when she was sixteen, me and Mum took her away to Australia to live with our uncle. We’d returned four years later when the long, complicated court case started. Max got locked away, as did many others in the paedophile ring, including the bastard that abused Oakley. When it was over we returned to Australia briefly to pack up our things so we could move back.
“After your father’s court case.”
“Yeah. You still think I only want that because I missed out, don’t you?”
“I think that you started wanting a family the way most people do. I think you’ve put everything into it because the idea of a wife and children filled something you’ve missed out on.” She sat forward in her chair. “When you think of your childhood, what comes to mind?”
“That it was one big fat lie. Everything I thought I had wasn’t real.”
“One part of it wasn’t. The good memories you have did happen. Oakley’s spoken about this a few times before. From the age of five, she knew your father was someone else, but he didn’t stop being the person he was to you until you were in your late teens.”
“You don’t think I feel guilty about that?”
“I understand that, but you have nothing to feel guilty about, you didn’t know. You’re allowed to have good memories of him. Oakley does.”
“He fucked all that.”
She shook her head. “I don’t believe that.”
I shrugged. “You don’t have to.”
“What is your earliest memory of your father?”
“I remember him dressing up as Father Christmas. I must’ve only been three and Oakley was a baby, walking along furniture, I used to help hold her hands sometimes.”
Carol smiled. “You know you divert back to Oakley a lot.”
I did?
“She does the same thing. It always comes back to you and your mum. She worries how you’re doing the most.”
“Because she doesn’t feel like I’ve dealt with it,” I said.
“That’s correct. Do you feel like you’ve dealt with it?”
“I dunno. I’m not sure how.”
“So your father dressed up for Christmas?”
Going back. “Yeah. He did a crap job of masking his voice; I knew it was him straight away. I was so excited when he walked through the door though. He had a sack with a helicopter for me and a teddy bear for Oakley. She chewed on its ear, and I broke the propeller of mine after five minutes. Dad glued it back, but it was slightly bent.”
“It sounds like you had a good childhood.”
“I thought I did.”
She said nothing else but I could tell she wanted to say that I had because I still had good memories. They may be good, but they were ruined. The bad far outweighed the good.
“I got a flat,” I said, trying to direct the conversation away from Max.