Tell Me - M. Colette Jane

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laughs and nods and sighs in all the right places. If he can tell that I’m withdrawn and not talking about anything real, he doesn’t betray it. And that’s why I can always be with him. My mother will also sense it, discern that I am in angst and turmoil. But she will poke, and poke, and poke until I run away screaming. Dad never will. I can stay with him even when I retreat.

      Today, I realise I’m not the only one who retreated. He’s sitting across from me also full of something he can’t share.

      I take one of his big, callused hands in mind. Kiss his knuckle.

      ‘What was that for?’ he says.

      ‘I love you,’ I say. ‘Always.’

      And I see a glistening in the corner of his left eye. No. No fucking way is my dad about to cry. No.

      It’s gone.

      ‘I’m going to have to retire next year,’ he says instead of crying. I let go of his hands, fold both of mine under my chin.

      ‘No, really? When did you get so old?’ I tease.

      ‘Sometime between my third and fourth grandchild,’ he teases me back. ‘You know how proud I am of you? How much I love you, all of you?’

      This, again. So out of character.

      ‘I know,’ I say. ‘You don’t have to tell me.’ I close my eyes. Fuck. Fine. I’ll do it.

      ‘Everything OK?’ I ask. ‘At home? With you and Mom?’

      I have had the nerve to ask this question…oh, three times in my life. Once when I was sixteen, and realised, after coming home from summer camp, that my parents hadn’t spoken to each other at all in the four days I had been back. Once when I was nine months pregnant with Cassandra and hyper-sensitive, and suddenly noticed, acutely, painfully, with a tinge of horror, that even when they were allegedly joyously anticipating the arrival of their first grandchild, my parents weren’t so much speaking to each other as shouting at each other. Or rather my mother was shouting. My father…hiding. And once, five years ago, when my dad started smoking again and my mother put herself on a ridiculously restrictive diet…

      The answer, always: ‘Well, you know how it is, Jane. She’s not the easiest woman in the world to live with. She goes through her episodes. But I love her. And always will.’

      No answer at all. And yet answer enough that I am always afraid to ask.

      Dad is looking at his hands, his terrible steak sandwich. I wait for ‘You know how it is’. Instead:

      ‘I’m sorry.’

      ‘What?’

      ‘I’m sorry,’ he repeats quietly. ‘I know…I saw you. Noticing. Reacting. On Monday.’

      I nod. My belly clenches.

      ‘It won’t happen again,’ he says. ‘If I can help it.’

      And again. No answer at all. And yet answer enough that I wish I hadn’t asked.

      We finish lunch in silence. He holds me a little longer and tighter than usual when I kiss him goodbye.

      My phone buzzes as I get in the car. Text from Mom. ‘How was your lunch with Dad?’ ‘Great,’ I lie and type. And lean against the driver’s-seat headrest, my eyes closed. I need to go pick up my kids. Make supper. No text from Alex alerting me to clients sabotaging the evening tonight. No emails from my clients upsetting my schedule. No message from Matt.

      And that’s good.

      I need…equilibrium. I need…I need to spend a night enveloped in the cocoon of my family, my husband, my children, my real life. I need to anchor. I need…

      …I need to not wish that there was a message. I need to get a fucking brain.

      I’ve been here before. And I’ve stopped it. And I will stop it again. I have so much to lose. Everything. A family with four children. What does he have? Joy. I pause. I have always been unfair to Joy. Superior, mildly contemptuous – either for her blindness and oblivion or her willingness to endure a series of betrayals so she could wear the crown of Matt’s girlfriend, then Matt’s wife. Jesus. Is that what he thinks about Alex? Superior, mildly contemptuous? Dismissive?

      I don’t want to think about any of this. Any of it. Ever.

      I push the thoughts away. Hard.

      Alex and I are fucking awesome parents. I chant this to myself silently as I make dinner. As we don’t yell at the children, much, while they show off for Daddy at the dinner table. As he cajoles the boys into clearing the table and loading the dishwasher. As he reads Captain Underpants to the boys. As he says, ‘I’ve missed too many bedtimes in the last little while’ to me while I mop up the flood that is our bathroom after four children bathe in it. I read Winnie the Pooh to Annie. Cassandra, too grown up at this moment for my comfort, is curled up in her bed reading Anne of Green Gables to herself.

      We are fucking awesome parents. No longer chanting. Knowing. Believing. I slip into bed, not tranquil, no, definitely not tranquil, but…certain of this, at least. We are really great parents, Alex and I. And the children are all asleep, and he is going to come into the bedroom, and I will…

      ‘Jane?’ He pokes his head into the bedroom. ‘Boys are asleep. I’m going to pop down into the office for a bit before bed. Review the latest drafts of the documents so I’ve got a head start for tomorrow.’

      ‘Of course,’ I say.

      And he’s barely gone when I pull out the laptop. And check Facebook.

       Busy day?

      —No.

      —I’ve been…avoiding being available.

       Ah. And why?

      —Because. I am struggling, finally, suddenly, with reconciling this, what you do to me, with my real life. And my real obligations. Which I want and need to preserve. Do you understand? A husband. Four children. A really fucking great life.

       Yes. I understand.

       Jane.

       Do you remember – the last time we saw each other. It was the only time you were ever in my condo in Montreal. On the balcony. Everyone else was in the kitchen.

      —I remember. The last time.

       I had you alone for only a few moments. I looked at your legs and asked if you were wearing stockings.

      —You put your hands under my skirt.

       You gave me the most withering, pitying look. Pulled away. Do you remember what you said?

      —‘Get your fucking hands off me.’

       Yes.

      —I was pregnant with Cassandra.

       I figured it out – a few months later. At the time, it was such a slap – your first real rejection of me. You would not look at me the rest of the night. And I never wanted you more. Of course. Perversely. I wanted you then. I wanted you always. I want you always. But I always want you…tied to someone else.

      —Ah.

       I believe this is what you want as well. It used to be. Is it still?

      —I am struggling. See, I remember that moment, so very well. I remember how you looked at me. I remember how I felt with your hands on me. And I remember…I remember realising that if I was going to do this properly – if I was going to be Alex’s wife, and the mother of his children – I had to stay the fuck away from you.

      —And this bothers me, this: you and Joy, you still have no children?

       No. We’ve been trying to conceive, half-heartedly, the last year or so.

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