Happily Ever After_ - Benison Anne O'Reilly [46]
And even though she was such a little girl I think Isabel sensed this in a way. She was so eager for daddy’s attention and approval that it seemed almost unhealthy. I used to lie awake worrying that she would grow up to be one of those miserable women who sits by her phone sweating on a call that never comes from Mr Hard-to-get.
Be careful what you wish for. I had married a man who’d offered me a life of travel and excitement, but had become as much a spectator of that life as if I’d stayed working amongst the lab rats. In an effort to make conversation I sometimes asked about his layovers in Asia and the Middle East, but he might as well have just faxed me the itinerary for all the personal insights he was prepared to offer. And if I dared ask too much, I would likely get this reply:
‘I’m not screwing around if that’s what you’re getting at.’
So he jetted off each month to exotic foreign lands and little Isabel and I stayed home, waiting and hoping that Anthony Cooper, loving husband and doting dad, would one day turn up again.
No, I never completely gave up hoping.
Unfortunately hoping is not enough. You have to act. You have to take your life into your own hands and do something. I discovered that eventually.
And when eventually I acted, he did turn up. I certainly wouldn’t be on this flight to Hong Kong if he hadn’t.
The trouble is I was way too slow about it. If only I’d acted a year, or even six months earlier, my life might be much less complicated than it is right now.
***
It was almost three more years before I reached that point. A lot was to happen in that time.
Isabel continued to blossom and Mum continued to adore looking after her. The only trouble was Pamela. When my daughter committed her first social gaffe by including ‘Ganma’ (Mum’s nickname) but not ‘Nana’ (Pamela’s) amongst her first words we almost had to call in United Nations peace negotiators. From then on my mother-in-law demanded that Issy spend one day a week at her house too. This was highly inconvenient for me, as unlike the situation with Mum and Dad’s place, driving to and from work via Pamela’s home involved a lengthy detour in peak hour traffic. It didn’t occur to anyone in the Cooper family to take this into consideration, which gives you a fair idea of my place in their pecking order.
Then Pamela decided that looking after Isabel during the day was too socially restricting: it interfered with her tennis, committee meetings and occasional lunches with the girls. Instead she suggested that Isabel could sleep over at her house once a week, on Wednesday nights. Officially this was so Tony and I could have some couple time, but considering he generally preferred not to be in the same room as me this didn’t ever happen unless we went out with friends. If he was around he’d more likely be off playing squash with a mate and I would occasionally take the opportunity to meet a friend or my sister Emma at a noodle bar or the movies.
It’s probably worth talking a bit more about Emma. While I’d been meeting and marrying Tony and losing and having babies, she’d been growing up.
Emma took the prerogative of the youngest child and was completely without ambition. I figure she thought Mum and Dad already had their high achiever and as a consequence it was okay for her to coast through life on her cuteness. Up until she was about twelve she showed some promise as a dancer and we assumed she was destined for a career on the stage, but not long after she started high school she announced dance was ‘boring’ and gave it all away to play netball and hang out with her friends at the mall. I don’t know who was more devastated, Mum or Emma’s dance instructor, but when she set her mind to something my little sister always got her way.
Schoolwork was another matter altogether - she never showed any interest in that. Teachers were consulted, tutors