Things I Want My Daughters to Know_ A Novel - Elizabeth Noble [46]
Ed thought he might agree, though he daren’t say it out loud. What was that aphorism he’d seen written on fridge magnets, or mouse mats, or somewhere? Any man could be a father, but it took somebody special to be a dad? Wasn’t that it?
Amanda got out of bed in a sudden move. She started to pull on clothes—hers this time, and not his flatmate’s borrowed ones.
“Are you okay?”
“Of course I’m not okay.” There was a new edge in her voice that he hadn’t heard before. As if you would, in the pub, in the bed, in her arms. “I just read—in a letter—that my mother, my perfect bloody dead bloody mother had been lying to me my entire bloody life.”
She pulled the New Year’s Eve dress roughly over her head, and her new voice was muffled.
“I can’t believe it. I can’t bloody believe it. All these months, I’ve been blaming myself for not coming to see her—feeling really shitty that I wasn’t around, that I wasn’t there for her, when everyone else was. I’ve been carrying this letter around like some talisman, waiting and waiting for the right moment, for the right feeling to come so that I could open it and read it. And now I have and I get…I get…I get this!” She was shouting now.
“And I want to ring her up and just yell at her. Really shout. How dare she? Coward? Coward isn’t the word. I mean, this is my life. This is MY LIFE. And I’ve been living it without even knowing the fundamental, basic things about myself. Like who my OWN FATHER is. And I still don’t. I still don’t. And I never bloody will, because that secret is lying with her, rotting away in some stupid bloody field. Can you believe it?”
Clearly, Ed couldn’t. This wasn’t how he had hoped this morning would go. Amanda was a dervish now, pulling her coat on. It felt to him like she could only wind up a little further before she would have to spin out and out and out of control, and be reduced almost to nothingness, and his plan was to be still and be quiet until that happened. And then, maybe, hold her. If he was allowed.
But her hand was on the bedroom door.
“I’ve got to go.”
“Go where?”
“I don’t know. Go home. Go to work.”
“It’s Saturday.”
“Just go. Go and see Mark…I don’t know.”
She turned and looked at him. He was standing in the middle of the room, wearing underpants and a T-shirt, and a startled expression. Even his unstyled Tintin hair looked shocked. She remembered where she was.
“You didn’t sign up for this.”
He moved toward her. She thought of David Attenborough, approaching animals in their native habitat. Very, very slowly and gently.
“I don’t think you should go anywhere…just yet. Not until you’ve…calmed down a bit.”
He reached out a hand.
“Have I scared you to death?”
He smiled ruefully. “A bit.”
“Not your average one-night stand?” She was looking at the ground, deflating now.
He took two steps nearer to her and tentatively put a hand on her shoulder.
“Two nights.”
When she didn’t shrug it off, he stood right in front of her and raised his other hand to rest on her other shoulder.
“And there was nothing remotely average about it.” He put one hand under her chin and pulled her face up until her eyes met his.
“I just don’t want you to go until you’ve had a think. We don’t have to talk.”
For a moment he thought he had her. She let him pull her into a hug and stood there, his arms around her, for a couple of minutes. He could feel her heart beating. It slowed and became even again. Her breathing grew less ragged. He thought she might cry. He hoped she would. He knew where he was with tears. But she didn’t cry.
She pulled away gently.
“Look, Ed. I am going to go. This…this is a big thing, you know? I can’t just pretend I don’t know. That I didn’t read it. I wish I hadn’t. But I did. And I need to be by myself. It’s nothing to do with you.” He hated that line, even though, in this case, he knew it was true. Something stopped him from asking when he would see her again.
He nodded. “Okay. I understand.”
She kissed him once, on the lips. It was warm, but