Chapter 22

chapter twenty-two

Father’s Day

Brooke Delaney parked outside her parents’ place and sat with her hands on the steering wheel, willing herself to move, to open the car door, to get out, go inside and be introduced to this girl, this Savannah, to whom she would try to be kind and welcoming. She didn’t want to make conversation with a stranger on Father’s Day, especially this particular Father’s Day, her first family event since the separation.

She considered putting on lipstick, just to please her mother. Brooke didn’t like to wear any make-up. She’d always found the whole concept peculiar. Why paint your face like a clown?

She found the lipstick that had been rolling about in the console of her car ever since her mother had pressed it upon her at least two years ago. She put it on, smacked her lips together, and looked at herself. Yep. Clown.

She felt hollowed out, scooped out, empty, and not only that, there was a sharp, digging-like sensation at the centre of her chest, like inflammation of the costal cartilage, as if she’d been doing too many plyo push-ups, except she hadn’t been doing plyo push-ups, she’d been looking at social media.

That’s where she’d seen a photo of her husband, sitting next to a woman she didn’t recognise.

There was nothing to say there was anything significant about this woman – and so what if there was, it’s a separation, Brooke.

Right now the word ‘separation’ felt as violent and irreversible as an amputation.

Just something about the tilt of her husband’s head. The angle of it.

The woman had a heap of long hair tumbling about her shoulders and she wore a lot of make-up. Like, a lot. Grant always said he didn’t want a ‘high-maintenance’ girl. He wanted a girl who camped, who hiked, and who didn’t need to blow-dry her hair each morning. Brooke ‘ticked a lot of boxes’, he said, on their second date.

Three months after she and Grant started dating, they climbed to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. Grant’s previous girlfriend could never have done that climb because she wasn’t ‘outdoorsy’ and she had a bad knee. The pain went away when she took the weight off her leg. Cartilage issues, presumably. Brooke didn’t know why she was still diagnosing her husband’s ex-girlfriend’s knee. Maybe it was because Lana’s knee had been so present in the early days of their relationship. Brooke had liked hearing about how much more athletic and easygoing and better in bed she was than Lana. She was a Delaney, she liked winning. Was it possible that this competitive rush had propelled the momentum of her entire ten-year relationship? But how had Grant managed to establish himself as the prize?

Would the next woman in Grant’s life hear about Brooke’s inconvenient migraines, in the same way that Brooke had heard all about Lana’s inconvenient knee?

Grant’s responses to Brooke’s migraines had been exemplary. He helped her into bed in a darkened room. He brought her medication and homemade soup. She couldn’t be offended when he joked to friends, his arm lovingly about her shoulder, ‘She’s just a little defective.’ That wasn’t nasty. It was witty. It was funny! It was her cue to say how supportive Grant was when she had a migraine. She’d never missed her cue.

She imagined him chatting to that woman with the bright red lips and long fake eyelashes. He’d be upfront and honest. He made an excellent first impression. ‘I’m very recently separated,’ he’d say. No lies. He’d be respectful when he spoke about Brooke. He’d say that although he supported Brooke’s career aspirations, a healthy work–life balance was important to him. ‘I just think there’s more to life than work,’ he’d say, and the tumbling-haired girl would agree that there was so much more to life than work, and their eyes would meet for just long enough.

‘It sounds risky,’ Grant said, when Brooke first said she wanted to go into practice on her own, but he didn’t try to stop her. He never said, ‘I told you so’ when she fretted about cash flow. When she said she couldn’t go riding with him on Saturday mornings anymore, because she’d volunteered to be on-site at the local sporting grounds in case of injuries, in hope of injuries, that might lead to patients and raise her profile, he never complained, he just looked faintly bored.

She was no longer ticking quite as many boxes.

There had been no counselling, no tears, no shouting. It was an amicable, grown-up separation. ‘We should feel proud about that,’ Grant had said. It was strange how he’d always made her feel like they were winning as a couple, even when they were breaking up.

‘Do you want me to give up the clinic?’ she’d asked him.

‘Of course not,’ he’d answered. ‘I just think maybe our paths have diverged and we need some time apart to think.’

To think about what? She didn’t have time to think.

When her family asked her about Grant today she planned to tell them he was sick at home with a cold. She wasn’t going to announce the separation on Father’s Day, not with a strange girl at the table. This was going to be a shock for both family and friends. She and Grant had not been a couple who ever fought in public, or even snapped at each other. They were affectionate, without being over the top about it. (There was something suspect about people who were too lovey-dovey.) They socialised and exercised together. They had mutual friends and peaceful dinner parties. She thought people would probably have described their marriage as ‘solid’.

It was not in her nature to shock people with developments in her personal life. That was for Amy. Brooke preferred to go under the radar. She realised she felt ashamed, as if by separating from her husband she’d done something slightly distasteful and seedy, which was ridiculous. This was not Regency England. It was the twenty-first century. Her own brother was divorced. Her friend Ines was divorced.

She undid her seatbelt.

Where’s Grant? He’s at home. He has a bad cold.

She was the worst liar in her family. She used to think it was because she was the youngest, and therefore everyone could see right through her feeble attempts at deceit thanks to their superior knowledge of how the world worked.

She still sometimes caught herself watching for circumspect glances between her older siblings, listening for the nuances of the conversation, as if they might still be keeping secrets from her about sex and Santa, death and Grandma. (Her brothers and sister once convinced Brooke she was adopted because she was the only left-handed member of the family. Brooke believed it. For months! ‘Have you not looked in the mirror, you foolish child?’ Joy said when Brooke finally tearfully asked if she could please meet her real parents. ‘You’re all identical!’)

If she got through the questions about Grant, the next question from her family would be about the clinic, and she’d have to lie about that too. Over the last few days she’d had four no-shows and three last-minute cancellations. It was unbelievable. It felt like a concerted attack. What was wrong with people? She had a carefully worded cancellation policy on her website but it was difficult to charge patients who she’d never even seen for an initial consultation. If she told her parents, they would be so enthusiastically sympathetic. They would remind her of the ladies who used to book private tennis lessons and then cancel five minutes before. It was selfish of her not to give her parents the opportunity to pleasurably reminisce about the early days of Delaneys but Brooke couldn’t bear to hear their helpful tips, to see their furrowed brows as they brainstormed strategies. The added weight of their hopes for her success was too much to bear.

She opened her car door a fraction, put one foot on the ground, breathed in the scented spring air and wondered if she should text Grant to remind him about his hay fever medication. Was that the way one behaved during an ‘amicable’ separation?

Logan’s car was already parked in the driveway. The others would be arriving any minute. The Delaneys were extraordinarily punctual, even Amy, who might arrive hungover or depressed or in some other way incapacitated, but right on time. A good tennis player was punctual. Don’t leave the other competitors sitting around waiting for you.

As she watched, Logan came out the front door. He smiled, lifted a hand and walked towards her car. He looked kind of old today. His grey sideburns glistened in the sunlight as he ducked down to see her.

‘Have you been sent out on an errand already?’ she asked.

‘Mum wants me to buy two bottles of mineral water.’ Logan opened her car door the full way and stood back. ‘You need me to take anything inside for you?’

‘We don’t need mineral water,’ said Brooke. She picked up the green salad she’d made that no-one would eat from the passenger seat, together with her Father’s Day gift: a travel-sized massage ball her dad would say was what he’d always wanted, but that her mother would probably re-gift back to Brooke one day. ‘We can just drink tap water.’

‘Mum says she’s noticed that people always expect sparkling water these days,’ said Logan as she got out, the salad bowl under her arm, the gift balanced on top of the clingwrap.

‘There are no people coming. It’s just us.’

‘Just us.’ Logan paused. ‘And Savannah. Our new friend.’ He looked back at the car. ‘Where’s Grant?’

He’s got a bad cold. He’s sick with a cold. He’s very sick with a very bad cold.

‘We’re having a trial separation.’ She really needed to work on strengthening her lying muscles.

Logan blanched. ‘Oh, wow, I’m sorry.’ He took a step towards her as if he was going to hug her, but they weren’t a hugging family so he didn’t know how to complete the move. ‘That’s terrible news. That’s quite a shock.’ He ran his palm along the side of his jaw. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Well,’ Brooke shifted the salad bowl onto her hip, ‘he hasn’t died.’

‘Still. It’s a shock.’ He seemed genuinely, properly upset. ‘I didn’t see that coming.’

‘I didn’t either.’ An understatement.

‘Mum loves him,’ said Logan. She could sense him trying not to sound accusatory but it was as if Brooke had broken one of their mother’s favourite belongings and he didn’t want her to feel bad about it, but he felt bad for their mother.

It was true that Joy and her only son-in-law seemed to have a special connection, and that Grant made a point of being especially charming with Joy, and Joy went along with it, but Brooke had always wondered how much her mother was truly falling for Grant’s charm offensive. Her mother, unlike Brooke, was a fine actress. She’d had all those years dealing with the parents of the tennis students, making them feel like their children were all remarkable.

Brooke put the salad and gift down on the bonnet of her car so she could irritably scratch her nose. ‘It’s only a trial separation. We might get back together, so I’m not telling anyone yet. I don’t want to upset Mum and Dad unnecessarily.’

‘Good idea.’ Logan shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans and rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, chewing on the inside of his mouth, like he used to do before a match.

‘How’s Indira?’ asked Brooke.

‘Yeah, that’s the thing,’ said Logan uneasily.

‘What do you mean, “that’s the thing”?’

She squinted at him. Then it hit her. They all should have seen it coming. Five years was about right. Long enough for the family to forget Logan’s track record of serial monogamy, long enough for the girl to become part of the family, and his girlfriends were always so lovely.

This was why he was so upset about her and Grant. He didn’t want their mother to have to deal with simultaneous break-ups. All her children would be single. All possible grandchildren swept off the table in one fell swoop. It would knock her for six, as their father would say. He hated cricket, but liked that particular sporting colloquialism.

‘Oh, Logan,’ she said. ‘For God’s sake.’

‘Well, you can’t talk,’ said Logan.

‘I can so talk, I’ve been with Grant for ten years. We got married.’

‘Exactly,’ said Logan. ‘So that makes it worse. You made a proper commitment.’

‘And you didn’t,’ said Brooke. ‘Is that what Indira wanted? Was she waiting for you to propose?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Logan. ‘I asked her once if she wanted me to propose and she just laughed.’

‘You’re not meant to propose to propose, you should just propose.’

‘She’s a feminist.’

‘So what? Did she want babies?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’

‘You don’t think so?’ Brooke threw up her arms. ‘I bet she wanted somethingyou weren’t giving her.’

Logan gave his infuriating right-shouldered shrug.

You could never argue properly with Logan because he didn’t care. The angrier you got the calmer he’d become. His laid-back philosophy probably charmed his partners for the first five years and then one day they lost their minds.

Brooke’s eyes filled with stupid tears. ‘She did all that beautiful graphic design work for me and didn’t let me pay a cent.’ She should have insisted she pay her.

‘She was happy to do it,’ said Logan. The shrug. Again.

‘That’s not the point, Logan.’ She surprised herself by suddenly shoving him, quite hard, in the centre of his chest with the heel of her hand, like she was a little kid again. He didn’t budge. His core strength was excellent, even though he never worked out. Maybe he’d known it was coming, even if she hadn’t.

‘That all you got?’ he said. It seemed to have cheered him up.

‘I’m sad,’ she said. ‘I’m really sad about Indira.’

‘Yeah, well, I’m sad about Indira too, and I’m sad about Grant. But life goes on. We live to play another day.’

That’s what their father used to say when they lost. Nobody found it especially motivational.

Logan lifted his keys to go and then stopped as he remembered something. ‘So, guess what Savannah baked for today.’

‘What?’

‘Chocolate brownies.’

‘Oh my word,’ said Brooke. Now she was using one of their mother’s favourite phrases.

‘It’s not funny,’ said Logan. ‘Mum just hissed at me, “Logan, this is not funny.”’ He looked over her shoulder. ‘Here’s Troy. Watch him park me in.’

As predicted, Troy parked his gorgeous shiny McLaren with a slick one-handed spin of the wheel directly behind Logan’s car. He saw his siblings and smiled that radiant smile that could buy him anything: women, refunds, forgiveness.

Brooke smiled back helplessly as Troy leaped from the car with the glittery confidence of a movie star arriving at the premiere of his own movie. He carried a bottle of wine and a small beautifully store-wrapped gift.

‘Love the new car,’ she said. She didn’t envy much about Troy’s life except for the luxury cars, which were replaced with the same regularity as the luxury girlfriends. She shot her dowdy old Ford Focus a resentful glance. It had a persistent problem with the air-conditioning and had recently begun to emanate a deep pained groan each time she turned the steering wheel, but there was no way in the world she could justify a new car right now.

Troy jerked his chin at Logan and gently cuffed Brooke on the back of her head. ‘How are you, baby Brooke? You look great. Are you wearing lipstick? Mum will be thrilled. It’s maybe just a little smudged there.’ He pointed at her lip.

She swore, licked her thumb and wiped it away.

‘How’s the physiotherapy business?’ asked Troy.

She rocked her palm in a so-so motion. ‘Why do you look so good?’ she asked. ‘You’re glowing. It’s annoying.’

‘Just healthy living, Brooke,’ said Troy. ‘Spot of microdermabrasion. Bit of tennis to keep me active. You should try it. Great sport.’ He looked at Logan’s keys. ‘You going somewhere?’

‘Mum says I need to get mineral water,’ said Logan. ‘Probably for you, now I think about it.’

‘Great. Could you make it Voss?’ said Troy. ‘That’s my preferred sparkling.’

Logan didn’t even bother to fully roll his eyes. ‘I can’t get out now anyway. You’ve blocked me in. You go get your preferred sparkling yourself.’

‘How’s the newest member of the family doing?’ Troy looked towards the house. ‘Have you met her yet, Brooke? Savannah.’ He said it as if it were an exotic foreign word.

‘Guess what she baked today.’ Brooke stole the moment from Logan. She so rarely had the chance to be wicked with her brothers. It was normally Amy and Troy sitting in a corner, making snarky comments and obscure pop-culture references.

Troy considered the question. His face changed. ‘Not brownies.’

‘Speaking of which,’ said Logan. They all watched as an unfamiliar car slowly circled the cul-de-sac with Amy in the front seat talking animatedly to the car’s driver, a young man who was laughing uproariously and not really keeping his eye on the road.

‘Has she got another new boyfriend?’ asked Brooke.

‘It’s an Uber.’ Logan pointed at the sign on the back window.

‘He might be a new boyfriend by now. Didn’t she meet the last one when he served her at JB Hi-Fi?’ said Troy. ‘The one who fixed Mum’s computer? I liked him. He added value.’

The car stopped, the driver hopped out and rushed around to open Amy’s door like he was a chauffeur and Amy emerged, tangle-haired and bright-eyed, dressed like she’d just got back from a grotty but glorious music festival. She was laden with objects: an oddly shaped, badly wrapped present, a bunch of sunflowers, a baking tray with a flapping sheet of aluminium foil and a Happy Father’s Day helium balloon that fluttered above her head.

‘Hello!’ she called out to her siblings as she hugged the Uber driver goodbye. She didn’t hug her siblings, just her Uber drivers. The guy had probably shared something deeply personal with her that he’d never told anyone before. People sensed that Amy offered the possibility of redemption.

‘Does she look hungover?’ muttered Logan. ‘It will be worse if she’s hungover.’

‘Go help her carry the brownies.’ Troy nudged Brooke.

‘I’m leaving,’ said Logan. ‘I don’t want to be here when she finds out.’ He held out his hand to Troy. ‘Give me your keys.’

‘I’ll drive you,’ said Troy. ‘I’m scared. She has that fragile look about her.’

‘Don’t you dare ask if she’s off her meds,’ said Logan to Troy.

‘I haven’t said that in years,’ said Troy, offended. ‘No-one says that anymore.’ He winced. ‘Do you think she is?’

‘Do not leave me,’ said Brooke. It wasn’t so funny anymore, now that she could see Amy actually carrying her tray of precious brownies. Now it was kind of stressful, and mean, and Brooke felt personally responsible.

She swung back and forth like a pendulum when it came to Amy. Growing up, she and her brothers had believed Amy to be a drama queen, who felt the same things everyone felt, but chose to make a bigger deal of them. They made fun of her. At times they got angry with her when she held them up or stole their mother’s attention. How could you tell what was truly going on in her head? Brooke got depressed, she got anxious, but she still managed to get herself out of bed each day. It was a choice, surely? There was no need for Amy to lean into her feelings with such gusto. But then a university friend got diagnosed with depression and described it to Brooke as a kind of half-paralysis, as if all her muscles had atrophied, and Brooke had a sudden memory of Amy eating cereal in slow motion, swaying like seaweed under water, and she realised she was offering this friend more sympathy and understanding than she’d ever given her own sister. These days she tried hard to see Amy with objective, compassionate eyes, but it was hard, because this was still her big sister, her bossy, charismatic sister, who used to call Brooke her ‘peasant’.

‘What are you all doing milling about out there?’ Their mother opened the front door and called out from the front porch. She wore a tea dress with a cardigan, as if she were hosting a garden party, and she was in hectic, pink-cheeked ‘we have special guests’ mode. ‘Come inside, all of you! Forget the mineral water, Logan, Savannah says we don’t need it.’

Troy said, ‘Oh, well, if Savannah says we don’t need it.’

‘Hurry up!’ Joy beckoned impatiently. ‘Your father is wondering where you all are! Is Grant coming separately, Brooke? I hope he’s on his way. I think Savannah is ready to serve.’

‘What don’t we need?’ trilled Amy.

‘Brownies,’ said Troy.

Amy’s smile vanished. ‘I beg your pardon?’

A familiar constellation of flashing dots appeared in Brooke’s peripheral vision.