Nancy stared back at Pete, frozen to the spot half in surprise and half in frustration that he had chosen this moment to turn up on her doorstep when she’d been trying to get him to come and see Jack for the past year.
‘What do you want, Pete?’
‘Aren’t you going to invite me in?’ He brushed his hand through his dark brown hair, which had grown longer over the past year than she had ever seen it, and leaned on the doorframe, seemingly trying to look more relaxed than he was feeling.
‘Can’t say that I particularly want to,’ she said, but then caught sight of her neighbour in her front garden pretending to be doing some weeding when really she was ear wigging. ‘You’ve got ten minutes.’
The atmosphere between the two of them was tense and things only worsened when Pete walked into the kitchen and was faced with Harriet.
‘What in God’s name are you doing here?’ she scowled, putting her hands onto her hips and frowning at him.
‘Nice to see you too, Harriet.’ Pete forced a strained smile across his face.
‘I didn’t say it was nice to see you. In fact, I feel quite the opposite.’
‘Hari, it’s fine.’ Nancy manoeuvred around her friend and placed a brief hand onto her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze as she grabbed her cup off the side.
‘It’s bloody well not fine. He thinks he can just walk out on you and Jack and disappear for months on end, ignoring your calls and then swan up on your doorstep like nothing’s happened? I don’t bloody think so.’ She glared at him.
‘Last time I checked, this wasn’t your house or your business, Harriet!’
Harriet marched towards Pete at speed and Nancy quickly put her mug down and stepped into Harriet’s path just as she reached him. ‘And last time I checked, Pete,’ she spat his name viciously, ‘you don’t just abandon your wife and your child the second shit gets hard in life.’
‘OK, OK, enough you two.’ Nancy placed her hand onto Harriet’s shoulder. ‘Let me talk to him and see what the deal is. I’ll call you later and we can talk about the holiday, OK?’
‘Nance, don’t let him wheedle his way—’
‘Hari, I’m fine … honestly.’
Harriet glared at Pete before grabbing her bag and walking out of the kitchen towards the front door.
‘And as for you,’ Nancy pointed at Pete, her expression dropping into a serious tone, ‘don’t you dare think for one second that it is OK to walk into my house and be rude to my friends.’
‘Nancy, this was our house.’
‘Exactly, Pete, this was our house – and then you left.’
They both stood for a second staring at each other and then as her words sank in, Pete admitted defeat and nodded.
Ten minutes later, Nancy had made Pete a coffee and refreshed her own mug and the pair were seated at the table clasping their mugs, neither one making moves to speak. Eventually, Nancy said, ‘So are you going to tell me why you’ve suddenly turned up here after a year of silence or am I supposed to just ignore that part?’ Her anxious heartbeat had still not recovered from the moment she’d opened the door to him.
He exhaled but didn’t shift his glance from the mug of brown liquid in front of him. ‘It’s complicated.’
‘Too damn right, it’s complicated, Pete, because I’m struggling to understand why you would leave us. I tried my best to make everything work, even when things got really tough with Jack but clearly it wasn’t good enough – maybe I wasn’t good enough.’ She looked down at her hands as she spoke, saying the words that she had been thinking for months now.
This time he looked up, sadness etched on his face. ‘Nancy, no! It wasn’t you – you were the best wife.’
‘I can’t have been that good otherwise you wouldn’t have left. No matter how hard life gets, when you have someone you love by your side, you get through it. But you just left. I obviously didn’t do a very good job at being a supportive wife.’
This time he didn’t respond, instead choosing to drop his gaze back down into the mug. Nancy didn’t probe any further because she didn’t want to hear that she was right – even though she knew she was. After a minute, he spoke again. It was barely audible but was still loud enough for Nancy to hear perfectly. ‘It was too hard.’
‘Life is hard.’ She felt her exterior harden slightly. The ‘it’s hard’ line wasn’t going to wash with her. She was too far into protection mode now, especially as she’d had to deal with the last year on her own.
‘It’s easy for you.’
‘How is it easy for me? He’s my son too, I feel how hard it is too, you know!’
‘Yes but you know how to deal with him – with it.’
‘You’re talking about him like he has a disease – he’s not sick, he’s autistic!’ Rage was beginning to boil in her chest. She was sick to death of people treating Jack like there was something wrong with him, like he didn’t belong on this planet and should be hidden away.
Pete flinched noticeably when Nancy said autistic and this made her even angrier.
‘What is it you’re even here for Pete? Because it clearly isn’t to apologise.’
‘I am sorry, of course I am. Do you really think that I wanted to leave? That under normal circumstances I would have chosen to leave my wife and son?’
‘So, why did you?? What was so bad that you felt the only way to deal with this was to leave? That you didn’t have any other option in this whole world other than to walk out and leave your son without his daddy and your wife without her husband?’
His head was facing the table in shame but his feeling sorry for himself stance only fuelled her anger. ‘I had to deal with months and months of him asking me where his daddy was. Do you know what that was like? Do you even have the capacity to understand how heartbreakingly painful it was to watch him have meltdown after meltdown because Mummy couldn’t tell him where Daddy was?’ He was still looking at the table. ‘I have had to not only be Mummy, but Daddy too. I am trying to work to support us because you weren’t answering my calls. But then when Jack has a bad day at school and I have to go and pick him up, I can’t work. But do I have that choice? No! And when Jack has a bad night and won’t sleep – because he still doesn’t sleep, you know, in case you’re wondering – I still have to work having had an hour’s sleep and having been punched and slapped and kicked all over because he is anxious but can’t tell me why.’
Pete shook his head in despair.
‘Or when I have to have a cereal bar for dinner because there’s only enough pasta for Jack but a trip to the shop is out of the question because I haven’t pre-warned him and the sudden change in routine would warrant another meltdown. Do you know how hard it is to be a single parent, let alone a single parent to a child who is struggling like Jack?’ She waited, watching his pathetic response as he shrugged. ‘DO YOU?’ His head snapped up in surprise.
‘Sweetheart, come on, don’t shout.’
‘What did you expect, Pete? That I would open the door and see your face and be happy to see you? That I would welcome you back with open arms and tell you how much I’ve missed you and how happy I am that you’re back in our lives – not to worry about the last year? Is that what you thought would happen?’ she pressed.
‘Well no, but…’ he trailed off, obviously seeing his error in judgement.
‘Pete, you walked out on your family when times got tough. I needed you and you weren’t there.’ Her voice was gentler but the tone still firm.
‘You don’t know what it was like for me. You completely understood everything the doctor was saying and seemed to know what you were doing.’
‘Are you kidding me?’ she exhaled in disbelief. ‘I didn’t have a clue what was going on! I don’t think anybody ever does when they get an autistic diagnosis. I had the same thoughts and questions going round in my mind as you did.’
‘But you were nodding and smiling and sounded like you knew exactly what the doctor was saying to you – you were asking questions about what to do around the house and how we could make life easier for him and—’
‘So because I opened my mouth and asked the questions that were inside my head instead of shutting off and refusing to acknowledge that our son needed help, I’m now a pro at it all?’
‘Well no, but it sounded like you were fine with it.’
‘We had no choice but to be fine with it – he’s our son no matter what. You should’ve felt the same.’ Her voice trailed off as unexpected emotion caught the back of her throat.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘It was just too hard.’
‘So, you’re just giving up on him?’ She asked the question but wasn’t sure she was ready for the answer.
‘I’m here, aren’t I?’
‘So this is you trying, is it?’
He nodded and then sipped his coffee.
‘Well, I suppose late is better than never.’ He seemed to perk up. ‘But don’t think you can just swan back in here like nothing happened. It took Jack a long time to change his routine; he’s used to you not being here now. I’m not even sure he will be OK with seeing you.’
‘What do you mean, “OK with seeing me” – I’m his dad!’
‘His dad who left him!’
‘Fine,’ he conceded, realising he didn’t have a leg to stand on.
‘We’ll have to come to an arrangement, sort out a plan as to how we’re going to reintroduce you into his everyday life.’ As much as she hated him for leaving, Nancy couldn’t ignore the fact that this was potentially the moment that Jack got his dad back. No matter how much she might be angry at Pete, she wouldn’t be the one to stop Jack seeing his dad.
‘OK,’ he grunted, acting like a teenager who had just been told they could have twenty quid if they washed the car first.
‘But we can’t do anything right now; we can sort it out once we get back from our holiday.’
‘Holiday? Since when are you going away on holiday?’
‘Since my shitty husband walked out on me, and my son and I have had to tear myself into twenty-five gazillion pieces just to make ends meet – I think we have earned a little break away in the sun, don’t you?’ She glared at him, daring him to argue. ‘Exactly.’ She stood and cleared away the mugs, taking his before he had a chance to finish the last mouthful. ‘So, if you don’t mind, I have some packing to do.’ She indicated towards the front door with her head.
Pete stood up and marched towards the door. ‘Oh, and this time,’ Nancy began, and Pete turned around looking hopeful. ‘When I call you – answer the bloody phone!’
She watched him exhale in frustration as he exited their family home, the home he’d decided to abandon. Pushing the door shut behind him, she returned to the kitchen and began loading the dishwasher. It felt strange seeing Pete after all that time. Her reaction had not been what she’d expected – emotionally or physically. She’d spent the last year believing that when – if – he walked back through that door, she would be overjoyed to see him. She would wrap her arms around him and thank him for returning to them, for making their family complete again. Instead, she felt an overwhelming feeling of anger and betrayal. Instead of begging him to come back, she had been blunt, stern and regimented in her responses to him. All the memories of the struggles over the last year had catapulted into the forefront of her mind. She wasn’t falling apart emotionally without him and after seeing him today, she actually felt that little bit stronger knowing that she had coped. He hadn’t been there and she had managed. A small part of her felt sad for the loss of respect for her husband, but she needed to suppress that and focus on making the right changes, for Jack. If Pete wanted to be in their lives, that was fine. But there was no way she was letting him back into her head. The consequences of letting that happen were too difficult to think about.