Chapter Sixteen

It could be fiction, it’s that fucking outrageous. This is the kind of thing you read about in those real life magazines about other people in parts of the country you’ve never even heard of, you think are so ridiculous they have to be made up.

I could be in my class now, listening to one of the other students read out what they think is their magnum opus.

It’s fucked up. So fucked up I can’t even comprehend it.

Not only do I have to cope with the fact that I’m in love with two people, twin brothers at that, I have to deal with the fact that my father, the man I thought I knew, has been fucking their mother Janice for the best part of the last three years, and has kept it so well concealed he almost looks like he’s doubting the veracity of it himself.

If someone told me the friction I’ve been witnessing in my parents relationship over the last six months was down to a secret affair, you could have given me a million guesses and I still wouldn’t have worked it out.

Dad has been fucking Donkey’s mother behind everyone’s backs, and now with Brian and the boys out of the equation, his own daughter seemingly old enough and adult enough to manage the blow, he decides it’s high time the truth were out.

Understandably, Mom looks just as uncomfortable as I feel.

“We’ve decided”, Dad says, “Until we manage to get everything organized officially, that the best thing to do is for me to move out.”

“Right”, I say, unsure what else will suffice.

“I know it’s going to take some time to adjust to”, Dad continues. “If you have any questions.”

“Are you getting a divorce?” I ask, my eyes going from my father to my mother.

Dad laughs nervously, rubs his hands on his knees and looks at Mom. Halfway through his attempt to respond to me, Mom breaks down into tears.

“It’s one of the things we need to organize”, he finally says.

“Immediately”, Mom says, through falling tears. “It’s one of the things we need to organize immediately.”

“It’s a priority”, Dad says, clearly uncomfortable with the notion. “For us both to move on. All of us.”

“Fifteen years, Doug. Fifteen fucking years”, Mom says, the floodgates opening to let tears spill out over the twisted teatowel she has in her lap.

“And Janice?” I ask. “Do the twins even know?”

Dad looks at Mom before he looks back to me. “They’ve already started the process”, Dad says. “They started it awhile ago but were always going to wait until the boys were settled.”

“I mean about you and Janice.”

The words seem so odd to my ears it’s like we are playing a made up game.

Dad smiles nervously, again darting a look towards Mom who continues to sob incessantly. “Yes”, he nods. “They do now.”

Later, when Dad has packed a large amount of his belongings in boxes and left the house, whether to a hotel, next door with Janice or somewhere else entirely either with or without her, I find Mom out on the patio at the back of the house staring into the middle distance and smoking a cigarette.

Despite being an only child, I’ve never been all that close to my parents, and, perhaps as a result of not having brothers or sisters I’ve always felt independent in their company. That doesn’t mean we can’t talk to each other, and right now, I want to find out exactly what’s going on, because even though the boxes, Dad’s departure and Mom’s tears make it somewhat real, the whole thing still has a sheen about it of complete and total disbelief.

I sit down in the swing chair and let the silence allow me to clarify my thoughts before I begin. I’m about to leap into a series of questions when Mom beats me to it.

“You know, I always wondered about those two”, she says wistfully, almost ironically.

“The looks, the vibe, you know, I’d suspected something was going on for a long time.”

“How long?” I ask, not sure how important it is for me to know, nor how appropriate it is to ask, but sense a necessity in my mother to share it all with me.

“He says three years, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it were longer”, she says.

Three years ago I was buried in books, covered in acne and avoiding my adolescence as much as possible.

“We went away for the summer, you and I, while Dad had to work”, Mom continues. “At least that’s what he always told us. Even then I thought that something was going on, but I never doubted him. I thought it was me. I thought it was just me right up until I knew it wasn’t.”

“You caught him”, I guess.

I watch a tear roll from Mom’s eye and stain her cheek before she rubs it away quickly. A nod answers my question before she fills in the details. “You were at school and I was supposed to be at work. I came home because I felt unwell and caught them at it. Three years of being careful ruined in one fell swoop.”

I don’t know what to say.

“He promised it was just a one off and I believed him”, Mom continues. “A one off? That just shows you how stupid I am.”

“You’re not stupid, Mom”, I say, taking her hand. “You’re not the one who cheated.”

“I did everything, Jenny. I was a good wife, a good mother. I couldn’t give him boys like he always wanted but I did everything else. You know, sometimes I think he saw those twins as his own. Sometimes I think he saw what Brian had and wanted it for himself. Always talking about those boys and how little Brian appreciated them.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” I ask.

“Right, and mess up the most important time in your life”, Mom says.

“You could have told me in the summer, after Brian and the boys left, I already had my place”, I say. “You didn’t have to suffer alone.”

Mom squeezes my hand tightly. “It never seemed like the right time to share it”, she says. “And besides which, I thought it might get better. I thought it was over.”

“And now you know it’s not?” I say.

“I can’t do it anymore”, Mom says, “I’m sorry, Jenny, I just can’t do it anymore. Dad wants to move in with her. He wants a divorce and he wants to start his life again with her. That fucking asshole.”

I can’t believe the twists and turns my life has taken in the second part of this year. All of this feels so bizarre to me. I didn’t even know Mom smoked. I knew she used to, but I haven’t seen her with a cigarette since I don’t know when. And as for Dad, I never believed my parents were in love, but I never thought they’d do anything about it either. Out of all of my friends at school, which admittedly was never very many, two or three of the parents were together, and none of those ever seemed like they were all that in love, so with my parents, it just seemed normal. Not in love but together anyway just seemed like the status quo. The idea that my father is a human being with his own set of needs and desires beyond his role as a husband and father never really occurred to me. Why would it? Until this afternoon, I had no idea Dad even had the capacity to conjure up the concept of straying away from home, let alone be an expert in the espionage of covering up the act.

With all of this, I feel like the parents I thought I always knew have been replaced by exact copies with entirely different personalities.

“I’m sorry, Mom”, I say, struggling to think how else to comfort her. “I’m here for you if you need me.”

“Thank you, Jenny”, Mom says. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know what I need right now. I can’t help thinking that if he’d been honest with me from the start, the last three years could have been a hell of a lot happier.”

In the silence that follows, marked by intermittent intervals of Mom’s sobbing, I watch the sky darken and the stars emerge, wondering what the hell we all would have done, had Dad and Janice eloped three years ago. What if Brian and Mom had fallen in love too, the pair of them somehow coming to the realization that they’d chosen the wrong match in the first place. Would Donkey and I have become family? Would we have knocked the wall down between our houses and lived as one big group together?

The notion scares me. The idea that with the revelation about Janice and Dad, Donkey and I become closer, is one that I refuse to even entertain. The what ifs for all of us further down the line is potentially more frightening than never seeing Donkey again. Dad and Janice have been in some kind of relationship together for the best part of three years, perhaps even longer, she’s been organizing a divorce for a considerable amount of time and Mom and Dad seem keen to do the same as quickly as humanly possible, which means that together they could be planning something big, which will clearly have knock on consequences for everyone else involved.

It’s too much of a mind fuck to even begin to commit to thinking about. Dad, Janice, Donkey, myself and our fucked up now intertwined future is going to have to wait until I can get something a little more solid than conjecture.

I’m going to need a bit of time to process this new information before I even begin to think about the consequences. I mean, Mom’s had six months already and look at how this is affecting her now.

“They’re going to get married”, Mom says, out of nowhere. “I know it. They’re going to get married and fuck off together and leave me here on my own.”

“Mom, lets not get ahead of ourselves”, I say.

“Why do you think he decided to say something today? She’ll have signed the papers”, Mom says. “I know him. She’ll have signed the papers already and be ready to move on. I know he’ll deny it too.”

“I don’t think-”, I begin, but Mom cuts me off.

“And then you’ll find someone you like and move out, and it’ll just be me, sitting here on my own. Like always.”

“Come on, Mom”, I say, trying to cheer her up. “I’ll be here for you. I’m not moving anywhere.”

“No? And what about when the judge tells us to sell the house?” she says.

I hadn’t even thought about it. “I grew up in this house”, I say, as though the concept of never being able to come back to it were so distant it couldn’t possibly ever come true.

“You wait and see. From now on, your father has got much bigger priorities than you and I. You think he gives two shits about us after what he’s done? He cares about Janice and her family more than he cares about us, and mark my words, as soon as he gets that divorce we’ll be shut out.”

“He’s still my Dad”, I say, not at all keen on choosing sides.

“Just you wait and see how much he cares about you”, Mom says, rocking angrily on her chair before lighting up another cigarette and blowing the smoke furiously into the night. “That man will lie and lie as long as it benefits him.”

A long time after I should have already gone to bed, I try to encourage Mom inside, but she won’t join me. I have lectures early in the morning and I’ve organized to meet Marcy for lunch so I can tell her just how much of a fucking skeeve my dad has been so I’m keen to rest, but I don’t feel comfortable leaving Mom alone.

I stay for as long as I can manage, periodically falling asleep, only to be woken from time to time by Mom’s sobs or bitter cursing. Eventually, I have to give up and head inside. At three o’clock in the morning, I notice she’s still out there, ashtray full of cigarette ends, chair rocking gently, eyes still fixed angrily on some imaginary object in the distance, while I expect she works internally on a detailed and multicolored visualization of exactly what she’d like to do to my father.