Page 32 of The Therapist
‘Fabulous, how fabulous. Why don’t I take care of this like I do everything else? You drink yourself to sleep,’ Sandy said, throwing up her hands, and she stormed upstairs.
And then today, Sandy disappears, just up and disappears, and he can’t help wondering if it’s for the best. It’s a shame that the therapist is involved because Mike can see that the woman is unlikely to let things go.
Did he manage to plant even the smallest seed of doubt in her brain? If he was a woman with injuries like the ones he showed Lana, there would be no hesitation from those around him to offer support. But he has to admit that if a mate of his came to him with the same story, he would find it unbelievable. And the blood on the wall is a problem. But it’s gone now, and only a slightly whiter patch on the wall shows that something was there. Maybe he should paint over that? No, that would look way too suspicious. The screenshot is a problem as well so he opens his phone and deletes it and then empties the trash so that it’s really gone although nothing is ever really gone.
He returns everything to the kitchen along with the plates and goes to the single garage to check if Sandy’s car is still there and of course it is. They are a thirty-minute walk from the nearest train station. Leaning against the kitchen counter, he opens the banking app, checking their shared account. If she had taken a cab or an Uber, it would have shown up on the creditcard but it hasn’t. Neither has a charge for a hotel or motel, not that Sandy would ever stay at a motel. He checks their small savings account but that hasn’t been touched either.
As he prepares a dinner of fish fingers and oven chips for the kids, he tries Sandy’s phone a few times, leaving messages just like he did this afternoon after the school called. He knows there’s no point but it feels necessary to leave the messages.
‘Hi Sandy, please call me back.’
‘Hey Sandy, I know that you’re taking some time, but the kids really need you here.’
‘Sandy, please just call me so I know you’re okay.’
‘Can you please call me back? This is not fair to me or the kids.’
Her mailbox will fill up quickly at this rate but he needs to keep trying.
He checks the credit card and their bank account again, in case something has happened in the last few minutes, but nothing has been touched.
When dinner is ready, he calls the kids.
‘Can we eat in front of the TV?’ asks Lila because if anyone can sense a chink in his armour it’s his five-year-old daughter.
‘Yes.’ He takes their plates to the coffee table in the living room and makes sure they have water as well. ‘If you argue about what to watch, I’ll turn it off,’ he warns them.
‘I’m not…’ starts Felix because he regards Lila’s television programmes as ‘for babies’.
‘We can watch the Daniel Tiger one,’ says Lila quickly because she knows Felix loves the show. Mike finds it for them and puts it on, and then he leaves them to it, taking a beer from the fridge in the kitchen and draining it quickly, needing to get to the next one.
After his third beer, he makes himself some toast to eat because he can’t be bothered cooking anything. He needs to getthe kids into their bath and off to bed but the thought exhausts him and he flirts briefly with the idea of just walking out and going to a pub, but obviously he wouldn’t do that.
Felix and Lila know something is up.
Once he has cajoled the two of them into a bath, he reads Lila a story first and then goes to Felix’s room to read to him. He’s had three beers in quick succession and he’s not even buzzed.
‘When is Mum coming home?’ Felix asks as Mike sits down on the bed.
‘I don’t know. Soon, I hope,’ he replies.
‘Why did she go away?’ Felix asked this question already but Mike knows he will keep asking it because he finds the answer so unsatisfactory.
‘Because she needed a rest. She was tired.’ He’s sticking to the same answer, which he knows is frustrating for his son. It’s frustrating as hell for him too. Sandy will be back tomorrow, of course she will be. Won’t she?
‘But why is she so tired?’
‘I don’t know, mate; she needed a break.’
‘But mums don’t need a break from their kids. They’re mums.’ Felix picks up his soft toy koala and holds it close to him. Mike wants to tell him he’s too big for the toy but he lets the thought go. He can deal with that another day. Who knows how much Felix will need the toy over the coming months.
‘Sometimes they do. Now it’s time for reading.’
‘I don’t understand.’
Mike wants to tell him that he doesn’t understand either, that he is as confused as a seven-year-old boy because none of this should have happened.
‘Where are we up to in your book?’ he asks, hoping to distract his son from his line of questioning.
