Page 47 of The Therapist
TUESDAY NIGHT
Mike
Mike lets the kids eat in front of the television again, because why not?
He sits in the kitchen with a beer and his phone, scrolling through Facebook and Instagram, looking at stupid videos of people falling over. He checks Sandy’s Instagram but she hasn’t posted anything on there.
It’s only Tuesday night but it feels like she’s been gone for a really long time.
Maybe something has actually happened to her. Is that possible? Her car is here so it couldn’t have been an accident.
The police know she’s missing now so they are probably checking the hospitals. There’s really nothing for him to do but wait. Surely if they found her, they would call him, although perhaps that’s why the detective left a message for him. He should call him back right now. But he can’t quite bring himself to do it.
It feels like that will start a chain of events over which he has no control.
Even though he’s done it a few times, Mike checks the credit card purchases again but Sandy hasn’t used it since Sunday afternoon, when she did some online shopping for new bath towels, which have yet to turn up.
‘Stop hitting me, Felix,’ Lila screams and Mike grinds his teeth. He really doesn’t want to have to sort them out. He wants to wipe out this day with beer. But he stands and goes to the living room. ‘Right, no more fighting, bath time for you two,’ he says.
‘Me first, me first,’ shouts Felix. ‘I want bubbles.’
‘I want bubbles too,’ says Lila, jumping up and down, her argument with her brother forgotten.
‘Everyone can have bubbles,’ says Mike.
An hour later, the house is finally quiet and Mike is slumped at the kitchen table, shovelling cold pizza into his mouth in between sips of beer. Sandy would be horrified at how they are eating. He’s going to need to get his shit together and start cooking and do some shopping as well. The fridge is nearly empty because Sandy usually does a big shop on a Monday, and from what he can see, tomorrow he is sending both kids to school with processed crap to eat again.
He’s on his third beer when his phone rings. It’s his mother, and he considers not answering it, just letting it go to voicemail, but she doesn’t call often so he worries when she does.
‘Mum?’
‘Sweetheart,’ she says.
‘Everything okay?’
‘Yes, yes, fine, fine. Dad is, well…you know. His doctor told him he needs to cut out the alcohol and start exercising but he said that he’s seventy-two years old and he doesn’t care if his time is now.’ Mike doesn’t say anything to this although hecannot help the thought that if his father’s time was now, it would be a good thing. The violence in his parents’ marriage has stopped but only because his father is weaker and his mother generally makes a plan to stay out of his way. Since he retired, Mike’s father, Vince, sits on the couch watching television and drinking beer. Mike has told his mother, Rose, to leave him many times but she claims to be too old to make the change and to have to live by herself. Any time Mike suggested having his mother come live with them, Sandy vetoed that idea immediately. The only thing Mike can do for her is send her money each month, something that really pisses Sandy off.
‘How are the babies?’ she asks and Mike smiles, because he can hear how much she loves her grandchildren. His parents live nearly two hours away, which isn’t so far, but they don’t get to see their grandchildren as much as his mother would like, and to be fair, Mike doesn’t really want them near his father.
‘They’re good, growing up, you know.’
‘And…Sandy?’ his mother asks tentatively.
‘She’s…’ Mike takes a long sip of beer. ‘Fine.’
‘Good… good, that’s good.’
‘Mum, is anything wrong?’ Usually she talks without him needing to say anything, telling him about her friends at bridge and the library and her outings with the community centre.
‘Well…look, darling, I didn’t want to say anything…because it really wasn’t my place and I can’t understand why she called me anyway.’
‘I don’t understand, Mum, who called you?’ He lifts the beer bottle to take another sip but finds it empty so he gets up and takes another from the fridge.
‘Well, I might as well tell you everything. Sandy called me last week and, you know, she doesn’t call me at all. I mean I think I’ve heard from her five times in the last eight years.’ Mike knows this is the truth. He has, over the time he and Sandy have beentogether, tried to encourage his wife to give his mother a call on her birthday and sometimes just to check in but Sandy always has the same reply to his requests which is, ‘She’s your mother and I have to call my parents and I am not asking you to speak to them at all.’
‘What day did she call, Mum?’ he asks, his heart beating a little faster as he grips the beer bottle.
‘Oh, it was last Monday, I think. No, yes actually, definitely last Monday because there was a meeting at the library where we had a talk about ageing gracefully. They encouraged us to exercise and lift weights but honestly, I feel like?—’
