Page 71 of The Therapist
‘You’re a good mum,’ she says. ‘Even in here it’s possible to be a good mum and I know that you’re trying.’
I sniffle a little, my acting very practised now.
The door to the family room opens and there they are. My tickets out of here.
‘Mummy,’ shouts Lila and she launches herself into me, wrapping her arms around me, but Felix doesn’t even look at me. I will have to work harder with him. It’s important that when they leave, they go home and tell their darling daddy that they miss me and want me to come home.
‘I’ve missed you both so much,’ I say, letting a few tears fall as the social worker watches me. Stupid woman.
And then I settle down to play with my children, willing the hour to pass quickly so that I can be alone again, alone with my thoughts of Ben and the life we will one day have together. It’s going to happen soon. I can feel it. I can absolutely feel it.
Mike
‘Beer, Mike?’ asks Liam, and Mike nods, taking an ice-cold can from Liam’s hand.
On Friday Liam holds a BBQ for their small staff of five. ‘Just a way to say thanks for all the hard work every week,’ Liam has explained. It’s a warm spring day, the sun bright in a perfect blue sky, and as Mike opens the beer – non-alcoholic, for now – he lifts his face, feeling the heat.
He’s happy in the new job so far. They’re very busy and making sales seems easy because everyone loves the high-end furniture and Mike loves feeling like he’s selling something someone actually wants. He’s also earning a lot more than he was with Paul, which is good because he really needs the money.
He’s still trying to work out exactly how to move forward with Sandy. Right now, there is a social worker who comes and takes the kids for a visit with her once a week. But he’s not sure what’s going to happen once she’s sentenced.
According to Elise, the social worker, ‘She seems disinterested in seeing them after a minute or two and sometimes it feels as though she is performing for me. As if it’s more important that I see her as a good mother than that she connects with the children.’
Perhaps Elise shouldn’t have told Mike this but he’s glad he knows that the social worker is seeing the same things he has seen for years. Lila is too little to register it but Felix has noticed something. He’s reluctant to go, whines about it and has to be cajoled into the car with the social worker with promises of pizza and ice cream for dinner afterwards.
Mike never wants them to accuse him of keeping them away from their mother so he will keep encouraging the visits. Right now, the only thing he has been able to tell them is that Sandy ‘did something bad’. Felix is asking more and more questions but he’s trying to figure out how to explain it.
Next week, he’ll see a therapist that Lana recommended for the first time so hopefully she can help him figure out how to talk to the kids.
The truth is that Sandy will always be in their lives because she is their mother, and only when they are old enough to make a decision on whether or not they want to see her will he be able to leave it to them. He hates to think of how much damage she can do as they grow up but he knows that there’s no way he will be able to stop the children seeing her without going to court.
And there is always the possibility that she simply turns her back on them. That’s not something he likes to think about because it will cause his children pain and suffering and they’ve been through enough. He’s having divorce papers drawn up now and he’s hopeful she’ll sign them without a fuss. Although that seems unlikely.
He’s also hopeful that the therapist can help him figure out how to get this anger, this ever-churning anger against his soon-to-be-ex-wife, under control as well. Especially since the call from the bank.
At some point in the last few months, Sandy remortgaged their house, taking an extra two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, setting him back years in his mortgage payments. The giant life insurance policy wasn’t enough for her, it seems. Any expectation he had of getting the money back disappeared with Ben, and even if Ben is found, the money has probably been secreted away.
He couldn’t quite believe that Sandy had the audacity to ask him to put up the house for bail. He almost laughed. Almost.
‘You done with that beer?’ Mike hears and he turns to see Emily, who’s in charge of all the administration in the company. They have bonded over being single parents and plan to get their kids together next week. Emily’s son is Felix’s age, and from what she’s said, it sounds like the two of them might hit it off.
‘I am, thanks,’ says Mike, chucking the bottle into the bucket she is holding. ‘Why don’t you let me take that?’ he says, reaching out for it, and she giggles.
‘Ever the gentleman,’ she says, her green eyes sparkling with good humour.
‘I try.’ Mike laughs, the warmth of the compliment running through him.
He walks around picking up anything that can be recycled as the BBQ ends.
Mike climbs into his car, looking forward to seeing the kids. He’s a lot better at running things now and the house is mostly orderly, mostly clean, and the kids are good with suggestions on what he should cook for dinner every week.
He stops outside the school with a few minutes to spare before after-school care is done and he takes out his phone, opens it to the picture he has of Ben or Simon or whatever his real name is.
He was in the hospital room the night Mike nearly died. But he left just before the police arrived, and from what Mike understands from talking to the public prosecutor, Sandy is devastated about this and only this.
The fact that she nearly murdered her husband and the father of her children, that she will miss her kids growing up, that she will be in prison for a long time, means nothing compared to the loss of the man she thought was her soulmate.
The police have been unable to find him, although they probably haven’t looked very hard.
