Page 52 of Is She Really Going Out with Him?
Sylvie puts a throw over the white sofa before indicating I can sit down. When I turn around, I discover the kids have abandoned me and disappeared up to their rooms.Traitors.On the glass coffee table, Sylvie places a bowl of pistachios and an empty bowl beside it.
“For the shells,” she mouths, as though I am a heathen who might be planning to simply slip the shells down the back of their sofa. I set myself a secret challenge to see how many nut shells I can slip down the back of their sofa.
“It’s so nice we can do this, isn’t it?” Sylvie says, perching on the arm of the beige armchair opposite, then fixing me with a huge smile of dental perfection. “Daniel and I were just saying last night, there’s so much toxicity around divorce, with terms like ‘broken home.’ So unnecessary, so damaging.” I’m seized by an inexplicable urge to throw the bowl of pistachio nuts all over the rug and start crunching them into the luxuriously deep pile. “Words are important. People need to use the right terminology; it’s about creating a loving coparenting dynamic.”
“Sure,” I say, forcing my mouth into a smile as Dan hands me a gin and tonic. He’s made it just how I like it, with plenty of ice and lime. This annoys me too. Maybe I’ve changed. Maybe I don’t like my gin and tonic this way anymore. Maybe I’ve gone off limes entirely. He’s reinvented himself as “Daniel,” he’s become a totally different person, living in a different house with a different woman, and here I am, just the same, drinking the same predictable drink.
“My grandparents were divorced. They modeled what a healthy separation looks like. I’ve seen it done right.” Sylvie is stilltalking at me. “I think it can be amazing for kids to have exposure to two different mothering figures. Variety can never be a bad thing, can it?”
Two mothering figures?They do not have two mothering figures, they have one mother and one Sylvie. My skin starts to itch. I don’t know if I have the strength to endure this.
Looking across to the kitchen, I watch Dan dressed in his preppy-style outfit rinsing dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. How many times did I ask him to do that? Did he ever do it? No, he did not. Now Sylvie’s got him doing it in a matter of months.Don’t say anything. It will just make you look bitter and petty.
“Did you hear that Katniss died?” I ask him.
“Oh yes, the kids said. I’m sorry.” Dan briefly bows his head. “I know you loved that cat.”Did henotlove that cat? She lived with us for seven years.
“So much sadness,” says Sylvie, giving me a pained look. “My friend Vespa had her dog’s ashes made into a paw-shaped pendant. Just precious.”
“Mum, look at this!” Ethan shrieks, running down the stairs and charging across the living room with something in his hands.
“Ethan, let’s remember to use our indoor voice,” Sylvie says in a gentle, singsong way, but Ethan doesn’t take any notice, he’s too excited to show me a Lego car he’s been building. I am thrilled by his return. “Isn’t this awesome?” he says, showing me. “I did it all by myself, no help. It goes and everything.”
“That’s brilliant, well done, you,” I say, watching as he demonstrates all the movable parts.
“We’re trying to encourage non-screen-based activities when the children are here,” Sylvie explains. “All the Silicon Valley guys who invented this technology, they don’t let their own children near screens. What does that tell you? Our house rule is no screens upstairs or after dinner, isn’t that right, Daniel?”
Dan is constantly on his phone, so I’m expecting him to give me a look that says, “Yeah right.” But he doesn’t; he just nods, then walks across the room to hand Sylvie a soda water, kissing her lightly on the head as he does so. “There you go, honey.”
“Sorry to be a party pooper, I’m not drinking right now,” Sylvie says, giving me a strange, unblinking look.
“You’ll never wrestle Anna’s nightly G&T away from her,” Dan says with a smirk, sitting down beside me on the sofa, “or her phone out of her hand.”
“It’s not nightly,” I correct him. “Maybe Thursdays and Fridays.” Then I realize it’s Wednesday.
“Every day is Friday, right?” Dan says with a laugh, then reaches out as though to pat my thigh but stops himself. He used to do that at dinner parties, when I’d told a story that he didn’t think was funny or appropriate, this gentle thigh pat, code for “stop talking now.”
Keep it friendly,I tell myself.It’s better for the children if we all get along.
“Will you lay the table please, Ethan?” Sylvie asks gently, and my son obediently puts down his Lego and goes to do as he’s been asked. “Uh-uh-uh,” says Sylvie, nodding her head toward the Lego. “Back where it came from, please.”
With only the smallest head droop, Ethan does as he’s asked, trotting off to take the Lego car back upstairs.Who is this boy? And what has Sylvie done with my son?
“I like your decor,” I say, looking around the room. “Very white. It’s like being in a cloud.”
“Sylvie’s got an eye for interior design,” says Dan. “We like the minimalist look.”
“It’s easy to be minimalist when you don’t have any of the kids’ stuff here, though, isn’t it.”Oops, it just slipped out.I quickly cover with a laugh.
“We have their stuff here,” Dan says, his eyebrows sinking into a frown.
“I mean their washing, their homework, their sports kit, toys. That stuff takes up space.” I grin like a maniac, as though my smile might help gloss over the implied criticism.
“We don’t think it’s fair to ask Sylvie to do the kids’ washing,” Dan tells me. “It’s not her job.”
“No, it’s yours,” I say, rictus grin still in place. “You’re their father. When they’re with you, you need to do their washing. It’s not fair on me otherwise.”
Dan clenches his fists as though he’s squaring up for a fight, then he glances at Sylvie, takes a deep breath, and lets out a long, slow exhale.
