Page 63 of If I Could Say Goodbye
Chapter Forty-Four
Ed
If someone were to walk in right now, they would see the clean tidy house, they’d see my beautiful wife making a cake with our cute daughter, and they might be envious. They would see my chubby, cupid-like son slurping the last of his spaghetti and putting his bowl into the dishwasher. But what I’m about to do would change that. It would show them the cracks.
I want to pretend that everything is OK, I want to believe that she is getting better, but she isn’t. My fingers swipe the screen and I select the video-camera icon. I point my phone in their direction; it doesn’t seem weird that I’m filming them, why would it? From the outside it looks like a happy occasion, mother and daughter baking together.
Hailey is bashing the contents of a plastic bag and Jen is smiling at her. She turns her back and begins breaking up chocolate into a pan but as she does it, she takes furtive glances back towards Hailey. And then goose bumps run up my body. She looks into air and shakes her head, her mouth opening and closing. She is having a silent argument with herself, her hand landing on her hip, a gesture of annoyance.
‘Just fuck off!’
Hailey has stopped bashing the biscuits and is staring at her mother. There is fear in her eyes. Jen turns back to Hailey, oblivious to what has just happened.
Jen doesn’t know what she has done wrong, that much is clear. Or she’s pretending she doesn’t know; fussing around fetching an ice pack, consoling Hailey about her hand, making jokes about how strong Hailey is and how hard she must have been bashing the biscuits.
But Hailey’s hand isn’t hurt. Hailey is hurt. My daughter is hurting because she has seen the same thing as I have filmed on my phone: she has just witnessed her mother acting like she’s crazy and shouting ‘Fuck off’ at the top of her voice. But I let the charade carry on; I let Jen carry on acting and then I take the kids upstairs for their bath. I put them into their swimming gear and empty a packet of Jelly Bath into the water, turning it into green goo while Jen carries on cooking our ‘romantic dinner’ as though everything is normal. I can hear her now, humming away while the smell of garlic rises up from the kitchen.
Hailey’s eyes are red, even though she is giggling as I tip a cup of green slime onto Oscar’s head. I stay in the bathroom as long as I can, keeping the kids . . . keeping the kids: keeping the kids away from their mother.
She comes upstairs as they climb into bed and I try to ignore how my body tenses when I hear her feet on the stairs.
‘Mummy! I haven’t had any pudding!’ Oscar folds his arms.
‘You had pudding first, remember, you had ice cream then dinner.’
She winks at me and I smile back, but I can tell by the way Jen is looking at me that I haven’t quite pulled the smile off.
‘You can have some cheesecake tomorrow.’ She ruffles his hair, kisses him on the forehead and touches his nose with hers.
I follow her out of the room but put my hand on her shoulder as she walks towards Hailey’s room, turning her towards me. I sniff the air dramatically. ‘Is something burning?’ I ask.
She sniffs too. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘I’ll say goodnight to Hailey, you’d best just check.’
I try the smile again. It’s met with uncertainty by Jen, but she nods and goes downstairs.
Hailey’s room is filled with the fading pink light of the sunset coming through her pink curtains. She is lying on her side, a book clutched between her hands, a glittering fairy smiling from the cover.
‘What-ya reading?’ I ask, the bed sinking beneath my weight.
‘The purple fairy . . . she is late for ballet class and the wind has blown her tutu out of her fairy house.’
I try not to shake my head. Why can’t the bloody fairy be a doctor or an astrophysicist? I smooth her blanket with the palm of my hand. ‘I hope she finds her tutu.’
‘She will. Books never have a sad ending.’
I open my mouth, about to correct her, but I close it again, letting her believe that all books have a happy ending . . . she’ll find out soon enough that they don’t.
Chapter Forty-Five
Jennifer
It’s so nice to feel normal. I’ve ignored Kerry all day, well, most of the day. The kids have been good, the house is clean, and I’ve managed not to burn the dinner. I close the oven door and put the oven glove back into the drawer, noting as I do that I’m almost out of clean tea towels. I’ll put a wash on in the morning.
I can hear Ed and Hailey talking as I make my way upstairs; soft voices meet me as I rest my hand against Hailey’s bedroom door.
‘Listen Hales . . . about Mummy.’
