Something Old, Something New

‘Annie?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you wearing a bathrobe?’ Two pink circles appear on his cheeks.

I roll my eyes. ‘I didn’t have time to dress.’ I peer at myself in the bottom of the screen but realise that he can only see my shoulders and head. ‘Come on Evan, what’s so important that you had to interrupt my bath?’

‘Well, like I said in my text, I’ve been thinking about Janis’ birthday and I’ve had a few ideas.’

‘Go on.’

‘Annie, what’ve you done to your nose?’

‘What?’

‘Is that a graze?’ He peers at me from the screen.

I touch the bridge of my nose carefully. ‘Yes. I… uh… tripped today in the park. Long story.’ I wave my hand dismissively, not wanting to share the finer details of my embarrassing fall with Evan, and I realise that I don’t want to tell him about Vlad either. ‘So what was your idea for Janis?’

‘Well, as it’s her eighteenth, I thought we could do something special. As a family, perhaps.’

‘With Henry and Anabelle?’ I hope that he isn’t about to propose anything that doesn’t include my youngest children. We come as a package.

‘Absolutely! I wouldn’t be so callous as to leave them out, Annie.’

‘Of course not.’ I’m so defensive where the children are concerned sometimes and I’m terrified of anything hurting them. I let out a slow breath. ‘So?’

‘How about an all-expenses-paid trip to New York?’

‘New York?’ I am filled at once with delight and confusion. I have always wanted to go to Manhattan but never had the opportunity. ‘How would we…’

He leans closer to the screen. ‘I have to go there in May for a company meeting at the Waldorf and they’re putting me up there for a week. Families are allowed.’ He grins at me and looks just as innocent and enthusiastic as he did when he was eighteen.

Families? ‘When exactly in May?’

‘The second week.’

‘Ah.’ My heart sinks. He’s still the same old Evan in so many ways, forgetting the crucial factors that rule our lives. ‘We can’t do that week.’

‘What? Why not?’ His dark brows form a frown and his sunny expression is clouded by doubt.

‘School.’

‘What?’

‘You know, the place where I work and where the children go. And Janis has college and exams.’

‘But Annie, surely you can miss a few days for the trip of a lifetime? I thought it was half-term around then anyway.’ His cheeks darken.

I shake my head. ‘We can’t all bunk off school. Some of us have commitments.’

He rubs a hand over his face and sighs. ‘I know you have commitments, Annie. Believe it or not, everyone has commitments of some sort or another. But this is a great opportunity for the children to see one of the best cities in the world. You wouldn’t have to pay anything; the company would cover all costs. It would mean so much to me to have Janis… and you guys… there. We could celebrate her special birthday in style.’

Celebrate. Typical Evan. His life seems to be all about living it up and visiting fancy places, about meeting with movie directors and game developers. He has no idea what it’s like to have a normal job with normal worries. Of course, he spends most of his life on the other side of the world, far away from his child and ex-wife, so how could he understand? ‘It sounds fabulous Evan, it really does, but it’s a no from me.’

He sits back and folds his arms across his chest and I know that I’ve hurt him with my refusal to be drawn into his enthusiasm. The bridge of my nose throbs and it makes my eyes water. As I watch him, I am reminded of how I used to feel when we argued, even over petty things like the washing up. He’s a good guy but he’s impulsive at times and I just can’t be like that. We are so very different, yet I wonder how it would feel to be the one who could act without regard for consequences or fears of the future. To be light and free to act upon a whim. Sometimes I wish I could let go, I honestly do, but the idea of losing control terrifies me.

‘So this is a no because of your job, right?’ He unfolds his arms and steeples his fingers under his chin. I wonder if he’s about to psychoanalyse me.

‘That’s right and because the children have school.’

‘It would hardly hurt the younger two to miss a week, would it?’ He’s so persistent and I realise that this is the part of him that needs to be in control emerging.

‘That’s beside the point, Evan. Holidays during term time are frowned upon now. You’d know that if you were…’ I wince and grit my teeth. That was unfair. I was about to admonish him for not being a full-time parent, for not being here. I am hurled back in time to when he left. Janis was so young then; I’d tucked her into bed first and he read her a story. He’d packed his bags earlier that day when I’d taken her to the park, then hidden them in the small cupboard in the hall. My stomach churns as I picture those bags, filled with his things as we prepared to go our separate ways. After he’d kissed Janis goodnight, I followed him into the hallway and stood watching as he put on his coat and shoes. Everything in me was screaming out, insisting that I stop him, tell him that I loved him and that we could find a way to make it work. But I bit my lip until I tasted blood, believing it was for the best.

As he picked up his bags, he looked back at me and I saw my own pain reflected in his eyes. We had come together as kids – young, impulsive and bursting with dreams – but we’d been thrown into adulthood by getting pregnant. It changed everything and we drifted apart under the pressure. Just like my father’s death changed everything. Some things come along and change your life for the better. Some things change it for the worse. My father’s death cast a shadow over my childhood. Janis’ conception was a wonderful gift, but it came with a price. Yet there have been times over the years when I wondered if we made a mistake, if Evan and I could have worked it out. But it’s too late now.

‘You were going to say if I were there, as an everyday parent, weren’t you, Annie?’ Evan’s voice pulls me back to the present. His handsome face is blank and I search it for signs of how he’s feeling.

‘No. Yes. Uh… just, I can’t just pull the kids out of school whenever I feel like it.’

‘It’s always the same with you, Annie. You can’t relax your guard for one minute, can you?’

I sit up straight as anger fills me. So we’re back to that old argument are we? ‘Now look, Evan, I do have to hold the fort here, you know. I am responsible for three young lives, so I can’t just swan off whenever I feel like it to New York… or wherever else the fuck I feel like.’ Oh dear! I didn’t mean to swear but it seems that this man can get to me like no other; even after all these years. We have contact because of Janis but we also manage to avoid spending much time together when he comes over to the UK. It was like an unspoken agreement at first, that we try not to be in the same room for too long, and it just stayed that way. So a trip to New York together would probably be disastrous, even if it was during half-term. I don’t know what Evan was thinking.

‘Annie… all I’m saying is that you need to live a little now and then. Let your hair down.’

I take a deep breath and count to ten. ‘Evan, besides the fact that I cannot take the children away from their education, I have a steady job that I cannot walk away from. If I took a week off during term time, I would pay for it with my own blood!’ The faces of the school’s management team pop into my head and I shudder. Just the thought of trying to ask for leave of absence to go to New York, and that close to the pupils’ GCSE exams, brings me out in a cold sweat.

‘Oh don’t be so dramatic. I’m sure if you explained…’

I fight the urge to growl at the screen and instead dig my nails into my palms. ‘I cannot have days off work. The children cannot have days off school. Evan, I had to literally beg the head teacher last year just to get two hours off work to go to Henry’s Christmas play. She wasn’t happy about that and I’m sure she would have said no if she’d had a good enough reason. New York was a lovely idea but unless you can arrange it during school holidays then, as I said, it’s a no from me.’ I watch him slowly deflate so add, ‘I’m sorry.’

He looks unbearably sad and I am reminded of how he looked at me all those years ago when I told him that I couldn’t just strap our child to my back and travel the world as he carved out his career. Once Janis came along, she became my top priority. Evan was working all hours and I didn’t feel like his equal any more, because he was so determined to be the provider. It scared me, the thought of completely relying on him for everything, and what we had just eroded away.

‘Sorry again, Ev. Do you want me to get Janis?’

‘Not just yet. Wait a moment,’ he says. We stare at each other; miles between us, years of separation between us, a lifetime of hurt between us.

I get up to leave.

‘Annie!’ I turn back to face him and stare deep into his eyes, eyes that once made me dream of foreign beaches, fun and freedom, of a lifetime of happiness, contentment and love.

‘Yes?’

He opens his mouth but pauses and licks his lips. His eyes tell me a thousand things that he clearly cannot say. ‘Nothing. Just, take care. I’ll try to think of something else for Janis’ birthday. I didn’t tell her about this because I wanted to run it past you first.’

‘Okay. Speak soon.’ I smile briefly then leave the room and find Janis hovering at the top of the staircase, her face a picture of hope. I wonder how much she overheard. Hopefully very little, because who’d seem like the big bad mother in all of this?