Truly Madly Guilty(124)

He made a sound, an exhausted exhalation, like an elderly person seeing yet another flight of stairs to climb. ‘Fine. Whatever.’ He turned around and slouched off. It was like being married to an octogenarian who spoke like a teenager.

‘It starts at ten!’ she called out after him briskly. She felt so brisk today, she was the very essence of brisk, and if he didn’t pull himself together soon she was going to briskly tell him that he wasn’t the only one capable of throwing around dramatic, hurtful words like: separate.





chapter seventy-seven



‘Doesn’t that look pretty,’ said Oliver.

‘What?’ said Erika. They were standing in her mother’s disgusting, squelchy front yard; it seemed unlikely there would be anything pretty to look at. She followed his gaze to her mother’s liquidambar where tiny glistening raindrops quivered on each leaf in the sunlight.

‘Look at them sparkle. Like tiny diamonds!’ said Oliver.

‘You’re in a poetic mood,’ said Erika. It must be because they’d had sex last night for the first time in a week.

Her eyes returned to her mother’s stuff. Now that the sun was out, everything looked even more depressing than it had the day she’d been here in the rain. She kicked at an unopened, soft, sagging cardboard box with an Amazon label, and the puddle of dirty water on top sloshed onto her foot. A leaf clung to her shoe and she tried to kick it off.

‘What are you doing, darling? Line dancing?’

Erika’s mother appeared in the front yard wearing a red and white polka-dot scarf tied over her head and blue denim overalls, like a 1950s housewife ready to start spring-cleaning. She stuck her thumbs into the pockets of her (brand new-looking) overalls and kicked one leg behind the other and then out to the side while humming some twangy song.

‘You’re quite good at that, Sylvia,’ said Oliver.

‘Thank you,’ said Sylvia. ‘I have a line dancing DVD somewhere if you’d like to borrow it.’

‘I’m sure you could put your hands on it easily,’ said Erika.

Sylvia gave a pretty little shrug. ‘It’s no trouble.’ She looked around the front yard and sighed. ‘Goodness. What a mess. That rain was extraordinary, wasn’t it? We’ve got quite a task ahead of us.’

Today’s choice of delusion was that Sylvia’s front yard looked like this because of the rain.

‘Well, we’re not alone,’ said Sylvia with a brave tilt of her chin. ‘People across the state are out there today, mucking in, cleaning up.’

‘Mum,’ said Erika. ‘Those people had their houses flooded. This isn’t because of a flood of rain. It’s a flood of crap.’

‘I was watching TV this morning,’ continued Sylvia obliviously, ‘and it was so inspiring! Neighbours helping neighbours. I had tears in my eyes.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ said Erika.

Oliver put his hand on Erika’s shoulder. ‘The things we cannot change,’ he murmured.

He was quoting the serenity prayer to her. Oliver went to Al-Anon meetings, for families of alcoholics. Erika didn’t want to learn serenity.

‘What’s that, Oliver?’ said Sylvia. ‘How are your lovely parents, by the way? Were they affected by the rain?’ She was as sharp as a tack, that woman. ‘I haven’t seen them in a while. We must all get together and have a drink.’

‘Mum,’ said Erika.

‘We should,’ said Oliver. ‘Although, as you know very well, with my parents it’s more likely to be ten or twenty drinks.’

‘Ah, they’re good fun,’ said Sylvia fondly.

‘Yup,’ said Oliver. ‘They are that. Oh look, here comes our skip bin.’

‘Great. What can I do?’ said Sylvia as the truck pulled into the driveway and slowly lowered the massive bin.

‘Stay out of our way,’ said Erika.

‘Yes, although you’ll need me to make sure you don’t accidentally throw out anything important,’ said Sylvia. ‘Do you know what I found the other day, caught up in a box of old papers? The funniest little photo of you, me and Clementine!’

‘That seems unlikely,’ said Erika.

‘What do you mean it seems unlikely? Wait till you see it! I guarantee you will laugh. Now just imagine if we’d thrown away that precious memory! You and Clementine must have been about twelve, I think. Clementine looks so young and pretty in it. She seemed kind of worn-out the other night to be frank, not aging well. You should take a look at it, Oliver. See what your future daughter might look like!’

Oliver’s face closed down. ‘That’s not happening now.’

‘What? Did she pull out on you? After you saved her child’s life?’

‘We pulled out,’ said Erika. ‘Not her. Us. We changed our mind.’

‘Oh,’ said Sylvia. ‘But why? That’s terrible news. I’m crushed!’ Erika watched in amazement as her mother conveniently forgot everything she’d said on Thursday night and made herself the victim. ‘You let me get my hopes up! I thought I was going to be a grandma. I was looking at those pretty little girls at Pam’s place and thinking how nice it would be to have a grandchild of my own. I was thinking I could teach her how to sew, like my grandmother taught me.’