Under Rose-Tainted Skies(46)

We stop talking. He lets what I just told him sink in. The seconds drag on and my body starts to fidget, trying to get comfortable in the uncomfortable silence.

‘My gran lives in Gray Oaks,’ he says, and I am beyond grateful that he’s good at reading body language.

‘Gray Oaks?’

‘It’s a retirement complex.’ Of course it is. The guys that name those places have less tact than a cold sore. ‘Whenever I go over there these days, she calls me Matthew.’

‘Why?’ I ask, exercising caution because I’ve read about the damage dementia does. Assuming that’s what she has.

‘Her mind isn’t what it used to be,’ he says. ‘And I guess I look a lot like my dad when he was younger.’ Right. Matthew is his dad’s name. He touches the finger where the football ring was. Doesn’t take a genius to work out that the gaudy chunk of jewellery he was wearing the first time we talked belonged to his father. There isn’t much you miss when you’re really looking.

‘Last I heard, my dad was in the Alps, squandering his inheritance on a twenty-one-year-old blonde named Anika,’ I say. Nice. There are artists who work delicately, painting thousands of fine lines, and then there are artists who throw globs of colour across a room in the hope that it will hit something. In this moment, I definitely fall into the latter.

‘Ouch. That’s gotta sting,’ he says.

‘Nah. I decided to take a pragmatic approach to the whole thing. I can’t miss a man I never met, right?’

‘Do you think maybe I could borrow your no-bullshit shield for school sometime?’

‘Absolutely. I’ll mail it to you. What’s your address?’ I reply. His grin is hella hypnotic. He doesn’t seem to care that I’m not trained in the art of ice-breaking.

‘Luke, what did you mean when you said your dad disappears?’ The question is out of my mouth before I realize the weight of it. It tumbles down the stairs like a boulder and smashes straight through the laminate floor. I’m flustered; my cheeks burn bright red. I was always going to ask, just maybe not now, when tact is in such short supply.

‘Nice memory you’ve got there,’ he replies, all lighthearted.

I wince. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. When I start thinking about stuff, when my mind gets too busy, more often than not I forget to engage a filter—’

‘Norah, it’s okay,’ he interjects. ‘You don’t have to panic. I don’t mind talking about it. Besides, I think I owe you a little bit of background, right?’ He smiles and I wonder if it’s too soon to suggest we get married. ‘My dad has what my mom calls wanderlust.’

‘Wanderlust?’

‘He likes to travel. Like, he really likes to travel.’ He’s looking at me as though I should understand. I don’t think he realizes how little he’s said, but the puzzled expression on my face clues him in.

‘This is going to sound so messed-up,’ he says right before he jams his thumb knuckle in his mouth and starts chewing on it.

‘Messed-up is kind of my default.’ I smile, can’t help it. Can’t help noticing that he just inadvertently told me he doesn’t see all the things that are wrong with me.

‘So my mom’s been a flight attendant all her life,’ he says. ‘She met my dad on board a flight to Argentina when they were in their early twenties. He’s a traveller. A real home-is-where-I-hang-my-hat type of guy.’

‘The souvenir stickers on his van?’

‘All the places he’s been.’ Wow. There were a lot of stickers. ‘My mom doesn’t think he’ll stop moving until he’s been everywhere there is to be and seen everything there is to see.’ You can tell his mom said that. The words are romantic, spoken by a woman in love. His hands ball into fists; he pushes his knuckles together and they pop.

‘Are you angry at him?’

‘No. Not any more, but I used to be.’ Luke turns his chin and looks at me, his eyes narrow, pain clouding the usually luminous jade of them. ‘It’s a sickness. He tried to stay with us, build a home. Actually, he’s tried it a few times, but he gets so depressed when he stops moving.’

Huh. He’s like me, only in reverse.

‘So, your parents, are they separated?’

‘They’re separated in the sense that there is physical distance between them. But they’re still married. Still madly in love. That is, he’s not trawling the world looking for a new family. He says it’s not about us, that he loves us both unconditionally.’ Luke takes a breath. ‘It’s such a noble word, unconditional. Brave. Blindly committing to situations it knows nothing about.’ He gets lost staring at the space in front of him, focusing on nothing in particular. I don’t know where his head is. I’m not sure he does either. I wish I could lace my fingers through his and lead him back to the safety of my stairs.

‘I used to get mad at my mom because she wouldn’t make him stay. She would tell me I was too young to understand. But what was there to understand? He couldn’t have loved us because he kept leaving us.’ He dusts his bottom lip with his thumb, and for a second, I wonder if he’s going to start snacking on his nails. Because I would. Instead, he stands up, trots down the stairs, and starts pacing. I don’t hold him back. I don’t hold him back or try to make him sit because I hate it when I’m spinning and people try to make me be still.