Someone Else's Shoes(72)

“Hey, baby.” She prompts him to tell her the day’s news.

He isn’t sleeping and it makes him feel crazy. The dorm manager he liked, Big Mike, had an argument with the administrator and walked out. Now without him or Sasha he feels like there’s nobody here he can talk to. A new girl downstairs throws up secretly after every meal and the staff don’t know but the downstairs toilets always smell of vomit and he cannot believe like none of their noses even work. “Mom? When are you coming?”

Nisha closes her eyes and takes a breath. “Soon.”

“But when? I don’t understand why you’re still in England.”

“There’s something I have to talk to you about, baby. And I wish I could do it in person but it’s kind of difficult right now.”

He is silent then and she winces, filled with fear because of what she is about to unleash on him.

“Um . . . well, Daddy and I . . . we’re . . . well, the truth is, we’re . . . Well, you know things have been a little tricky between us for a while and—”

“Are you leaving him?”

Nisha swallows. “Kind of. Well, not exactly. He’s—he’s decided he will be happier with someone else and I—I’ve agreed that this is probably the best thing for both of us and, well, we’re just trying to work out how to do it in the way that will be easiest for you.”

He is silent again.

She puts a hand to her cheek, lowers her voice. “I’m so sorry, Ray. I really didn’t want you to have to deal with any of this. But it will all be okay. I promise. We’ll still be a family, just a different sort of family.”

He still doesn’t speak. She can just make out the sound of him breathing, so she knows he’s still there.

“Ray? . . . Sweetheart? Are you okay?”

“I don’t mind if he goes.”

“. . . You don’t?”

A pause. “It’s not like he’s wanted to spend any time with me the last few years.”

“Oh, he does. He really does, baby. He’s just been very busy.”

“Mom, you and I both know that’s a lie. Honestly. My therapist has been talking to me about honesty and seeing things as they are. And if Dad wants to go that’s okay with me. His loss.”

There is a pause.

“I actually spoke to him two days ago. I told him I wanted to come home, and he said, if that was the case, I shouldn’t have been so stupid and that I was . . . he said I was a liability. That I couldn’t be trusted.”

“A ‘liability’?”

“It’s fine. I told him to go fuck himself.”

There is a deadness to his voice that makes her stomach constrict. He has been so brave for years but she knows Carl’s rejection is a bruise that won’t heal. “Are you really okay, baby?”

A long silence.

“Ray?”

“I’ve not been doing so great.”

“How not great?”

He doesn’t answer.

“Okay. Give me a one to ten on how sad you feel.” That was what the last psychiatrist advised, for when discussions of feelings were too difficult.

There is a short pause and then he says, “Like, an eight?”

Her stomach flips.

“I didn’t want to tell you because I guessed something was going on with you and Dad and . . . I didn’t want to bother you.”

“Ray? Ray. I’m totally fine, I promise you. And I’m going to get you out of that school as soon as I can, okay? We’ll get a little place together and it’ll be just you and me. Wherever you like.”

“Seriously?”

“If you want to.”

“And I don’t have to live here any more?”

“No. I’ve been putting money aside to get us back together. The problem is, honey, I literally have nowhere for you to stay at the moment. I’m with a friend, and it’s pretty cramped so I just have to get the financial thing sorted with Dad and then we’ll be together.”

“Please, Mom. Just do it quickly. I hate it here. I hate it. Being in this place makes me feel like there’s something wrong with me.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you.” Her eyes have filled with tears. “You are absolutely perfect as you are. You always have been.”

She wipes at her cheek with her palm. “So you’re really not upset about Daddy?”

“Why would I be upset? He’s an asshole. He’s horrible to you and he acts like I don’t even exist. You’re always on your tippy-toes around him, like he’s God or something. If he goes and does that to someone else then, frankly, it’s all gravy. He can just leave us alone.”

The pain of hearing her relationship described so brutally makes her feel ill. “Oh, God, Ray. I’m so sorry you didn’t have a better dad.”

“I don’t care.” Ray sniffs. “Like I said. His loss . . . So when are you coming?”

There’s the problem. She tells him she’s stuck here in England while they sort a financial issue. She figures there’s only so much his mind can cope with at once. “I’m fixing it, but you’re just going to have to bear with me. You know he can be a little tricky.”

“What’s the financial issue?” Ray’s therapist has clearly been working hard.