Woman Last Seen(49)
“Yeah, right, that,” he muttered. He didn’t seem to believe it was a possibility.
He was gone all afternoon, but Fiona didn’t mind. She hung out with Seb, helped him with his geography homework and then watched banal YouTube videos with him that she had pretended to appreciate, and did in a way because they made him genuinely giggle. Oli had heard them laughing and eventually joined them on the sofa. The three of them sat closer than they might normally. There was something comforting about the tangy smell of Lynx body spray oozing off one boy, and fried food and pop off the other. From time to time, Fiona surreptitiously turned her head to catch the scent of them.
Mark returned just before supper, which Fiona had prepared, and they all ate together. She didn’t ask him what he’d been doing all afternoon. Where he had been. Both boys trudged back to their separate rooms after they’d cleared their plates, conversation exhausted. Being together they felt obligated to appear hopeful. It was wearying.
“I’ll come up and turn your lights out later,” Mark offered. He wanted to tuck them in, maybe kiss their foreheads, like he did when they were younger. Nowadays bedtime was more often about negotiating the relinquishing of phones. Oli didn’t respond at all; Seb shrugged. No one wanted to perform any of the usual bedtime rituals that marked the end of another day when their mum hadn’t come home.
“The boys just need some space too,” Fiona comments.
Marks nods. “Thanks, Fiona, your being here really helps.”
“Oh, I’m doing nothing.” She knows this isn’t true. She’s done the shopping, laundry and cooking; she’s being a surrogate mum but it’s not very English to brag about one’s usefulness in a crisis.
Mark raises a small grin, understanding the code. “You’ve done everything. Not least simply keeping the conversation going at supper. A supper you made. The boys are a bit calmer around you.”
It hasn’t been discussed but it seems to be tacitly agreed that Fiona will stay on the sofa again tonight. She reaches for a bottle of Merlot that she bought this morning. She’s pretty sure it’s Mark’s favorite. She holds it up. He nods. She pours two large glasses.
Mark sits down in front of the family computer that is on a small desk in the corner of the kitchen, where the boys are encouraged to do their homework. Fiona smiles as she remembers talking to Leigh about this. “Is it so you can oversee their homework while you make tea?” she’d asked.
“No, it is to minimize the chance that they lose hours watching porn while pretending to do homework,” Leigh had replied with a wink and a grin. Leigh knows the boys inside out. Fiona had often enough witnessed Leigh intuitively understand that while one of the boys might appear sulky, they were in fact nervous about something; then she’d offer to run through Seb’s lines for whatever school play he was rehearsing or she’d give Oli a pep talk about the likelihood of him being picked for the football team. Mark was more likely assuming the kids were just being a bit “teeny” and morose. He often demanded that they “turn that frown upside down.” Not that Mark is a bad parent, far from it. On the scale he is somewhere between better-than-most and good. Leigh is excellent. She has also always been an excellent friend too. If Fiona is ever feeling lonely or a bit depressed about a lousy date or the prospect of a long weekend alone, whatever, she never has to admit as much to Leigh. Leigh just seems to sense it and will immediately issue an invitation for Fiona to join them for Sunday lunch or maybe just to stand on the sidelines and watch Oli’s match.
It is unbelievable to think that lovely Leigh has done something so wrong. Something illegal, immoral.
Evil.
Because looking at Mark now, splintered with grief and heartache, it is hard to think of Leigh’s actions as anything less than evil.
This evening, Fiona had explained to Oli that Leigh was a bigamist. Seb is too young to understand it all, but Fiona thought it was fair to bring Oli up to speed. He is not a baby and he’d resent it if they treated him like one. Oli said he felt he was Luke Skywalker discovering Darth Vader was his dad. That seemed about right to Fiona. The whole thing was such a colossal shock.
Fiona doesn’t want to judge. Relationships are a morass of dos and don’ts; broken rules and hearts. Her own acidic experiences prove that. How many times had she discovered she was dating a married man, for instance? Not by design. She would meet someone on an app and they always say they are single at first, then when she started to care (always after sex) they would admit to being married. Fiona remembers chatting about this to Leigh.
“They don’t want to hide it for any length of time. They want you to know, so you understand their level of commitment,” she’d explained.
“Or lack of it,” Leigh had pointed out. Eyes wide.
“Precisely.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Well, it’s not your fault.”
“You know what I mean,” mumbled Leigh.
“You are so lucky to have Mark. Shall we clone him?” Fiona had asked with a laugh. She didn’t like to appear mopey.
“No. Yes. I mean, no, we probably shouldn’t try to clone him but yes, I am lucky. I see that. I know that.” Was Fiona just misremembering things now, filtering? But was Leigh confused, defensive? Fiona recalls her adding, “But he came with his drawbacks.”