Postscript(41)

I lean in. ‘What’s going on, Gabriel?’

He pushes his finger down on the crumbs on his plate, gathering them on his finger, then dusts them off, sprinkling them back to where they were.

‘Are you going to act like this the entire time I help the PS, I Love You Club? You don’t even know what I’m doing with them. Do you want to ask some questions? You don’t even know their names.’

‘It’s not that,’ he says firmly, abandoning the bruschetta and pushing his plate away. ‘It’s Ava.’ He leans in, elbows on the table, hands and fingers pressed together as if in prayer, and rests them over his lips. ‘She wants to move in with me.’

‘Move in?’

He nods.

‘With you?’

Nods again.

‘Into the house?’

‘Yes.’ He looks confused. Of course, where else would she live?

My head races. I’m supposed to move into the house.

‘She asked me a few weeks ago,’ he says, avoiding my eye, and I realise the reason for his distance. It had nothing to do with the accident, silly Holly, nothing to do with the club, he just let you think it was. So that’s what all those meetings with Kate and Ava were about.

‘Wow. Let me guess, you needed some time to think about it yourself first before telling me? This is familiar, isn’t it?’ And yet I feel as angry as he did when he accused me of creeping around behind him.

He ignores my bait and sticks to the issue at hand. ‘You know there’s been trouble with her and Kate. They’re not getting along.’

‘They haven’t gotten along for the two years that I’ve known you.’

‘It has gone up a level. Many levels,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘It’s like …’ He waves his hands and makes an explosion sound with his mouth.

His eyes still won’t meet mine. He’s told her yes. It’s already been agreed. So he meant it when he said we’d just do our own thing from now on, without discussing it first. Payback for the club.

‘Ava living with you means you being home all the time, getting her up and out of bed, getting her to school on time. Getting her to study. Keeping an eye on her.’

‘She’s sixteen, Holly, not six.’

‘She doesn’t get out of bed, she wouldn’t go to school if she wasn’t dragged in every day, you told me that. She’ll want to go to a party every weekend. You’ll have to speak to parents, get to know her friends, collect her in the early hours of the morning, or sit up waiting for her.’

‘I know, I’m not an idiot, I know how to be a dad,’ he says firmly. ‘I told her I need to speak with you first before finalising everything, but then there was the accident and lately you’ve been … busy every time I call.’

‘Sorry,’ I sigh. There’s so much I have to tell him, about Bert, about Ginika, my secret life that he’s had no part of but only because I’ve felt like it’s off limits. Talk of it before angered him. ‘Look, it’s fine with me. She’s your daughter, I’m happy for you that this is happening, I know it’s important to you. I’m OK with her moving in with us, as long as you know what you’re getting yourself into.’

He looks at me then, finally eye contact, his expression soft and apologetic. ‘You see, that’s the thing.’

It slowly dawns on me.

Ava is moving in instead of me.

‘She needs me.’ He places his hand on my forearm, holds me tightly. I want to spear his hand with my pasta fork. ‘I can’t turn my back on her after waiting so long for Ava to come to me for help. Kate and Finbar are getting married. She can’t stand Finbar. She hates being in the house. She’s all over the place, messing up at school, failing exams, partying. I’m afraid I fucked her up and I need to fix it.’

My heart pounds.

He tries a gentler, more apologetic tone. ‘Ava and I need space to figure it out and find our way together. If the three of us were living together during this transition, it would be too much for us all.’

‘So how long will this transition take, do you think?’

He shakes his head and looks to the distance, as if calculating the required transitional days in his virtual mind calendar.

‘I don’t know. Maybe the best thing would be to wait until she finishes school. I think,’ he adds quickly before I bellow, ‘that I need to help her through school. And then when she’s calmed down and starts university, you and I can do what we like. You and I have lived like this for two years already, we can keep going as we were. It works this way for us, too, doesn’t it?’ He reaches for my hands, squeezes them.

I free my hands, frustrated by his grip. ‘Two years,’ I say, looking at him in surprise. ‘Two years? I’m selling my house to live with you. You’ve been asking me for the past six months. It was your idea!’

‘I know, I know.’ It’s obvious from his pained expression that he doesn’t want to do this to me, and I don’t want to blame him for this situation. Any dad would do the same; choose their child over everything. But this is really screwing up my plans.

‘Maybe two years is too long. Maybe one year is more reasonable,’ he says, trying to keep it calm.

‘One year?’ I splutter. ‘What if I get an offer on the house tomorrow, where am I supposed to go? I need to make a plan. Do I search for a new place? Can I even afford one? Should I take if off the market? I mean, Jesus—’ I run my hands through my hair, suddenly realising the logistical nightmare I’m in. And of all the things I think of, I think of the holes in my wall that I now have to fix when I thought they would be someone else’s problem. Of all the things, I even have to fix my own mistakes.