Lessons for a Sunday Father Read Online Free Page B

chair on the floor. He shoved back from the table and got to his feet still holding his piece of toast.
    “Gotta go.” His eyes met mine for a second, then he looked away. I nodded and turned to the table, not bothering to say, “At least clear your plate, Nathan.” What was the point? A bomb had just been detonated beneath our children’s feet—now wasn’t the moment to start nagging them about tidying up.
    “You got practice tonight?” I knew he didn’t, but I needed to say something, just to keep him near me for even another few seconds. Sounds silly, doesn’t it? I can’t explain it.
    “Nah. Might go round Steve’s.”
    “Do you want some food saved?”
    He wrinkled his nose in that endearing way he has and shrugged.
    “Well.” I picked up the plates. “Whatever.” I’m starting to speak the way Nat does. Scott does it too.
    “Mn.” He did one of his noncommittal grunts then loped away, doing his peculiar walk, his shoulders ranging from side to side like a cheetah stalking through the undergrowth. I suppose he imagines it’s manly. Aah—
so
sweet.
    I heard him pick up his bag in the hall and heft it onto his shoulder. He likes to get the bus in now, though with the traffic the way it is he’d probably be faster walking as it’s not far. But Nat’s like Scott—why walk when you don’t have to? It doesn’t make sense in Nat’s case though because of all his swimming practice. He is so fit. But he takes the bus. You make sense of it, if you can; it’s a mystery to me. Rosie’s still at junior school, of course, and although it’s no distance either, I drop her off on my way in to work. The roads are a devil and what with all these child abductions you read about practically every other day in the papers, I can’t relax for a moment unless I know where she is.
    “Bye then! Have a good day!” I called out to Nat as I heard him open the front door. There was a pause, then he came back into the kitchen and walked past me over to the worktop. He picked out an apple from the fruit bowl and gave me a funny half-smile then, as he passed me again, he stopped mid-lope and gave me an awkward kiss on the cheek.
    He did his silly Clint Eastwood face, like he’s chewing tobacco, then he pushed up the brim of an imaginary hat.
    “Take it easy now, y’hear?”
    Well, it made me feel quite tearful. Nat’s never been big on kissing, not since he was a tot anyway and in the last year he’s made it more than plain he doesn’t want to be kissed goodbye in the mornings and certainly not ever if his friends are around. He pulls away and wipes his cheek as if I’m a leper. Charming, isn’t it? They’re all like that at this age though. One minute, he’s your own darling little boy, clambering up onto your lap for cuddles and wanting to be tucked in at night and have a story; the next they’re walking several paces ahead of you in the street because they’re embarrassed by your crumbly uncool presence and your clothes and your hair and the way you talk and they won’t let you in their room at all, never mind to come in and kiss them night-night.
    So, while on any other day I’d have been overjoyed to have Nat kiss me without having to be asked or it being my birthday, this morning it only made me feel worse. For one moment at least, Nat must have felt sorry for me and I hated Scott for that, hated him for what he’d done to our children, what he’d done to
us.
I could feel myself welling up but I told myself to cut it out, cut it out right now.
You’ve no time for tears, I told myself. Pull yourself together!
Stay calm, take a few deep breaths. I’m fine. I
have
to be fine.
    Dear God, I can’t do this. If I could only go back, if I could just rewind the tape and go back to last night, maybe I wouldn’t have said anything. I could have kept my suspicions to myself and life would have carried on as normal. Only now we’ve released this enormous boulder and it’s started rolling downhill,