The Real Liddy James Read Online Free Page B

usual.” Rose paused. “She compares herself to Obama. . . .”
    Peter groaned and rolled his eyes, anticipating what humorous aperçus his colleagues might be practicing on their way to work.
    â€œAnd apparently she was a terrible wife.”
    Peter looked up.
“Is that all?”
    Rose shook her head. “And she says she broke your heart.”
    He was silent in an unusual way, so Rose felt the need to keep talking. “I don’t know why she has to do this.”
    â€œYes, you do. Because it makes her feel powerful. It’s a good line, a good story, and people want to read it. People like you, I might add. Where’s Matty?” Sudden anger had consumed his appetite. “It’s quarter of eight. I can’t be late this morning.
Matty! Get down here. Now!
” And he marched into the hallway.
    Rose hoped Matty was dressed. Though Peter might say his sudden bad mood was all her fault, it was really Liddy’s yet again, and when confronted with his son, the living, breathing embodiment of Liddy, down to the shape of his eyes and the music of his rare laugh, you didn’t have to be a therapist to guess what might happen.
    â€œYou go, then,” Rose said, calling after him. “I’ll walk with Matty. It’s a beautiful morning. And I’ve got an appointment at the doctor’s at nine thirty.”
    Peter picked up his bag and coat and left with a sharp double bang of the front door. Rose sighed and stood up, wincing slightly as her knee twinged, and hauled it up the stairs, where she knocked on Matty’s door.
    â€œIt’s time to get up, Matty,” she called.
    â€œNo!”
came the muffled shout from inside the room, so she opened the door, braving the intense odor of growing boy and stale shoes, and switched the light on, cruelly pulling the duvet off him with a flourish.
    â€œUp! Now!”
she barked, marveling at how their interactions,once so fluid and fulsome, were now reduced to words of one syllable. Liddy had remarked on the phone to her just last week that it seemed Matty had been invaded by an alien body snatcher who had only one expression, sullen, and only one word of English,
no
, and while Rose laughed politely, she wished Liddy and Peter would talk about it. She saw how they both mourned the passing of their perfect little boy and how hard they found this teenage stranger, full of new hairs and hormones, to deal with. By contrast, Rose had come to learn that her ability not to lose her temper with Matty might be directly to do with her not having given birth to him. She did not take his outbursts personally because she did not see his behavior as any reflection on her own.
    â€œC’mon! Hurry! I packed your school bag, I charged your phone. Don’t forget to tell Miss Walsh you need an afternoon slot for your piano lesson next week, and you’ve lost your library book so I’ve stuck twenty dollars in your jacket pocket to cover it.”
    He shook his head and grunted something unintelligible before picking the duvet up off the floor, rolling onto his side, and curling into a ball underneath it.
    â€œMatty!” she said, exasperated.
    â€œCan Dylan and Jack come over tonight?” came his muffled response.
    â€œYes, if their parents text me.
You have to get up now!
”
    Suddenly, from downstairs, the front door swung open.
    â€œRose!”
    At his father’s voice, Matty leapt out of bed, picked his clothes off the floor, and hurried into the bathroom, not quite so teenageyet as to brave paternal wrath first thing. Rose came down the stairs once more. Peter was standing in the doorway, hangdog. Rose smiled.
    â€œYou didn’t have to come back,” she said.
    â€œI wanted to say I’m sorry.”
    â€œNo. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been reading it. It was insensitive—”
    â€œI can’t believe she said that. It’s so
personal
. And in