Page 112 of How To Not Need You

“I know. That’s not the point.” I look at her. “I spoke to you. I said yes. And then I didn’t give it another thought. I didn’t think about the fact that Liv had a key I’d given her. I didn’t think about her charger sitting on my bench. I didn’t think about the fact that she’d said she’d feed Hades. I just moved on to the next call.”

Megan watches me. Her expression moves from confusion to understanding, and is that a small smile I see creeping in?

“Because why would you?” she says. “It was a shower, Jake. Not a secret rendezvous.”

“Because Liv is part of my life.” The words come out harder than I mean them to. “I owe her the respect. I know that if the roles were reversed, even knowing it was innocent, I would have been hurt. She stood on my verandah with a key I gave her and found my ex-wife in a towel. How is that not going to feel like a betrayal?”

“Because it wasn’t one.”

“I know that. You know that. Liv doesn’t.” I push off the railing. “If I’d thought about it for thirty fucking seconds, I would’ve realised it could’ve been a clusterfuck. But I didn’t. I just didn’t think.”

Megan’s mouth tightens. “That’s unfair to yourself. You didn’t do it on purpose.”

“I know.”

She’s right. I didn’t do it on purpose. There was no malice. Just the ordinary blindness of a man who was focused on his job and forgot, for one moment, that the woman he loves carries the weight of every man who came before him.

But knowing it wasn’t intentional doesn’t change the fact that there was a moment, a single, ordinary moment, where a quick message would have stopped all of this.

And I missed it.

Tilly’s voice carries through the open door. She’s singing something to Hades, probably about unicorns or dinosaurs or the moral complexities of chip distribution to one-legged seabirds. The sound of it wraps around the verandah and settles in my chest.

Megan sighs. “What are you going to do?”

I look at her. At the woman I married, divorced, and somehow managed to remain friends with. At the mother of my child, standing on my verandah asking how she can help fix a problem she didn’t create.

“Wait,” I say. “Apparently that’s the plan.”

She doesn’t argue with me, although I can tell that she wants to. She just nods, once.

Tilly reappears in the hallway holding Hades against her chest like he’s both a prize and a hostage. His large body drapes over her arms in the resigned posture of a cat who has accepted that being manhandled by a five-year-old is simply the tax he pays for housing and meals. Hades’ golden eyes meet mine over her shoulder. They hold mine with the disgust present that has become a familiar part of every interaction with him.

I am surprised at her appearance for a brief moment until I look at her face. She’s been listening. I can tell by the way she’s looking at me. Not the wide, unfiltered curiosity she usually wears, but something skin to anger. The look of a child who has heard enough adult conversation to form an opinion and is now deciding whether to voice it.

“Is Liv mad at you?”

The question seems to stun us both and we look at each other over Tilly’s head in that way co-parents develop, the silent exchange that says your turn and no, yours and I did the seagull explanation all at once.

I crouch before her, groaning slightly as my knees voice their protest at the movement. Sixty hours on your feet will do that, and crouching puts me at eye level with a small human who is currently holding a cat like a furry shield.

“We’re having a bit of a problem at the moment,” I say diplomatically.

Tilly’s brow furrows. There is a smudge on her cheek that draws my focus momentarily until she answers. “Why?”

“Something happened that made Liv sad.”

“Did you make her sad?”

The question is so direct, so perfectly astute, that for a second I can’t answer her. I don’t lie to my daughter. Not about the big things. Not about the things that matter. It’s a rule I made for myself a long time ago, back when she was still small enough to fit in the crook of my arm and I promised her, silently, that I would never be the kind of father who treated her like she couldn’t handle the truth.

“Not on purpose,” I say.

Tilly processes this. I can see it happening. Her forehead creases. Her mouth purses. Her eyes move from my face to Hades, then back to mine, like she’s consulting the cat for a second opinion. Hades offers nothing useful, being currently engaged in the complex emotional work of pretending he doesn’t enjoy being carried.

I can feel myself waiting for her verdict on bated breath. Then Tilly asks the question. One that I didn’t even know that I’ve been dreading.

“Is she coming back?”