The divorce was very sudden and initiated completely out of the blue by my dad. Mum thought their relationship was fine. The first time she knew there was anything wrong was when my dad didn’t come home one night and she got a letter from her solicitor the next morning.
"Are you still in love with Dad?" I ask.
"What?"
"I was just thinking. It all makes sense to me now. You’re not open to meeting a new man because you’re still in love with Dad."
"Mackenzie…"
"I’m right, aren’t I?"
"No, Mac. It’s not your dad I’m in love with."
It’s not your dad I’m in love with. A-Ha!
"So you are in love with someone?"
She shrugs. I can tell by the look on her face that I’ve hit the nail on the head.
"But if it’s not my father, then who is it?"
"Just drop it, Mackenzie."
"No. This is serious. This is good. I can help you. Just tell me who it is, and I’ll go and find him for you."
Mum stays quiet.
"Is he married or something? Is that it? Because I’m not above breaking up a happy home, if that’s the problem."
"It’s no one," she says.
"Does he live in a foreign country?" I try. This is like playing Guess Who. "Is it Neil?"
"Neil?"
"Neil. You know? High school Neil. Lives in Russia."
"How do you know about Neil?"
"Ah! So it is Neil."
"No, it is not Neil. I just don’t know how you even know about him. I dated him thirty-odd years ago. How do you know he lives in Russia? I didn’t even know he lives in Russia."
"I have my ways." I shrug, trying to be nonchalant and mysterious and probably ending up plain annoying. "So, is it Neil?"
"No."
"Who is it then?"
"It’s no one."
"Well, that’s not true because it is someone. You’ve just said you’re in love with someone who isn’t Dad and may or may not be Neil."
"It’s not Neil or your dad."
"What’s that line about the lady who protests too much?"
"You need to forget about this, Mac. It’s no one. I’m not in love with anyone else. Except Baby, of course. You must have heard me wrong."
I completely ignore that sentence, because I’m wracking my brain, trying to think of all the men she’s met and/or dated in her lifespan. Besides, it all makes perfect sense. Of course she’s in love with someone else. I should have noticed it sooner. It’s so obvious to me now. All the signs fit. The jigsaw is complete.
"Who did you date before Neil? Because I thought Neil was your first boyfriend, and then you met Dad, and well, we all know how that turned out."
Mum keeps quiet.
"Okay, not before Neil then. How about after Dad? Have you dated since after the divorce? I didn’t know you had. How did you keep that one a secret?"
"You need to drop this, Mackenzie."
"Is it Dad? I mean, I know you said it wasn’t but it’s perfectly okay to still be in love with him, you know. He hurt you really badly, and I understand that it must have been a huge shock, and I’m not at all surprised if you’re still getting over it, and…"
"Mackenzie, leave it. I’m not in love with anyone. Now can we please just forget it?"
"Okay," I sigh.
I give in reluctantly for tonight. But I’m not going to drop this. From tomorrow morning onwards, I am on a mission to find other men my mum has dated and/or had extended contact with in her life. Because she is still in love with someone. I am right on this. I swear I’m right.
CHAPTER 35
My first port of call is Neil. First thing the next morning I send him a quick email asking if he knows of any other boys my mother dated before him. I hope he replies soon because I honestly have absolutely no idea where to look. I think that this mystery man must have been in her life before Neil, because I’m sure she hasn’t dated since Dad left. How could I not have known? Oh wait, what if he’s hideous or something, and she’s trying to hide him? Maybe that’s why she didn’t want to tell me last night—because she’s in love with someone who looks like Quasimodo's long-lost cousin. And I know that Neil and Mum hadn't been split up for long when she met my father, so it has to have been either before or after them both, it couldn’t have been in-between. And I’d bet any money that she hasn’t been on a date since she got divorced. So who is it? Who am I missing? I keep feeling like the answer is right in front of me and I’m not seeing it.
"What if it’s just a crush?" Dan says.
"Well, then I’m stuffed," I admit. "But it can’t be just a crush. Do fifty-year-old women even have crushes? Don’t you grow out of that at twenty?"
Dan shrugs.
"No, it can’t be a crush," I say. "It just can’t. I wouldn’t know where to begin. I can't filter through every man my mother has ever so much as looked at in her life. I’d never be able to find them all. Besides, can you ever really be in love with a crush? I mean, don’t you have to know someone to truly love them? I had crushes on boys in school, but it wouldn’t have stopped me going out on a date with a different boy, had I been asked. Whoever this person is, she loves them enough to ensure that she isn’t happy with any other man."
"If no other man can ever measure up to the mystery guy, I don’t know why you’re even bothering."
"Because. I have to bother, Dan. I can’t just give up. If anything, the fact that she’s in love with another man gives me purpose. I have to find this guy. I just hope Neil might be able to shed some light on the matter."
Dan grunts.
"I still think it’s my dad," I say. "It makes perfect sense, and it all fits together. He left out of the blue when she didn’t even know there was anything wrong with their marriage. Of course she’s not going to get over him just like that. And," I say excitedly as more ideas form in my mind. "If she didn’t know there was anything wrong in their marriage then she was probably just as much in love with him on the day he left as she was on the day they got married. She didn’t, like, fall out of love with him before they got divorced. He divorced her. Surely that’s got to be it."
"I don’t think so somehow," Dan says.
"Why not? It makes sense to me."
"Well, yeah, it fits the jigsaw, but… I don’t know, Mac. Don’t you think you’d have some clue if your mother was still in love with your father after all these years? You know, how does she react when his name is mentioned? Does she keep little mementos of their time together?"
"No," I say. "Not at all. It’s like she couldn’t care less about him now."
"Exactly."
"What if it’s all a front? What if she’s feigning indifference so nobody sniffs out the fact that she still has feelings for him?"
"I think you’re barking up the wrong tree here."
"I just feel like the answer should be obvious. I feel like I should know who it is, but I’m missing some vital clue. Do you have any ideas?"
"None at all," Dan says. "I think you’re reading way too much into this. Maybe what she said last night was just a slip of the tongue, and she really isn’t in love with anybody. You’ve misinterpreted what she said and taken it as fact."
"Do you have a better explanation for all these failed dates? Ron is perfect for her, I know that they got on fabulously together because I saw them with my own eyes, and suddenly it’s over because he’s ‘just not what she wants’. Explain that to me, Dan."
"She’s an extremely fussy person who you’ll never be able to please?"
"That’s not true. Not entirely, anyway. She was happy and settled once with my dad, and I still believe that she could be again. But something is stopping her. Like the fact that she’s still hung up on him."
"Maybe she can’t trust men anymore," Dan suggests. "Because your dad left her without warning, maybe she doesn’t want to settle down with anyone in case they do the same thing."
"Ah, so she starts sabotaging dates whenever th
ey start to go too well. That’s a good point actually, Dan. She might be doing that. But then why did she say ‘it’s not your dad I’m in love with’?"
"Because she’s not still in love with your dad?" Dan asks this in the same tone he’d use to speak to a small child.
"I’m not stupid," I huff. "The way it was said implies that it might not be Dad she’s in love with, but it is someone."
Dan sighs in a way that tells me he’s had enough of this conversation. Fine, I think. This is my job, anyway. It is someone, the question is who.
Neil’s email comes back that night, and it consists of one line: As far as I know, I was your mother’s first boyfriend.
Great. Just peachy. Now where do I look?
Actually, I know exactly where to look. It is Monday morning, and Mum has a yoga class at ten. I’ve taken the morning off work for a spot of burglary. Well, not burglary exactly, but definitely a spot of snooping. I have to find this mystery man. I will find him if it’s the last thing I do. But I need some evidence. Actually, I need anything, absolutely anything that will point me in the right direction. This is why I’m breaking into Mum’s house at five past ten this morning. It’s not really breaking and entering if you still have a key, is it?
Baby barks at my unexpected presence, and launches himself at my knees, ripping my trousers again. This time I’m not quite so lenient, and I wish I had some drugged steak or something with me like they do in the movies. Eventually I quieten him down by getting some of his dog biscuits out of the kitchen. He is obviously not impressed with me—how dare I give him actual dog biscuits and not custard creams, after all—but he eats them anyway, and goes to lie down in his basket, evidently satisfied that I don’t pose any imminent danger.
To be honest, I have no idea why I’m here or what I’m looking for. I suppose I’m half-hoping to come across a shrine to the mystery man in Mum’s room, complete with burning skull and a collection of photographs. Or spell books with candles, locks of hair, and his full name, address, and marital status. At this point, I’d settle for anything. Even finding him tied up in her closet. I run upstairs and check the closet quickly, just to be on the safe side. I decide to just walk around the house and look at things, searching for some sign that I may have missed before. Does she have a well-worn picture of my dad on the bedside table? Any heart-shaped picture frames bearing photos of unknown men? A note pinned to the fridge reading "I love so and so, who lives at such and such an address"? Any doodled hearts with "Eleanor loves Mystery Man" on the phone table?
The answer is no. There is nothing. I read the calendar hanging on her bedroom wall, and the only thing she has scheduled for this month is an appointment for Baby at the dog parlour. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to have his hair puffed and his toenails painted. Her wardrobe of clothes doesn’t reveal anything. I don’t even know what I expected to find in there. Some mystery man’s sweater hanging up? Y-fronts in the laundry basket? I check it just in case. But I have to think that this particular man is not in her life right now. If he was, surely we’d know. And, at the very least, she wouldn’t even have gone on the dates with the men I’ve set her up with if she already had someone. Plus, if he was in her life/bed/closet/laundry basket right now, she wouldn’t "still" be in love with him. And we’d know. Even if he looked like Freddy Krueger and she was embarrassed to introduce her family to someone so gruesome. I swear we’d know.
It has to be said that I am at a dead end. Even a criminal offence hasn’t given me any clues. Where am I supposed to look next? And what if Dan is right? What if I am reading too much into one innocent remark, and focusing on this to avoid the fact that I have failed as a matchmaker and now I have to either give up or get back out there and date more lunatics. And I don’t do giving up. My mum should have someone fantastic, and someone fantastic she shall have. But it would help if she was actually in love with him first. Who could this guy be? Does he even exist?
CHAPTER 36
"You have to do something," Dan hisses at me in the kitchen that night. We have both sneaked out here under the guise of making tea. We’d like to be curled up on the sofa watching a movie, but it’s been taken over by my mother and her dog. And I had to get out of that room. I can feel my brain cells dying off one by one from staring at the mindless drivel playing on the TV screen.
"What do you suggest I do, Dan?" I whisper back at him.
"I don’t care, but that fucking dog is chewing on our twenty quid cushions."
"So move the damn cushions," I tell him. "You live here too, you know."
"Doesn’t fucking feel like it." He turns around and leaves, slamming the front door behind him. Great. Now Dan is angry with me.
"What’s gotten into him this time?" Mum asks when I go back into the living room.
"For a start," I say, leaning over her and ripping two cushions away from the back of the settee. "Your damn dog is destroying our expensive cushions."
"He’s not a damn dog, he’s my Baby."
"And now I have to wash these cushions and hope that one day they might be the same as they were before that thing got his teeth in to them."
"What’s more important, Mackenzie? One wash load or your family?"
"He is not my family. He is your dog."
"Oh. So you wouldn’t mind if it was me chewing on your cushions then?"
"If you start chewing on my cushions, I’m calling the men in white coats." In fact, maybe I’ll call them anyway, just for the sake of it. Well, I need someone to take her away.
"What’s he even doing here, anyway?" I ask. "I told you he isn’t welcome here after killing my plant."
"Your plant died because you fed it too much plant food."
"Yeah, in an attempt to save it's life."
"Plants are like goldfish—they explode if they overeat."
"I’ve never heard that one before." Probably because she just made it up.
"You don’t read the magazines that I do."
"No, because I’m not fifty."
"Oh, and you just had to go to the age difference, didn’t you?"
"Sorry," I say, not feeling in the least bit sorry.
"The problem isn’t my Baby, anyway. It’s your boyfriend. Can’t control his temper, slamming doors around like that, all because my Baby likes the tassels on your fancy cushions. Who does he think he is?"
"He lives here, unlike you and that damn dog, even though you seem to think you do."
"Don’t you want me here?"
I’m about to answer, but I stop myself. I’m angry, and will probably say too much. I’ll probably shout, "No, go out and play with traffic, you annoying cow!" and she’ll go off and get hit by a bus or something. That’s the kind of karma I get.
So instead I just say, "It’s not about that. Dan is just tired, that’s all. So am I."
"You don’t need to defend him, Mackenzie. He doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t deserve you. What are you going to say when he loses that temper on you and hits you like he hit that door?"
"Dan isn’t like that," I say.
"You shouldn’t make excuses for him. Dan is just tired," she mimics. "Dan is just an asshole, more like."
"No, he isn’t," I say, giving up fast. I hate all these arguments.
"Fine," she says. "You keep telling yourself that."
"Sorry," Dan says when he comes in after my mum has left and taken the plant killer with her.
"It’s okay," I say. "I know she’s frustrating."
"I hadn’t realised how much I’d gotten used to the peace and quiet when she was dating. Any more dates on the horizon yet by any chance?"
I shake my head. "I haven’t really been looking. I still want to find this mystery man that she’s in love with."
"If he exists," Dan interjects.
"He exists," I say, positively. "But I guess it couldn’t hurt to try to find someone else. She was with Ron for three weeks, maybe next time will be better. Even longer."
"What, like four weeks?" Dan winks
at me good-naturedly. "A whole four weeks, can you imagine that?"
"Wouldn’t it be great?"
"What even went wrong with Ron in the first place, anyway? Don’t you think you should try to get them back together?"
I shrug. "He just wasn’t what she was looking for. Or who. He wasn’t who she was looking for, because she’s in love with someone else."
"You know how indecisive she can be," Dan says. "Maybe she hasn’t really decided with Ron yet, and she needs a shove in the right direction?"
"I don’t know, Dan. My mum isn’t usually someone who changes her mind a lot."
"Are you kidding me? How many times did we have to go to Homebase for her to pick an ironing board cover she was satisfied with? And even then she stood in the shop doing eeny meeny miny moe. She changes her mind all the time."
"Yeah, but not with decisions like this. Once she decides she doesn’t like someone, that’s it."
"Like me, for instance."
"No, actually. I still have hope for you. I still think that one day she’ll learn to like you."
"Well, I still have hope for Ron."
"I think I’ll look for someone new first. It’s over with Ron, and Neil did say that she likes to keep things interesting, so I’ll pick up some papers with some personal ad columns in them on the way to work in the morning. I need to start looking for a woman for Jeff as well."
"Did you ask him to fill out the survey for you yet?"
"No," I say. "I forgot. I’ll ask Jenni what kind of woman he goes for on our lunch break. She can fill it out for him."
"He will be pleased."
"Well, who knows our parents better than us?"
Dan laughs. "We have to do something about this, babe. I mean it. She can’t just be over here all the time like this."
"I’ll figure something out," I tell him.
"Yeah, well something has to be done."
"It will."
"I am sorry about storming out like that earlier. I just got so frustrated."
Kismetology Page 16
