Three Hours Late

by Nicole Trope

  Ellen was still waiting for an answer.

  ‘Why don’t we just go out for coffee?’ Liz said.

  Ellen nodded and went to get her bag. She could have used a little time alone but Liz seemed to be in need of company.

  It wasn’t that she minded spending time with her daughter, but she had reached a point in her life where the silence of the house was a blessing. She adored Luke but his sounds and smells and bits and pieces somehow managed to migrate from his bedroom to every other part of the house.

  Ellen needed time to recover her equilibrium. After a day playing with Luke and trying to tell Liz what she wanted to hear she needed some space to breathe. She had taken to staying up late at night waiting for Liz and Luke to fall asleep so that she could breathe in the silence.

  It had taken years after Jack left to get used to being in the house at night when the noises began and every creak was a threat. It had been years before she could sit in a restaurant alone or go to a movie or even take a walk without thinking that everyone who saw her knew she’d been left for a better woman. And now, when she was finally used to it, Luke and Liz had turned up and she couldn’t turn them away. Whatever had happened between you, you didn’t turn family away.

  Liz understood how she felt about Alex anyway. She didn’t need to say ‘I told you so’ because Liz knew what she was thinking. Somehow, in Liz’s eyes, that made her a bad mother. What else was a mother for? If your mother couldn’t tell you the truth, then who could? Liz threw words at her like ‘supportive’ and ‘encouraging’ but surely that was for children. She had been supported and encouraged when she learned to walk and talk and read and write. An adult needed to be told the truth. Wasn’t the idea that her daughter didn’t make the same mistakes she did? And yet here was Liz, back home after a messed-up marriage.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ Liz had said.

  Ellen wanted to talk about it. She wanted to say, ‘What happened to the Liz I raised?’

  But Liz had stopped talking to her after Jack left. At first Ellen hadn’t cared. She lost interest in raising Liz as she nursed her own deep wounds. But her husband’s decision wasn’t all her fault. She was sure of that. Liz looked at her like she had failed.

  Ellen could trace Liz’s disdain back to the very day Jack left. She knew she had behaved badly. The shame of it coloured her cheeks even now, all these years later, but she had been afraid. She had not known how she would survive in the world without Jack and so she had pulled at his clothes and begged and cried until he had driven away in his truck.

  It wasn’t that she was so in love with him by then. If anything there had been times when she could not fathom how she could bear to spend the rest of her life with him, but he made the choice for both of them. He took control and she couldn’t seem to think straight.

  She couldn’t forget the way Liz had looked at her that day. There had been no sympathy from her twelve-year-old daughter, only judgement and disgust.

  Liz retreated into herself then. She was silent on the things that mattered in her life and Ellen knew she had never pushed too hard for communication. She had been busy drowning her sorrows and trying to figure out where her life had gone wrong.

  Ellen watched Liz put up walls when she began dating, watched her protect herself, and she was pleased. She wanted better for her daughter. She wanted Liz to have the control. But then Alex had come along. Liz had seemed to have the upper hand until Luke was born. Motherhood turned Liz into a simpering creature, afraid of using the wrong words. Ellen imagined that it was post-natal depression, but then Liz turned up on her doorstep; in the clichéd dark glasses.

  She wanted to shake her daughter and ask her what she had been thinking when she let a man hit her.

  No one had ever been allowed to hit Liz.

  When she was about two Ellen had lashed out as Liz threw her food on the floor for the third time and Jack had stood towering above her, shaking with rage. ‘You don’t hit a child, Ellen,’ he said. ‘You don’t ever hit my child.’

  It had been an extreme reaction and Ellen understood, not for the first time, that her giant of a husband held some secrets that would never be told.

  Jack’s parents were both in a nursing home in Perth, paid for by Jack and visited by his sister who occasionally phoned with updates.

  Once they realised that there would be no more children Ellen and Jack spent their remaining married years worshipping at the altar of their perfect Elizabeth. When Ellen thought back in her more lucid moments she would realise that Liz was probably the only thing that kept them together beyond the first years of their marriage.

  After Jack left Ellen couldn’t help comparing the two of them as they both took up her space and towered over her. And then Liz’s childhood was over and she was married to Alex and Ellen was completely alone for the first time in decades and she was surprised to find that she liked it.

  Now Liz was home again. And when Ellen caught sight of her changing one day she could see that the bruises fading to yellow spoke of a longer story than just one black eye.

  She wanted to tell Jack, but Liz begged her not to. Nevertheless, she had called him one night when Liz was asleep.

  ‘I just wanted to tell you,’ she had begun and then she had heard another voice enter the room. ‘Honey,’ it had whined seductively and Ellen hadn’t been able to make the words come out. She just put down the phone then. Jack didn’t call her back to ask what was wrong. She wasn’t his problem anymore.

  They drove to the nearby shopping centre and parked, writing down the colour and number of their row. Ellen had once been lost in the car park for close to an hour when the shopping centre first opened. Liz preferred hanging out in the library to shopping. Luke would climb in and out of the old boat filled with stuffed toys and she would leaf through old magazines and imagine a different life for herself.

  Walking past a shop Liz caught sight of the two of them reflected in the window and almost laughed aloud at the odd picture they made.

  Ellen wore her hair in a neat bob and tucked starched shirts into capri pants and her feet into dainty ballet flats. Liz always had bits of hair escaping and her shirt hanging out. Even though Luke was three already she had never quite managed to lose the baby weight. He mother made her feel the same way she had when she was twelve and towered over all the petite, flat-chested girls at school—out of place.

  Her height couldn’t be disguised by stooping so eventually she just stood up straight, towering over her small, neat mother and just about everyone else she knew. She felt awkward standing next to her mother, she felt self-conscious standing next to her friends and she was generally ill at ease whenever someone looked up at her. Alex didn’t think she took up too much space. At first.

  They wandered aimlessly in and out of stores filled with the colours of autumn. The chill in the open-air mall forced them into a coffee shop where they ordered tea. ‘I think I’ll have a slice of the mud cake as well,’ said Liz and Ellen had to bite her lip to keep quiet. Her daughter spilled out of the chair. Where once she had been statuesque, she was now just big. Ellen couldn’t see Liz being able to pull herself together and get on with things.

  ‘You know there are a lot of people finding themselves new partners on the internet these days,’ said Ellen.

  ‘I’ve only been separated a few months, Mum, stop trying to marry me off again. And by the way, you’re not exactly the best example. You haven’t made any effort to find someone else.’

  ‘It’s a bit late for me now, but it’s not too late for you, Liz. There’s nothing wrong with a few dates.’

  Liz only had eyes for Luke and Ellen could see the hold Alex still had over her. When he came over to get Luke Liz would watch him and her eyes would glaze a little. Ellen didn’t understand what her daughter saw in him. He had nice hair and nice eyes but otherwise there was nothing remarkable about him. He was just shy of skinny and he had small hands. Ellen hated the idea of small hands on a man. But of course
they were big enough to do some damage. They were big enough for that.

  Jack had never liked him either. ‘He has soft hands,’ he told Ellen when they were planning the wedding.

  ‘He’s an engineer, Jack,’ said Ellen. She kept her reservations to herself around her ex-husband. Disagreeing with him was more important. ‘Not everyone has to be a piano mover.’

  Jack had not taken the bait. ‘I know what he does,’ he said. ‘But his hands are soft and he’s shorter than she is.’

  Ellen had just shrugged, and only remembered defending Alex when Liz had turned up on her doorstep.

  Liz’s mobile rang and from the way she answered it Ellen knew it was Alex. He couldn’t even deal with his son for a few hours without calling Liz. Ellen couldn’t see how they would ever be free of him. Liz refused to get the police involved.

  ‘Luke needs his father,’ she said. And that was that.

  ‘Hi, babe, I just wanted to tell you that he’s fine and having fun,’ said Alex. He was back in charming mode as if that morning’s conversation had never happened.

  ‘Great,’ said Liz. She wasn’t sure of the real reason for the call. She knew that he couldn’t simply have called to tell her Luke was okay. There was always a reason. Alex was planning to wear her down. He was starting by calling her ‘babe’ and would keep going from there.

  ‘They call you babe and sweetie and my love and for some reason you think that no one will ever love you like this man does,’ said Rhonda. ‘No one will ever think you’re as beautiful as he does and you get sucked back in and then, when your ribs are so bruised you can’t breathe, you remember that no one will ever hurt you like this man does either. And you think that you’ll never get sucked in again and then he calls you up and calls you babe and you’re fucked.’

  Liz knew that the manipulation was supposed to end when she packed her suitcase and walked out the door. It was supposed to be the full stop at the end of her very long sentence. She was supposed to be free to start a new chapter. But the way he said ‘babe’ dragged her back every time. The conversations she had with him in her head were no defence against his actual presence.

  She’d thought she had worked out a way to listen to him without letting him change her thinking. She’d thought the time apart had made her impervious to his subtle machinations. She was wrong.

  She took a deep breath and steeled herself to end the call quickly.

  ‘Thanks for the call, Alex. He needs to be home by two and don’t forget to take him to the bathroom.’

  ‘I know how to take care of my child, Liz. You don’t need to tell me what to do with him every fucking minute.’

  Liz rubbed her forehead in the overheated coffee shop. She had messed up again. ‘Sorry, Alex, I’m sorry. Of course you know how to take care of him. I’ll see you later. Have a good time, okay?’

  ‘Don’t you want to speak to your son, Liz?’

  ‘No, it’s okay. Let him play. I’ll see you guys later.’

  ‘But don’t you want to tell him you love him?’

  ‘I have to go now, Alex, I need . . . I need to drive.’

  She hung up the phone and wiped her sweaty palm on the tablecloth. It always felt like she was just one wrong sentence away from him going off the deep end. Why the insistence that she tell Luke she loved him? That was a new twist.

  Liz took a sip of her tea and waited for her heart to slow. Who knew why Alex did anything? Right now she just wanted five minutes off from thinking about him.

  Ellen stirred her tea, trying to figure out how to ask the question that had been playing on her mind for weeks. Liz had never said anything about the way Alex treated Luke. She seemed happy enough to let Luke go with him but Ellen couldn’t help worrying when she saw Liz planning each sentence, desperate not to upset the man.

  ‘You don’t think he’d ever hit Luke, do you?’ she said. The words leapt out into the air without waiting for a better time.

  ‘Mum, don’t be ridiculous. Come on, let’s just go home. I can grab forty winks before they get back. I promised Luke pizza tonight.’

  Ellen sighed and paid the bill. They drove home in silence. Ellen had already suggested the police and a lawyer. She supposed she should be grateful that Liz went to a support group, although she didn’t know what help the other women could be. They were all in the same boat and so far none of them seemed to have found a way off onto land.

  At home they went their separate ways. Ellen made herself another cup of tea and added a dash of whisky. ‘Just to get me through the day,’ she told herself.

  Liz went up to her bedroom and lay on her bed. She had managed an hour or two of regret-filled sleep before Luke had climbed into bed with her and snuggled up to watch the sun rise.

  Liz didn’t mind the early mornings. Luke would mumble things and sing to himself and stroke her hair. It was really the only time she could give him a proper cuddle. During the day he was always getting on with the serious business of exploring his world. He wanted to feed himself and dress himself and he wouldn’t let her kiss him anymore.

  She closed her eyes and tried to wash away the image of herself and Alex on the kitchen floor. Last night he’d used the word ‘beautiful’ as he touched her, but only a few months ago she had been ‘a fat cow’ and ‘as big as a bus’. She was also ‘stupid as fuck’ and ‘completely naive’.

  When she repeated the phrases back to him he denied ever having said them, and when she showed him a bruise he asked her how it had happened.

  ‘They block it out,’ said Glenda. ‘After they’ve put their fist through a wall or into your face they just block it out. They say sorry but they don’t really know what for. That’s why they can’t understand what you’re so upset with them about.’ Glenda’s husband was a respected member of the community and someone others turned to for advice and help. But it seemed that Glenda wasn’t respectful enough. She seemed unaware of his status as a leader of the community and that bothered him. It bothered him a great deal.

  ‘Bullshit,’ said Rhonda. ‘They know what they’ve done. They just don’t want to fucking acknowledge it. Dr Phil says you can’t change what you don’t acknowledge.’

  ‘Oh, fuck, Rhonda,’ said Cherry, whose parents wanted a daughter who was sweet and kind instead of the messed-up teenager with an abusive drug-addicted boyfriend they got. ‘You watch too much television.’

  Liz turned on her side and felt herself drifting towards sleep. The words hung around longer than the bruises. They jumped out at her when she looked in a mirror or tried on an old skirt. A bruise changed colour and faded away and in time it was possible to look at the place where she had been marked and not really be able to see anything at all. But what he said and the way he said it was in the air. It became part of what she breathed. His disgust ate away at her insides and however much she tried to smother it with sugar and salt it was always there. It was always just another reason why she deserved what she got.

  Her body relaxed completely.

  Luke would be home soon and they would have pizza.

  He would be home soon and they would have pizza and he would tell her exactly how many times he had been down the slide.

  Right now that would have to be enough.

  4

  In the park Alex watched Luke go up the ladder and down the slide ten times.

  ‘Watch me, Dad, watch me now, okay? Watch how I go down. See how fast I went? Watch me again, okay?’

  Alex smiled and waved every time Luke got to the top of the ladder. Luke wouldn’t go down the slide without the wave.

  The park was full of fathers and their kids.

  They all had ‘Saturday access visit’ floating above their heads. Everyone was too happy. Everyone was trying too fucking hard. No one said no to an ice cream or an extra ride on the swings or another round of junk food. A whole week needed to be lived in this single day. Luke forgot his days as soon as they ended. Alex had to push and lead him to a memory, hoping to get something he could ho
ld on to for the next few days.

  ‘What did you learn in preschool this week, Luke?’

  ‘What did you eat for dinner last night?’

  ‘Who did you play with at preschool?’

  ‘I don’t know, Dad,’ Luke would say. ‘I forgetted already.’

  Under a tree there was a father with teenage children and Alex could see the guy had really made an effort. He had a picnic basket and a special mat and a collection of board games. His teenage sons had not even looked up from their mobile phones yet. Kids could be such arseholes.

  Now Luke wanted his dad to watch everything he did, but Alex could see that it was inevitable they would end up like the family under the tree. If you lived apart it got harder and harder to keep in touch. Kids didn’t want to repeat the same story about what happened at school that day twice. Relationships were held together by the words thrown casually over a shoulder on the way to school or to a movie. Serious conversations took place in the car or just before bedtime. You couldn’t schedule a kid’s interest in sharing something with you. You just couldn’t.

  With each passing week it became clearer to him that it would be impossible to hold on to his boy as he grew up and pushed at the boundaries that made him feel so safe now. Right now Luke thought Alex was a superhero and that’s how a boy should think of his father. If he wasn’t with Luke all the time there would be no way he could be sure of his love. Eventually he and Luke would just stop talking.

  Alex felt a quick stab in his chest. A premonition of the pain to come.

  He remembered being in the park with Liz and Luke when Luke was about a year old and spotting the sad little groups and feeling just a little smug that he wasn’t them. He had seen other fathers looking over at his little family with envy and he thought, ‘That’s right—you should envy me. I have it all.’

  And now here he was, just another Saturday dad.