Sometime later when my stomach is telling me I’ve missed tea, and my tears have dried up, I glance at the clock and realise that I’ve been here for hours. It’s nearly eight pm, way past Pippa’s bedtime, and I can’t believe that no one came to get me. I figure I’ll go downstairs for some cereal or something to tide me over until morning. I open my bedroom door quietly, not wanting to disturb Pippa if she’s sleeping already and I try to determine where Mum and Seth are before they hear me. My face is probably red and puffy from the tears, and they know I was upset and “having a temper tantrum” as Mum calls it to make me feel stupid, and I just don’t feel like facing them right now.
I creep out onto the landing and I can see under Mum’s bedroom door that her main light is off but her smaller lamp is on, which means she’s probably sitting up in bed reading or something. Good. Let’s hope Seth is safely tucked away in the basement and I have the downstairs to myself to eat in peace. But as I pass Mum’s room, I hear voices that make me stop in my tracks. Or, more specifically, Seth’s voice. In my mum’s room. He is not supposed to be in there. Mum said very clearly that he was staying in the basement. And that he was definitely sleeping in the basement. He should not be in her room.
I feel confident that they haven’t heard me so I stop for a moment to listen. And when I finally catch what he’s saying, it makes me go cold and freeze on the spot. My heart starts hammering so hard in my chest that I’m sure they can hear it.
“What have you got to keep you here?” He says it in a low sultry voice and I have a sudden mental image of him lying in bed next to her. I fight the urge to be sick.
What has she got to keep her here? Why the hell is he asking my mother that?
“Seth, I…”
“Seriously,” he says in that same sultry voice. “You and me, we’re good together. You haven’t got anything worth staying for. I’ve got a nice place that you and the kids could use as your base when we’re not travelling. You’re always saying how stressed you are here. It’s so peaceful up there. And you can find another job. And there are plenty of very good schools nearby that the girls could go to.”
“I’m not sure I can just leave, Seth. Jobs aren’t easy to find in this day and age, and I’ve been working at the nursing home for over ten years. Plus I’m not sure how the girls would cope with being away from their father. Especially Kait. She’s taken the divorce really hard and as much I don’t like it, the only thing making it easier on her is being able to see him regularly. Moving across the country, they’d only see him maybe once a year, if that.”
“Well, perhaps that would be a good thing. And they’ll adjust in time. Right now they probably think that you two are going to get back together. That’s something you want to nip in the bud before it gets started. Trust me on that.”
“I don’t know, Seth,” Mum says in a whiny voice that almost sounds like a petulant child.
“Have a think about it, okay? It’s quiet and peaceful and so beautiful back at home. I know you and the girls would love it there.”
“It does sound lovely,” she sighs. “Let’s just get through this Christmas first. Kaity seems determined to make everything awkward right now and I guess you can’t expect anything less at that age with just divorced parents. But I’ll think about it, Seth. Maybe a change of scenery is exactly what we need. Leave this place and all its memories behind once and for all.”
And that’s it. I can’t hear anymore over the rushing in my ears. My knees start to give out and I have to grab onto the wall to stop myself falling down. I force myself to wobble quietly back to my room for fear of Mum or Seth coming out and finding me listening. I fall onto my bed and muffle my scream in my pillow.
No. No. No. No. No. No.
This can’t be happening.
I can’t even begin to process everything I’ve just heard. I’m not sure I even want to, but at the same time I know I have to because this is our future we’re dealing with here.
Seth is asking my mum to move away with him. No, scratch that, Seth is trying very hard to persuade my mum to move away with him. And she’s actually considering it. The woman really has had a lobotomy. That can be the only explanation for it. How could she even think about giving up her job, her friends, and her life here and moving away, not to mention destroying mine and Pippa’s lives in the process and taking us away from our dad? I can’t even wrap my head around the idea that she might do that. How could she even think that moving away with Seth is a smart idea? How could she even think about doing that to us and our family—what’s left of it?
Also, me? I’m determined to make everything awkward? How on earth am I doing that? I haven’t done a thing, and it’s not very fair that she’s telling Seth I have. Apart from wanting my dad’s tree instead of Seth’s, what exactly have I done to make anything awkward? I can’t believe my life has come to this. I can’t believe that in a few short months, we’ve gone from being a happy, normal family, to living across town from our dad with our mum thinking about moving us halfway across the country to live with a man she met on the internet. It could even be further than halfway across the country. No one seems to have mentioned where Seth actually lives. If I saw this in a movie I’d think it was far fetched.