“I was petrified. There was no way I could know how you’d react to this, although I fantasized every day after the diagnosis how it would go. How you’d swoop in, your optimism, your Brendon-ness, infecting us all. How Dad would welcome you with open arms. That was my fantasy, but life isn’t a fantasy, and I’d done you such wrong. I know that, Bren. I’d done you such wrong and I couldn’t just drop you into Tanner’s life without knowing where we stood with each other. I had planned to tell you, though. As soon as he was in remission, I’d planned to tell you. It wasn’t fair to dump a sick son on you, that’s what I thought. So I was going to tell you when he was well again. I knew I couldn’t keep him from you any longer, that I was denying him just as much as I was denying you.”
A wry laugh fell from her lips. “I had this whole scenario planned out in my head: I’d call you, tell you I was coming to Sydney, ask you to meet me at Bondi Beach. I was going to make sure we got there on the day you Aussies celebrate Father’s Day. And when you got to Bondi, there we’d be, me and Tanner, sitting on a blanket with a picnic laid out, and a Happy Father’s Day present waiting for you.”
The image, her fantasy, filled my head. I could see it, so clearly. The sun was high, the sky a cloudless blue. On the blanket was a basket full of my favorite food – prawns, fresh tropical fruit, pasta salad – and beside the basket, sat Amanda. She wore a black bikini that showed off her gorgeous body, a body all the more gorgeous for the new curves being a mum gave her, and on her lap Tanner giggled and waved his chubby arms, Optimus Prime in one hand, a mushed-up Vegemite sandwich in the other.
Fuck, I could see it like I was there.
“I know it would have come as a shock,” she said, and I shut the image down to focus on her face again. I can’t tell you how much it hurt to turn my mind away from that image though. I don’t have the vocabulary. “But in my fantasy, you smiled at us, said it was all good, said it was gravy, and we all lived, as they say in the fairy tales, happily ever after.”
And we all lived happily ever after. What every creature with a soul wants.
We stared at each other for a long stretch. Finally, I let out a sigh. “It would have been wonderful to get to live that fantasy,” I murmured. “Almost as wonderful as it would have been there to be with you when Tanner was born.”
She closed her eyes at my gentle reproach and nodded. “What’s the other question?” she asked.
The other question. I didn’t want to ask the other question. It was a high school question, and yet, it weighed on me with mocking, contemptuous force. As did the answer I knew would follow. “Will your father ever accept I’m good enough for you?”
I saw the answer in her eyes, in her face.
A dry laugh tore at my chest. “Yeah,” I said, before she could utter what may be the lie that destroyed any chance of us completely. “I thought as much.”
She closed her fingers around mine with greater pressure. “I’m sorry, Bren,” she whispered.
I shrugged. “In the grand scheme of things, babe, what he thinks of me means nothing.”
“Does that . . .” She searched my face for her own answers. “Are we . . . you and me . . .”
Smiling, really smiling, I rose to my feet and pulled her to stand. “C’mon,” I said, threading my fingers through hers. “Let’s go see our son.”
Twelve
Cookie!
There’s a story, an analogy, that goes something like this: two Buddhist monks were on a pilgrimage. One day, they were walking along the side of a deep river. At the edge of the river sat a young woman, weeping because she was afraid to cross the river without help. Seeing the two monks, she begged for them to help her cross. The younger monk turned his back, for the members of their order were forbidden to touch a woman.
But the older monk picked up the woman without a word and carried her safely across the river. He put her down on the far side where she thanked him and hugged him for his help. He then continued on his journey.
The younger monk caught up with him, horrified and angry at what the older monk had done, and scolded and criticized him for breaking his vow. He continued for a long while, constantly berating the older monk for touching the woman.
Finally, at the end of the day, the older monk turned to the younger monk and said, “I only carried her across the river. You have been carrying her all day.”
I remember reading about these two monks years ago, when I was still a teenager. The message behind the story struck a chord with me and has stayed with me ever since. Like the monks in the story, life often presents us with situations that are difficult to navigate or respond to. However we chose to deal with these situations, it’s important that after making the decision we let things go, instead of carrying the negative “if only I’d done” or the “it should have been”.
I sometimes think the writers of that song from Frozen that damn near every person on the world has heard more than once – “Let It Go” – were familiar with the Two Monks story. They introduced into the world an important Taoism in the guise of a catchy song: don’t hold onto negative thoughts and judgments from your past, because it will only damage your future.
As I’d listened to Amanda tell me why she hadn’t called me when she learned Tanner had leukemia, I began to realize I was very much carrying my anger at her previous behavior with me. I was holding on to it. I’d even started to redirect it toward Robby. I’d failed to see, or refused to see, how hard it had been for Amanda to admit she’d done the wrong thing and call me.
Her father’s disdain for me was another issue, but I wasn’t going to pile it on top of what we were already dealing with. Nor was I going to dwell on Robby and his Rolex and his obvious interest in Amanda, no matter how much I enjoyed a challenge.
Robby was an issue for another day. For now, it was time to let go of what I’d been carrying around about Amanda’s actions, and mine.
Now I’m not saying I’d completely moved on. Holy crap, it hurt like hell. She’d betrayed me, she’d betrayed my love for her, my trust in her. That was going to take a hell of a long time to recover from, a hell of a lot of resentment to deal with, to work through, but I recognized in that moment that I had to let it go. I had to own the decision. I did own that decision, the decision to move on, to forgive and not dwell on it any more.
Speaking of letting it go, I’m now going to take a moment for you to get that song out of your system. Go ahead. I’ll wait.
Feel better? Good.
Our fingers threaded together, Amanda and I left the cafeteria and made our way to Tanner’s room, stopping on the way to add me to his Partners-In-Care list. The fact I was only the fourth name on his list after Chase and Amanda’s parents made me feel . . . special. Stupid, I know, but that’s the way it was.
The feel of her palm against mine was nice. In my opinion, the word nice is a double-edged-sword. So many times it can be used as a passive-aggressive insult. Other times it perfectly describes a situation or sensation. Holding Amanda’s hand as we walked through the hospital, the connection of her palm with mine, the interlacing of our fingers . . . it was nice. Companionable without any overt sexual tension or expectation.