Something Like Love by Catherine Dunne

Author:Catherine Dunne [Dunne, Catherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780330541848
Publisher: Pan Macmillan UK

Lisa was watching TV when Rose got home.

‘Hi, hon. You okay?’

She shrugged. ‘Yeah, I’m okay,’ she said, and continued to gaze at the screen. Rose said nothing more. She sat beside her daughter on the sofa and allowed her heart to slow down, her eyes to drift, unseeing, towards the television.

It was a technique she had refined over many years. Teenagers – at least, the teenagers in her family – seemed to communicate their difficulties more freely if no eye contact with the parent was required. Rose remembered how she used to address the top of Brian’s head while he concentrated on handheld computer games. She had, also, in the past, become all too familiar with the sharp contours of Damien’s shoulder blades as she’d follow him around the kitchen. She used to keep several careful steps behind him, coming as close as she dared, waiting patiently as he’d rummage for food in the fridge, or open and close the kitchen cupboards. In such circumstances had the most profound, the most difficult, the most revealing of all conversations with her children taken place.

I can wait, she thought now. I can wait another five minutes. Rose knew that with Lisa, the trick revolved around the TV. The girl would talk while keeping her eyes locked on the manic, noisy antics of MTV.

‘I didn’t answer the door,’ she said eventually.

‘That’s okay,’ said Rose.

Pause. ‘He put something through the letterbox for you. It’s in the hall, on the table.’

‘Okay.’ Rose didn’t move.

‘I just didn’t know what to do. He kept ringing and ringing at the doorbell. I didn’t know who it was until he started to walk away. I’d got out of the shower and watched from my bedroom window, and it was like, you know, I was six again, watching him go off to work, or something.’

Now Rose turned and looked at her. ‘How did it feel?’

Lisa shrugged. ‘It was weird – that . . . feeling like a little girl again. Just totally weird.’

‘What would have happened if you’d opened the door, do you think?’

Lisa met her gaze. ‘I dunno – I s’pose we’d have talked.’

‘And?’

‘I wouldn’t have known what to say. I mean, what do you say to a dad you haven’t seen in eight years?’

‘How about “Where the hell have you been?”’ suggested Rose, smiling at her.

Lisa giggled. ‘Yeah – or, like, you owe me, big time: eight birthday presents and eight Christmas presents and I want them all now!’

Rose laughed. ‘Cut to the chase, why don’t you!’ She paused. ‘On the other hand, you could say something like “I’ve missed you.” ’

Lisa frowned. ‘You can’t say something like that – not right away, anyway. And I don’t know if I have missed him. I mean, you only usually miss someone who was always there and then goes away for a little while. If they go away and never come back, it’s like they were never there in the first place. Isn’t it?’

Out of the mouths of babes, Rose thought.

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