‘Mack?’
Her voice makes me instantly homesick. ‘Hey, Susie.’
‘I wasn’t sure you’d get the message,’ she says. I can hear nerves in her voice and it only makes me more worried.
‘Is everything okay with the kids?’
She pauses, and for a second I know pure fear.
‘They’re fine, don’t worry.’ She falters. ‘This isn’t about them … not directly, anyway.’
Now I’m confused. ‘I don’t follow,’ I say.
‘Have you noticed Leo gets upset lately whenever he speaks to you?’ she says.
I go clammy. Is she about to ask me not to call my sons? Because she may as well ask me to stop breathing.
‘Yes, I’ve noticed,’ I say, as calm as I can manage. ‘I was going to talk to you, see if you know of anything on his mind.’
The line goes silent long enough for me to worry we’ve been cut off.
‘This is so difficult.’ Her voice is soft against my ear.
‘It’s difficult for me too,’ I say. ‘Being so far away from you all.’
I’ve travelled a hell of a long way to give Susie the space she needed, but I’d walk another thousand miles if it made her see what’s right for our family. Is this it? Is she going to ask me to come home? Apprehension gnaws low in my gut. It’s hard to pinpoint why, exactly. This could be the call I’ve waited for, the words I’ve wanted her to say.
‘I’m seeing someone else, Mack. It’s … it’s pretty serious.’
I actually feel the bottom fall out of my world. Twelve months of push me, pull me, waiting and waiting, and still I didn’t see this coming. Does that make me an idiot? I sure feel like one right now.
‘Leo found out. It’s been eating him up not telling you.’
My poor sweet boy. ‘How long?’
She falls silent again, but I can hear her breathing. I’ve slept beside this woman for years, listened for her breath in the dead of night. That’s how I know she’s breathing faster than usual, that her heart is racing. Mine is too. I can hear it roaring in my ears.
‘Four months. Five, maybe? I don’t know, Mack. A while, but Leo only found out last week.’
‘Five months?’ I say. She’s been sleeping with someone else for five months. It hits me like a hammer, doubling me over on the rock. I can’t wrap my head around it. I’ve only been gone a few weeks, so there’s been a considerable goddamn window back home for her to bother mentioning this to me.
‘Who is he?’
‘Mack, please. That doesn’t matter right now.’
‘Do I know him?’
Her resigned sigh rattles down the line. ‘It’s Robert.’
For a second I can’t place the name and then it clicks. ‘Robert? Your boss, Robert?’
Robert, man of many vests, zany ties and an annoying habit of calling my wife ‘Susie Sausage’。 Fuck. I want to smash his jaw in. My kid’s heart is breaking over Robert?
‘Put Leo on.’
‘Mack, I don’t think …’
‘Just get my fucking son, Susie.’
I can hear she’s crying. I don’t think there’s been even once in our lives when the sound of her tears hasn’t bruised my soul. There’s a first for everything, it seems.
After a few moments, I hear Leo.
‘Dad?’
Honestly, the shake in his voice almost breaks me.
‘Hey, buddy,’ I say, forcing my words out clear and cool. ‘Listen, your mom and me were just talking about what’s been going on over there.’
‘I know,’ he says. He sounds about five years old. I’d give my right arm to be able to pull him into a bear hug right now.
‘Okay. I need you to listen to me. Will you do that?’
‘Uh-uh,’ he says.
‘Where are you?’
‘My room.’
‘On your own?’
‘Yeah.’
I can picture him clearly. He had a fascination for outer space a few years back, we decorated his room out with astral wallpaper and bed sheets, lamps, the works. On his ninth birthday, I picked up a model of the planets and attached them to his ceiling, all while he slept, his pale hair spilling across his pillow. I wanted him to open his eyes on the morning of his birthday and see Jupiter, Mars, the Moon.
‘You see the moon I hung up?’ I say.
‘Yeah,’ he says.
‘I’m looking at the moon here too,’ I say. ‘I’m sitting on top of a hill on an island in the middle of the sea, looking at the moon.’