‘I’m a fish today because I caught the biggest fish at the lake this year. My grandpa, Walt, was very proud, although I think he was mad too because he always catches the biggest one. Except for last year when my dad did, but he wasn’t there this year, which made me sad. My brother hurt his ankle too, but he’s all right now.’
I know for a fact that every last person in this room is either looking at me or wants to, but is too polite. I’m the dad who wasn’t there. I avoid eye contact with everyone but Nate, and give him the thumbs-up, feeling like every dad in the room is mentally giving me the thumbs-down.
I don’t stick around for coffee. Susie follows me out to my truck.
‘Mack, I’m sorry. I promise you I didn’t know he was going to say that.’
I lean back against the driver’s door, feeling like I’ve just been in a bar-room brawl. ‘Okay.’ I don’t have enough in the tank to offer anything else.
‘He’s just … he’s just a kid trying childish manipulation tactics to guilt his parents into getting back together.’
I know she’s right. I’m not mad at Nate, I’m just all-round mad at the world right now. I’m not mad at Susie either because despite our current differences I know she wouldn’t have okayed that speech.
‘I’m sorry for what I said in there,’ she says. ‘About the teeth. You’re a really great dad.’
We fall silent as a group of moms pass by on the sidewalk, all making a bad job of pretending not to stare at us.
‘It means everything,’ I say. ‘What Leo and Nate think of me means everything.’
She looks at the ground, too late for me to miss the damp tears that pool on her lashes. ‘It used to be my opinion that mattered,’ she says.
I’m struck by this. Even though she’s the one who no longer needs me, she still wants me to need her. I know she’s still getting used to the idea of me with someone else, but the revelation is eye-opening to me.
‘Your opinion will always matter to me, Susie.’
She swallows and lifts her head, eyes as blue as my mood. ‘Come back to the house for coffee?’
Cleo
20 November
Salvation Island
HAVE I FAILED YOU, EMMA WATSON?
Fifty days. I landed on this island fifty days ago, a fish out of water, an out-of-sorts girl in stiff new walking boots. I leave today, finally, and it’s no exaggeration to say I feel like a different woman will step aboard that boat back. How can it possibly have been only fifty days? I hope I’ve bathed in enough bracing Salvation air for it to have left a permanent seal of protection on my skin. So much inside me has changed. The sea conditions are fair out there today; it’s no mill pond, but calm enough for safe passage.
My bags are packed and the lodge is spick and span. There’s just time for one last coffee on the front steps before Brianne’s husband comes to lug my bags over the hill for me. Yesterday was a barrage of tearful goodbyes, raised glasses at the Salvation Arms and promises to stay in touch. I feel as if I’m leaving home, which is bizarre really as I’m going home.
I can’t begin to put into words how much I’m going to miss Otter Lodge. I take endless photographs on my phone – nothing like Mack quality but I want to capture it all today so that when I’m back in my own bed tonight I can look and see it again. Maybe I’ll send the photos to Mack too, once I have the kind of real-world data that allows for picture messages. I’m sure he’d love to see them. He’s been texting me on and off, three things as always, snippets of his days that reveal how much he’s struggling. I’ve been replying with a list sometimes too. It feels like bending the rules of our pact rather than breaking them. Holiday romances burn bright then burn out – my own words. I guess I didn’t realize how slowly the heat dies down.
I tip my too-cold coffee on the sand beside the steps and sigh. Oh, Emma Watson, is this even slightly what you meant? Have I failed you? I didn’t self-couple in the way I planned when I arrived here, and I definitely didn’t self-couple at all for eight cataclysmic days in the middle, but actually, since then, I think I’ve self-coupled in a wildly effective manner. Me, my squares blanket and my beloved laptop full of words: we are as one. If the boat gets into any trouble out on the ocean later, I’m hanging on tight to those two things until I get rescued.
Cameron appeared bang on time with the barrow for my bags just now. I’m much fitter than I was when I arrived here, but even so I was almost bent double with the effort of trying to keep up with him over the hill. When he glanced my way and caught me almost dry-heaving, he suggested I do as Brianne often does and hop on his back. I didn’t need to be asked twice – I clambered up that man like a kid on an apple tree.