“I’m bored,” Bethany said. “Daddy, please can we go to the swings?”
“You don’t have to come,” Penelope said before I could respond. “I can take her. Jade will be there.”
I wasn’t about to leave Bethany alone with her mother. And some time away from my laptop would be good. “Come on then,” I said to Bethany. “Get your jacket.”
Bethany had her coat and shoes on in record time. I grabbed my keys from the kitchen drawer and herded everyone out.
“Did you pick up your phone?” Penelope asked.
I’d forgotten it but I wasn’t going to let Penelope think she’d helped me remember. “Don’t need it,” I said.
Penelope chuckled. “How times have changed.”
I ignored her. I had no desire to share laughs about old times with her. I didn’t want to be reminded about how it had all been a lie.
Bethany’s hand slipped into mine as we took the familiar route around the back of the house to the park, Jade and Penelope following behind us. “Can you push me a thousand times?” Bethany tugged on my hand.
“My arms will fall off if I do that.”
Bethany laughed. “No, they won’t. Please, Daddy.”
“I’ll push you ten times,” I countered.
“Twenty,” she said.
“Deal.” If I could successfully negotiate with a four-year-old, my current transaction—a one-point-two billion tech acquisition—would be child’s play.
We entered the playground and found it almost empty. “Penpee, will you push me twenty times same as Daddy?” Bethany asked, racing toward her favorite swing.
I glanced over at Penelope and wondered how it felt that her daughter didn’t call her Mummy. Not that she was a mother. She’d resigned her position three years ago. But at least Penelope hadn’t pushed it—hadn’t demanded to tell her that she was her mother. I had to give her some credit for putting Bethany first, because that didn’t happen when she left. There was no way I’d let Bethany know that Penelope was her mother, only for Penelope to disappear again. Bethany would start to question if she was the problem and worse, might wonder if I’d leave her too. Up until now, I’d always explained to Bethany that her mother lived far away and that she and I were a small, special family together. She’d known nothing else, so she’d simply accepted it.
“Absolutely,” she said. “You need a hand getting on?” Bethany held her arms up and Penelope lifted her onto the seat of the swing and started to push.
“Higher,” Bethany demanded. “High. High. High.”
“Now you can do it on your own,” I called out. When she got going, I stopped pushing her. Penelope wouldn’t know this particular trick.
Autumn would. We’d laughed about it one evening just after we’d kissed for the first time.
I closed my eyes, trying to erase the memory of her from my head but knowing any time not thinking about her would be temporary. She lived permanently in my mind, if not my house.
Bethany brought me back to the moment. “Daddy, see how high I am?”
“That’s really high. Be careful,” I said.
Bethany spent ten times longer on the swing than I had patience for, and I wished I had my phone. Finally, when I’d pushed her double the times we’d agreed, she moved to the slide. There was nothing for Penelope to do other than stand aside and watch.
“Would you mind if I took a photograph?” she asked me, glancing at Jade.
I shrugged. “Go ahead.”
Now she wanted to capture memories? She’d missed out on three years’ worth of pictures.
“Thank you,” she said after she snapped a couple. “It means a lot to me.”
“Have you dropped this issue of getting custody?” I snapped as Bethany climbed the stairs to the slide again.
Penelope didn’t respond as we both watched her get to the top of the stairs and slide to the bottom, then race around to start the process again.
“I know that I’ve hurt you,” she said in a small, low voice. “And Bethany—”
“You can see she’s completely fine.”
She paused while Bethany came down the slide again only to race around to the steps. “I know that I’ve made choices that I regret, and I know they have consequences. But I’d like to try to not have the mistakes I’ve made last forever.”
“You can’t undo leaving,” I said. “You can’t suddenly expect those three years to disappear.”
“I know,” she said, pushing her hands into her pockets and pausing again until Bethany was out of earshot. “But I left for three years. I don’t want to let that turn into sixteen. Or a lifetime.”
I tried to think back to my earliest memory. When I was Bethany’s age, I spent a lot of time hiding in the small cupboard in my bedroom. I’d climb in there when my parents argued. Every time my mother shut herself in her bedroom to sob. When I first became aware of her crying, I would try to comfort her—I wanted to somehow turn off her pain. But she’d tell me she was fine and would send me away to play. So I’d go to the cupboard where I wouldn’t hear and I could pretend it wasn’t happening.