Chapter 17
Sam
When Skye brought Ethan back on Sunday afternoon, the boy came up to me and hugged my knees.
“Hey Ethan!” Being acknowledged by him in this way was also new. The boy didn’t say anything and went into the house. Still, it felt like a massive sign of encouragement. I looked up and Skye came towards me, smiling.
“I know, right?”
She looked good, in skintight jeans and boots, a long cardigan over a thin strappy top. Her hair, as always, was perfect.
“How was your weekend?” I asked and she gave me a rundown of the places they’d gone to; the food he’d eaten what time he’d gone to bed.
“But how was he?”
“Better, I think?” She looked at me. “We had no tantrums, no scenes. I mean, I know not to overwhelm him but still.”
I nodded. I was glad that Skye was also seeing an improvement in his behavior.
“Natalie suggested that we maybe take him to see another psychologist,” I said, trying to sound off hand about dropping Natalie’s name like that. “She’s not sure about the diagnosis he was given, or at least, how accurate it is. I mean, you’ve got to admit, he’s becoming much easier to handle and he’s also interacting more.”
Skye nodded. “He’s also talking back to me, which is wonderful. In the past, I’d sort of talk at him, you know? And he never said anything, but these days, I can almost have a conversation with him. What’s happening, do you think? Is it the new nanny, Natalie?”
“I don’t know,” I said, but of course I thought it was Natalie. She spent so much time with him, gently encouraging him and carefully working with him through play and educational games. I often watched her engage him in the garden, at the jungle gym I had put up at her request. They played there every day and I had observed him smiling, even laughing on occasion.
“And how’re you?” Skye asked, a bit tentatively. Our conversations usually were about Ethan and his routine, our schedules. We were polite but not exactly friendly towards one another. Lately though, it seemed we were becoming more cordial, emerging from the war zone of divorce into the more peaceful zone of co-parenting.
“How I am?”
She smiled. “You seem more relaxed, I don’t know?”
“I’ve been seeing someone.”
“Oh?”
“It’s new, beginning stage, you know…” I wasn’t keen to talk about my relationship with Skye, but she had to find out sooner or later.
“Anyone I know?”
I said I heard my phone ringing inside and quickly said goodbye to avoid lying to her. I wasn’t ready to tell her about Natalie quite yet. I knew Skye had been dating for a while and I didn’t want to ask too much. I still hadn’t forgiven her for cheating on me with that society boy, whom she had kept on seeing for a while, but then that relationship was over anyway by the time the divorce was finalized. She briefly saw some lawyer fellow after that, and I saw him a couple of times when Skye came to pick up Ethan. He’d stayed in the car and barely acknowledge me. So far, we hadn’t yet had to deal with either of us getting involved more seriously with someone else and how that would impact on our situation.
It was going well with Natalie, however, and the time was coming to tell our friends and family. It would add some stress to our relationship, and I wanted to be sure we were solid first. But I felt we were there already.
She was coming back from Cape Cod this evening and I had planned a romantic evening at a restaurant in town. I’d booked a babysitter for Ethan, and I was looking forward to seeing Natalie in an elegant dress, perhaps with her hair up, having her take my arm as we entered an elegant establishment. I went in to check on Ethan and found him in his bedroom, playing with some plastic dinosaurs.
“Are you hungry? Want some pancakes?”
He didn’t respond but his body language indicated interest, so I told him I’d make him some. I had several packets of frozen pancakes in the freezer and only had to reheat them. As I was setting out a plate, I got a text. It was from Natalie.
Am not going to be back early tonight. See you later?
Something wrong?
Nothing wrong. Will tell you later x
The little kiss at the end of the message was supposed to make me feel better about her message. She hadn’t known about my surprise dinner, of course, and I was disappointed. I was looking forward to going out with her, having a romantic date. But she hadn’t known about it. She was probably doing something with her brother, I thought, resentfully. I couldn’t show my jealousy, of course, because who was jealous of a junkie brother? Seriously?
But the amount of time Natalie spent with her family was sometimes annoying. I couldn’t imagine wanting to be around my family this much. I barely saw my mother and struggled not to snap at her and plan my escape the whole time I was there. I never said a word to my father and barely greeted him. I still had a lot of anger towards him, and it had not gone away over the years.