Dating : LOOKING AFTER YOURSELF; A LETTER

Dear Annette,

I’m writing this because you asked me to. I don’t know if you remember.

I want to start at the beginning. I wanted to explain as best I can recollect. I’m not sure when the beginning is, though. I think it was January, after Christmas. I know it was hot.

*

It’s morning. I wake up from the dream again. The dream’s already slipping away. Like a polaroid, except its developing in reverse.

The dream I keep having is me and you and Hayward in the car, and I’m driving. Hayward’s in the back. You’re not talking but you’ve got this big face on your face, and for some reason the three of us are in the old Ford my dad gave me when I got my licence. I lay my foot on the clutch at a corner by the river and we careen right over the bluff and into the water. It fills the car and I wake up to our son’s drowning face. The bit that always slips away (in the moments between my dream and waking) is whether or not I did that on purpose.

*

Hayward’s woken me today because we’re going to the pool. It’s thirty-six degrees and the cold air from the air-con in our bedroom remains visible as a fog for a few seconds upon expulsion. Hayward’s put on his bathers and he’s dancing around me and asking me to get out of bed and all I can imagine is his mouth filling with dirty river water, dying before me. I still have an erection, so I send him out of our room while I get ready. As I brush my teeth, I can hear him trying to wake you up (you’re asleep on the couch again) and I can hear you trying your best to ignore him.

I briefly pass you by, wrapped in a blanket on the couch, as I usher Hayward to the car. I ask you what you’re doing, and you say you’re sleeping, and I say okay. I can smell gin, but it’s coming from your skin, because you’ve hidden the bottle. Hayward’s standing there watching us talk but not really talk and on the way to the pool he asks me if you’re sick again.

“Again?”

“She’s been sick before,” Hayward assures me, referring to you. I wonder what he means but don’t ask.

*

I run into Alex at the pool with his son while I sit on the tiled edge, feet dangling in the cool water. His son’s named Elijah, I think. Alex doesn’t notice me at first. I’m watching Hayward, at his demand, because he reckons he can hold his breath for a whole minute.

Alex is shirtless and he and Elijah walk past me, either ignoring me or not seeing me.

“Alex?”

He stops. So does Elijah. He smiles but through his sunglasses I can see it means nothing. He sends Elijah into the pool to play with Hayward and then sits next to me, and I keep looking at his bare chest and smelling his sunscreen and sweat.

“How are you?” I ask, referring to it in polite euphemism.

“Fine. We’re fine. I don’t think Elijah understands completely, though. How final it all is.”

“Kids are smart,” I say, but I don’t quite think this is true.

*

Me and Hayward run into Alex and Elijah again at the pool, same day, while we’re in the change rooms. Hayward’s wrangling with his floaties and I’m drying off after diving in, having tried my best to really play with the boy.

I never figured out playing. Not like you can.

They walk past us and go to the other side of the change room, Alex only briefly acknowledging me. Elijah asks his father for the “puppy dog t-shirt” and Alex oblige, digging through a sports bag. I keep turning my head to look, dragging Alex and I’s proximity out as long as possible, and I finally catch Alex slipping his board shorts off to change into dry ones. I only have less than a second of memory, but it’s a vivid one. Seeing him, just for one moment, naked.

I know this is hard for you to read. But it’s the truth. I thought about that image, that morsel of a moment, for the weeks following. There was a day that week — maybe Sunday — where you were doing really well and had gone to you sister’s to help her move, and you took Hayward. I masturbated thinking about that split-second while you were gone. I came into a wad of toilet paper that I flushed, but when you came back, I thought you could tell somehow.

*

We see Alex again the next week. The night you undercooked the chicken.

I cut into the meat and see a centre of pink, raw, translucent flesh, and I slap Hayward’s fork from his hand, declaring don’t eat it! dramatically. You stand up and apologise profusely. Had you been drinking that day? Sorry. I’m genuinely asking.

Anyway, you’re crying and you walk out, and Hayward just looks at me like I’m crazy. I tell him we’ll cook something on the barbecue. He insists on harvesting thyme from the herb garden in the front yard that we planted; you, me, and him together, at the start of the last semester. He’s stripping leaves of the plant from the stem when Alex and Elijah walk past the house. This time, Alex greets us:

“Some gardening?”

“We thought it was time,” I say, gesturing to Hayward collecting the leaves into a container. He and Elijah begin to play immediately in that way kids can do, without context, without foreplay.

Alex explains he and Elijah had been headed on foot to the fish and chip place on Chapman Street, the one that the Chinese or Vietnamese couple run, but it was inexplicably closed for some holiday only Chinese or Vietnamese people celebrate. He didn’t know you and I had moved to this street.

I invite he and Elijah to dinner and study his spluttered response, his initial no, then his struggle to explain why. He relents eventually — I explain that you aren’t feeling well, and we had extra food anyway. I don’t mention the raw chicken and your retreat to the couch and your sorry i’m so sorry and the smell of gin on your skin.

We eat steaks with thyme on the patio because I don’t want Alex to come inside and see you cocooned on the couch, having resigned the day. Elijah and Hayward run through the yard and Alex remarks about mosquitoes, so I light a citronella candle.

“Are people being helpful?” I ask. When Alex is silent, I clarify. “Since she died, I mean.”

I watch him consider a response. “Yeah. Like, even people I hadn’t seen in years. Bringing around food. So much food. Even toilet paper.”

I nod.

“They had good intentions. But I know they just wanted to see me. To see the wreck. Like slowing down for a car crash on the side of the road. Her death is probably the most interesting thing about me.”

“I don’t think that’s true at all.” I’m not lying. I can think of things about Alex I find infinitely more interesting and worthy of analysis, thing I am desperate to know but will never ask.

Alex makes an artful escape and promises a playdate between the boys. I keep thinking how funny it is that I’m only thirty-four and I’m arranging playdates.

***

This is the embarrassing bit. You know I think that stuff my mum was into was hokey.

I go to Dad’s with Hayward on a Sunday (I think?) to borrow that “interpret-your-dreams” hardcover book Mum used to leave lying around before she went and died. I want to know what the dream means, and why I keep seeing Hayward’s mouth fill with dirty water before I wake. Because I want you to know so desperately that I don’t want Hayward to die. Because I desperately want there to be some other reason it happens every morning, then slips out the back of my mind like an uninvited guest.

Dad’s smoking a hand-rolled cigarette on the back patio. He calls himself a farmer, but the farm is decrepit and without yield. He’s more of a watcher now. He now watches cane die in the paddocks and politely refuses to grieve his wife’s sudden death, as if he is turning down an appetiser. Before I find the book, I let Hayward run into the paddocks and shed because he likes finding the odd free-range goose that’s still alive, or an old tractor.

I leave Dad, fat and nicotine-stained, on his patio seat, and venture into Mum’s study for the book. I never find it.

I hear Hayward screaming somewhere on the property as if something is unbelievably wrong, then I hear Dad struggle to his feet to help — as if he ever could help.

I rush out to the yard and into the shed, where Hayward’s crying is coming from. I find him backed into the corner, tear-stained, staring at something next to a pile of stale straw. Dad finally dawdles in behind me.

It’s a dead cattle dog, crawling with maggots. Its bloated belly had finally exploded, sending viscera a few feet away. I can’t tell if Hayward is just disgusted, or if he thinks something terribly violent has happened to this dog. Dad covers his mouth in shock, and I think he’s crying. Even now, the thought of him crying perturbs me. He mutters about assuming she’d gone off to the next property for a few days and how he never goes into the shed. This was his last surviving cattle dog, and here she was, exposed like such meat and bone. Her name was Rosie.

Before I can rush Hayward out of the shed, I turn to look at Rosie.

Her eyes are still intact, somehow, like two galaxy marbles. They are fixed straight ahead, right at me. She’s looking right at me. I feel naked; seen. I suddenly stop caring about how upset Hayward is. I want us to leave, but not for his sake. I feel opened up inside.

We leave Dad’s without finding the book.

On the way home, Hayward quietly asks me how Rosie might have died.

“Maybe she was sick?”

“Like how Mum is sick?”

I sit with this for a few moments. We’re getting closer to town now and I see the house where I used to get piano lessons from a woman who smelt like pine.

“Yeah. Like Mum.”

*

The next time I see Alex is for some AFL match he invited me to watch with him. It might have been a week or two later. You’re watching Hayward that night. I debate bringing him with me to Alex’s — finally openly expressing how little trust I have in you. But I don’t. I can still smell the gin, but I also want to see Alex and be near him. I want Alex more than I want to protect Hayward. Please don’t judge me, Annette. Please don’t judge me for that.

I leave cold cuts in the fridge for sandwiches and tell you how to prepare it and you jokingly ask me to repeat the instructions because they’re so complex. You look at me, expecting me to laugh. I don’t.

*

I sit alone in Alex’s lounge room and look at a photo on the wall of him and her on their wedding day. In the photo, he has less lines in his face, smooth, and she is shrouded by a veil. They’re both smiling. I can hear Alex in the house somewhere talking softly to Elijah, in that parent voice. I never had the parent voice and I think about how, when I talk to Hayward, it sounds like two little boys talking excitedly about a young teacher with a short skirt.

I won’t tell you exactly, blow-by-blow, how I came to be at Alex’s to watch the match. He and I had been texting on and off and he’d send me a photo of Elijah in a Collingwood beanie his grandmother knitted. I considered how Alex had gone from barely wanting to be around me — I’m not stupid, I could sense it — to directly inviting me to his home. But I am there, and I don’t want to jinx it by analysing it or interrogating it.

Alex comes out of the hallway and sits down, apologising, saying he just got Elijah to sleep. It’s nine-thirty and I remark that Hayward normally is out by eight, and I regret it immediately because it sounds like I’m bragging or something.

“He has nightmares,” Alex explains. I apologise.

“Why are you apologising?” Alex asks, switching the game on.

I shrug. “I hate that bullshit. That parental competition stuff. I don’t talk to any of the parents at Hayward’s school. It’s like…” I trail off. I look at Alex, hoping he’ll finish my sentence. He doesn’t.

“I didn’t think you were doing that at all.”

*

Later, there’s a lull in the game and Alex turns to me. “You said Annette was sick?”

I am frozen. I can’t say it. I don’t even know what it is.

“Don’t worry, actually. None of my business,” Alex finally says, freeing me.

I relax. I muse on the fact that, by never offering an explanation, Alex knows it’s something.

“How do you do it by yourself?” I ask.

“Do what? Parent?”

I nod. “With Annette…y’know, not feeling well. It’s been hard. I know it’s not the same — ”

“I’m not parenting very well, John.”

Alex says this with such finality I consider the conversation done.

*

Alex gets stoned at half-time off one of those vape-pens. He tells me he smokes most nights to get to sleep, and never really stopped since he was a teenager. I tell him I haven’t smoked in years, probably since before Hayward was born. I think you were there for that, we were at Katelyn and Eric’s housewarming.

He offers me a hit and I take it. He makes sure to clarify that it’s not weed, it’s “extract of THC”. It tastes like cherry-flavoured cough medicine.

*

We’re laughing now and going through Alex’s freezer. He’s showing me trays and containers full of donated lasagnes and soups and zucchini slice that fills the freezer from top to bottom.

“How did anyone ever expect Elijah and I to eat all this? It’s like everyone assumed I didn’t know how to cook.” He stops for a moment.

I laugh at him saying something about not returning the Tupperware and he heats up one of the lasagnes because we’re stoned and hungry. There’s a bit of light coming in from a street lamp outside his kitchen window when he stands at the microwave, and it bathes him and makes him look God-like and beautiful and I want to ask him so many questions, but only to hear his voice, not the answers.

*

When we’re eating, we stop talking and I suddenly feel lonely. It’s quiet, just the sounds of chewing and swallowing and it’s like Alex has disappeared. I start saying things to fill the silence and bring myself back into the room with Alex and to feel his proximity.

“I think you do parent well, Alex.”

He looks at me. His eyes are blood-shot.

“You said you feel like you’re not, but I think you are.” My words are coming out garbled, like a translation of a translation.

He just nods.

“It’s hard to tell how you’re doing, by yourself. Not because there’s no one helping you but because…”

He stops. But I know what he’s going to say. I know what he means. I don’t know how to play with Hayward; you can. I can watch you. And I do watch you. I watch how you get on the ground, on Hayward’s level, and engage with him in a way that I can’t. I think maybe this is what Alex is saying, but he never articulates it.

*

The game is finishing up and we’re back in Alex’s lounge room. I’m still stoned but I don’t think Alex is.

I guess this is where I tell you all about what happened, but it was so tiny compared to everything else I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry. I don’t think this answers many questions.

Alex says I have sauce stained on my shirt and I look down and laugh because I’m wearing the shirt your sister bought me for Christmas in 2017, the paisley one. The pattern, in the right light, could look like a stain. Alex’s finger is outstretched, on my chest, pointing to where he believes the stain is and he looks at me as if he’s offended that I’m laughing.

“I’m not laughing at you. That’s just my shirt,” I explain.

His eyes are big, and he looks doleful and he keeps his finger in place. So, I grab it. With our hands together, he leans forward and starts kissing me on the lips and I use my other hand to touch his thigh. He guides it towards his crotch as we keep kissing and I feel him get hard, and now he’s on top of me.

Then he just stops.

“No. Wait.”

I feel my face flush and I apologise but he shushes me. “I can hear something”.

He looks around and stands up. I can see he still has an erection. His shirt is all ruffled, untucked.

He walks down the hallway towards Elijah’s bedroom, and I hear him open a door. I can hear it now; Elijah is crying.

I sit watching the game for a few moments, searching for some explanation, some guide, on how to do this and what to do next. But nothing comes. I can hear Alex’s soft, welcoming voice down the hall. I follow it.

*

He’s in bed with Elijah, who’s sobbing, hugging him and cuddling him pointedly. I’m standing in the doorway watching as Alex assures Elijah it was just a dream buddy just a dream and rubbing his back. I feel useless and I start to turn away just as Elijah starts doing those big hopeless sobs that kids do, where crying turns to air-desperate hiccups.

I walk out of the house, down the street, and back home to you.

*

Annette, I think this was the first night you went to sleep in our bed. I remember seeing the duvet curled up on the lounge and being surprised that there was no one underneath it. I don’t remember how I felt about it. I remember wondering whether I had to sleep on the couch now.

I go into the main bathroom, the one by Hayward’s room, and cup my hands under the faucet to drink.

I didn’t even know I was thirsty.

In the mirror I look older, and sick. I can hear you snoring now, and I turn the lights off as I walk past Hayward’s room.

I consider looking in on him. I don’t feel like it.

*

You’re laying spread-eagle on the bed, uncovered, so I cover you up as I take my pants off and climb in. You wake up but you don’t react, so I assume it’s okay for me to join you. You slide across the mattress to give me room and when you exhale towards me, I get a waft of whatever you were drinking. What were you drinking that night?

I want to tell you what happened because some small part of me think you’ll understand. I still think you’ll understand. I guess that’s part of why I’m writing this, beyond your request.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper. You put your face into the pillow.

I roll onto my back.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t?”

I shake my head.

“I want to tell you…I keep having this dream.”

“Go ahead.”

“I don’t think you’d understand it. I definitely don’t.”

You roll over again, facing me now.

“Maybe you can write it down.” You hiccup now. “You were good at writing letters, I remember that.”

I’d forgotten what it felt like to be complimented by you. I’d forgotten what it felt like to talk about myself to you, actually.

At one point in the night, you climb on top of me and take my underwear off. I can see the bags under your eyes and the flush in your cheeks as you wordlessly try to get me hard with your mouth and your hand. You eventually roll off me and go back to sleep, probably forgetting about my dream and the letter.

But I didn’t forget, Annette.

*

Annette, I don’t think I explained everything very well. I can’t remember if I wrote it earlier, but I do love you, and I love Hayward so much. It bothers me that I feel this love so strongly but every night I go to the same watery place.

I wonder if you have something similar when you close your eyes and you feel and see things that aren’t allowed to exist in the real world and you could never explain them to anyone, even me.

Then I wonder if maybe I’m just lonely. Maybe I’m just so alone that I want us together, in a car, at the bottom of the river. Maybe I’m so lonely that I wanted touch so badly that I let Alex do what he did.

And I know it’s selfish to be alone when I have a child. My life isn’t mine. It’s Hayward’s.

Do you feel lonely, too?

I look forward to your response.

Love,

John