The Displaced Nation

LOST: One sense of coordination. Last seen, fleetingly, Monday at 9am while driving on highway. Disappeared entirely at 9:05am at red traffic light, which I acknowledged to be a nice crimson colour but otherwise ignored and sailed straight through to the other side of the crossroads. Screeching and honking noises from other cars, and loud, choice, sexist epithets from a bloke in black F150 pickup truck.

Something similar happened four years ago, I remember; something involving a small Peugeot, a removals lorry, and my roundabout technique — the rules of which I had inexplicably forgotten, despite having learned to drive ten years before.

In the last month of gestation, it seems, coordination leaves me, and I wander along in a fog of delayed reaction. After Monday’s near miss, which left me trembling and repeating “Oh my God, oh my God,” for two hours, I have decided I’m not safe to be on the road.

Thank goodness for friendly neighbours like Maggie who don’t mind driving me places. She’s taken me shopping, she’s taken Jack to school for me — she’s my personal chauffeur whenever Oliver isn’t, in other words.

Which brings me to the subject of Oliver.

Ah. Oliver. Oh dear.

You see, I had an email this morning. And I don’t know what to do.

* * *

Ever had an idea that seemed really brilliant at the time, but 24 hours later it…wasn’t? I suppose you have; we all do. Most of the time, though, you don’t act upon those ideas. But every now and then, impulse trumps reason.

That’s what happened last week, when I was awake at two in the morning with only my nesting instinct and laptop for company. Why I didn’t just find the baby toys I was looking for, scrub them with disinfectant, and go to sleep like a normal person would — actually, a normal person wouldn’t be awake at two in the morning, disinfecting toys, but that’s beside the point — I don’t know. Instead, I am now wondering what on earth possessed me to make contact with Oliver’s long-lost father when Oliver himself has never shown any interest in doing so.

Dean Patrick, that’s his name. I’d seen it on Oliver’s birth certificate. It was easy enough to type it into Facebook and see what came up. Not many results. At least, not many results with a date of birth around the right year, a location in England, a hometown of Norwich (Oliver’s place of birth) and privacy levels set low enough that a probable daughter-in-law in Massachusetts could stalk his photo albums.

There was only one like that. One was all it took.

Here was a man, I thought, who was either unconcerned about his online privacy, or not very savvy about it. But because of this cavalier or naive attitude, I knew I’d found the right person. I stared for ages at someone who could have been Oliver in thirty years’ time. The same fine, blond hair — receding more than Oliver’s — the same fair, sun-reddened skin, Oliver’s slightly sticking-out ears. In this picture, one of an album called “Devon 2011” Oliver’s father stood on a sandy beach, holding the hand of a small boy, a little older than Jack, from whose other hand dripped an orange ice lolly.

My favourite grandson, the photo caption read. Four people had clicked the Like button. Underneath:

You go, Grandad! commented a woman: Tania Patrick.

Sister? Mother? Daughter? Sister-in-law? My counterpart, another daughter-in-law? Another ex-wife, on friendlier terms with him than is Sandra?

No matter; I was sure all those people existed. On Dean Patrick’s friend list was a host of other Patricks: Tania Patrick, Janey Patrick. Lewis Patrick, Vince Patrick. Henry Hank Patrick. But he was “In a relationship” with Polly Owen.

I didn’t send Dean Patrick a message. Not directly. A week ago, I still had enough brain cells to be subtle, if not enough to restrain myself from being terminally stupid. I figured that in a large family like his, and with an Irish name at that, one member ought to be into genealogy. Sure enough, a search on GenesReunited turned up the same names in a family tree owned by someone called Tania. I’m no Sherlock Holmes, but I thought that might have been the same Tania who encouraged him to “You go, Grandad.”

So I sent her a message instead.

At four in the morning, sadly, the sleep-deprived brain is incapable of straightening out skewed logic such as: “Where’s the harm in it? She can only say No.”

If only she had.

* * *

A few hours and one nap later, of course, I was in a state of mild panic, asking myself what the hell I had done. This panic increased with every passing day, as I imagined relationships rocked and marriages wrecked as a result of my interference; it culminated in a full-blown anxiety attack this morning when I opened my email inbox to find a reply from Tania Patrick.

Oliver noticed my agitation when he returned from Seattle, but thankfully put it down to surging hormones, pre-birth nerve, and my close call with the F150 pickup driver. He doesn’t know about the email I received from Tania Patrick — and how can I tell him?

Yet I must tell someone. Today, when Maggie picks me and Jack up, I will unburden myself to her, in the hope that her bohemian attitude to life will lend some sense of justification to my actions.

* * *

The doorbell rings.

It’s not Maggie.

“She’s sick,” says Anna Gianni, waving a set of car keys in front of my eyes. “That sniffle she had turned into bronchitis, and she doesn’t want you anywhere near her and her germs. I’m your chauffeur today, ma’am.”  She peers more closely at me. “Is that all right? I’m quite safe. You don’t have to worry about your son being driven around by a maniac.”

I shake my head, the tears that have lapped at the surface for nearly a week now ready to spill over a carefully built dam of self-preservation.

Anna says nothing, but holds her hand out to Jack, takes his booster seat from me in the other hand, and proceeds to strap him and booster into the back seat of her black Mustang. I sit in the front seat and say nothing.

We drop Jack off at Helen Flynn’s nursery, where he rushes off to play with another little boy without a backward glance, then we get back in the Mustang.

“Home?” Anna asks, turning the ignition key. “Or time out in the restaurant? Thursday’s quiet.” She twists round to see over shoulder as she backs out of the parking space. There’s silence between us while she waits for traffic to pass so she can turn onto the main road. It gives me time to think.

“Restaurant,” I say, exhaling in a rush at the same time, and staring out of the passenger door window so Anna can’t see my eyes shining a little too brightly.

Inside the empty Maxwell Plum, Anna commands me to sit at a table. I do so, and study a watercolour painting on the wall. It’s of a young man, dark-haired, Italian-looking. I’m about to get up and take a closer look when Anna returns to join me, carrying two cups of something frothy.

“Decaffeinated,” she says, putting one in front of me.

I pick up the spoon and draw patterns in the froth. “Have you ever,” I say, “done something really, really stupid? Like, so stupid that you can’t imagine why you ever thought it was a good idea?”

Anna leans back in her chair, apparently amused. “I’d hardly have reached my forties without doing that, would I?”

I coffee-doodle some more. I tell her about contacting Oliver’s father’s family. I tell her about my email this morning from Oliver’s half-sister, who claims to be over the moon that her half-brother has finally got in touch, because it was always a source of regret to her father that his only son never wanted to see him.

Anna smiles, but she looks sad.

“You need some perspective on this,” she says. “Let me tell you about my brother-in-law. Max Gianni. It might help.”

I listen.

.

Next post: LIBBY’S LIFE #45: Mum’s the word

Previous post: LIBBY’S LIFE #43 – Alone again – naturally

Click here to read Libby’s Life from the first episode

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Image: Travel – Map of the World by Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigit

“Four days. That’s all. I’ll be back before you know it.”

Oliver drags his black leather carry-on down the garden path and onto the driveway, unlocks the doors of the rented Ford Taurus, and heaves the case into the boot.

Carefully, I lumber after him, even though we’ve already said our goodbyes in the house.

“Do you have to go?” I sound whiny and pathetic, even to myself, but I can’t help it. It’s better than lying on the floor and having a luxurious Jack-like tantrum, though, which is what I really want to do.

“I wish I didn’t, love. But it’s the last trip before the babies come. Promise. After that, I’m grounding myself.”

He drops a last kiss on my cheek, then opens the driver’s door and sits behind the wheel, peering at the rental car’s unfamiliar dials and levers.

“I’ll text you when I get to Seattle. You’ll probably be asleep, though. Look after the four of you,” he says.

With a wave and a beep of the car horn, he’s off to Logan Airport.

And here I am, again. On my own.

* * *

Evenings are long when Oliver’s gone. Anita says she loves it when her husband’s away, but I must be very needy or something, because I detest having only my own company plus that of a three-year-old who isn’t yet fluent in the English language. Jack, exhausted by a busy day of Lightning McQueen role-play (I really should start charging Pixar for advertising) is in bed by seven, so, rather than watch hours of TV commercials interspersed with the odd five minutes of American Idol, at eight o’clock I’m in bed with a cup of tea and the eReader Jack gave me for Christmas.

The great thing about eReaders is that there are lots of cheap books to be had, all without venturing from the comfort of your armchair. There are even free ones, if you care to read the classics. Now, I’ve read and enjoyed my share of Tolstoy and Dickens, but as my due date gets nearer, I can feel my brain turning to incoherent mush, so any reading material now is light, romantic frippery. All light, romantic frippery involves tall heroic men (in touch with their feminine sides of course) and women who pretend to be modern and feisty, but usually show their true colours by shagging the bad boys from their high school days who used to torment them for being fat. You know your brain is mush when you’re not outraged by this scenario.

It doesn’t really matter what I read, though, because after ten minutes, I feel my eyelids drooping, and I shuffle down under the duvet with an assortment of strategically placed pillows.

Just for once, the babies aren’t having a private rave party. The full moon is under cover of cloud, and the dark outdoor silence is only enhanced by the chirruping of crickets, who arrived early this year.

I shut my eyes. The world fades.

* * *

Four hours later, I am awake again, with a burning desire to listen to a 70s disco playlist, clean out all the cupboards in the junk room, and scrub the bathroom grouting with a toothbrush.

This phenomenon is known as “The nesting instinct” and is a bald reminder that humans are, in fact, animals, however sophisticated and evolved we pretend to be.

It’s also happening too soon. I’m about 32 weeks along now, and pretty sure I didn’t hit this stage with Jack for another month or so. Could it be that Megan and Sam are going to arrive even earlier than Dr. Gallagher predicted?

The thought gets me both excited and nervous at the same time. The twins sense this, and start hacking at each other’s shins.

Sleep is impossible now.

* * *

American houses have wonderful cupboards — sorry, closets. They’re the size of English spare bedrooms. They hoard clothes you won’t admit will never fit again; started-and-abandoned craft projects; paperback books you will never reread, but Brits just love hanging onto their books; lightly used sports equipment; and outgrown, slightly chewed baby toys.

This last category is what I’m looking for. Somewhere in this cavern of a closet lurks a baby bouncer, a mobile, an activity centre, one of those little horseshoe beanbag cushions, and all sorts of goodies for the frugal second-time mother. When Maggie and I went shopping the other week, I picked out two of everything to be fair to the babies, but was so horrified by the total at the checkout that I returned much of it a few days later. I figured that newborns aren’t likely to get a lifelong complex if one has a brand new, wind-up, musical, Peter Rabbit mobile and the other has a few moth-eaten dangling teddy bears.

I find the boxes quite easily, and begin to haul them into the bedroom where I can sort through them in comfort. As I shuffle the first one across the floor, side to side, it knocks something over, and I squat down to prop the object back up again.

A badminton racquet cover. I remember unpacking it in July, looking inside, and finding something that, unbeknownst to me, Oliver has treasured for nearly thirty years: a 6th birthday card from his absent father, who at that point had supposedly run off with a local librarian, with never a thought for his wife or 6-year-old son.

Once again, I unzip the racquet cover, take out the birthday card.

“Dear Oliver — so sorry I can’t be with you on your big day. See you very soon, Tiger. All my love, Dad.”

Nope. It still doesn’t sound like a message from a father who has run off with a local librarian and doesn’t intend to come back.

Far more likely that Sandra has told Oliver a surgically enhanced version of the story; the truth, though, is probably vastly different. It sounds, I think with a sudden chill, as if her husband was away for a short time that coincided with Oliver’s birthday.

A business trip, perhaps.

Pondering this, I push the box of Jack’s baby toys into the bedroom and sit down on the bed before pulling back the packing tape to open the box.

Inside is a time capsule of nearly four years ago: the blanket we wrapped Jack in to bring him home from the hospital, the plastic identity bracelets, now cut, that encircled newborn Jack’s wrist and ankle. A pair of bootees, knitted by my mum for her first grandchild. A pristine copy of The Times, dated May 13, 2008. I remember hearing, later that day, that China had had its worst earthquake for thirty years, with thousands feared dead, and I’d felt guilty for being so happy while so many were suffering.

And Oliver. What had he felt that day, I wonder? Had I bothered to ask, in my post-birth euphoria?

Happiness, of course, that he was able to be with his new son as he began life; determination, I hope, that he would stay with him until it was Jack’s decision for him not to do so; sadness, I imagine, that his father was not around to share in this family event.

My mobile phone trills a blues scale: a text from Oliver.

Just arrived at hotel, it says. Miss you.

Miss you too, I text back, and within half a minute, the phone rings again.

“You not in bed yet, babe?” Oliver’s voice is comforting in the silence of the night.

I explain about the cupboards and 70s disco music cravings. He laughs.

“I remember this bit,” he says. “Which is it getting the nesting instinct treatment? Pantry or utility room?”

“Spare bedroom closet,” I reply.

A missed beat at the end of the phone, as he recalls what is in that closet. “You’re not throwing any of my stuff away, I hope.”

I hide a smile, even though I know he can’t see me. “Not even the box of squashed ping pong balls. Don’t worry.”

“That’s good. Having a clearout is fine, but you can go too far with these things. Look, why don’t you get back to bed now? You need your rest, and if I’m honest, I need mine, because it’s been a sod of a day. Nearly missed my connection in Salt Lake City, and—”

“Oliver,” I interrupt. “Do you ever think about your dad?” There’s something surreal about a conversation that crosses time zones in the wee hours; it makes you say thing you ordinarily wouldn’t. If there’s a no-go area in our marriage, it’s Oliver’s father.

Another pause — surprise? Anger? I wait. Would Oliver answer?

“Never.” Oliver’s voice is casual, cool. “Not since the day he left.”

You know, I’ve heard that casual, cool tone before. I’ve used it myself as a child, after a slap on the legs from my mum. “Didn’t hurt,” I’d say, bracing myself for another slap that would sting twice as much.

It’s the tone of defiance, of buried hurt feelings. A lie, in other words.

“Go to bed, Libs.” He sounds gentle now. “You must be tired.”

“I am. I think I will…Love you too,” I say, and click to end the call.

But against my better judgment and Oliver’s exhortations, I don’t go to bed right away.

Instead, I head for the computer. I log into Facebook, click Search, and type a name I’ve seen many times over the last year, on Oliver’s birth certificate.

Dean Patrick, I type.

It’s four a.m. before I eventually get back to bed.

.

Next post: LIBBY’S LIFE #44 – Past imperfect, perfectly tense

Previous post: LIBBY’S LIFE #42 – Something in the water

Click here to read Libby’s Life from the first episode

STAY TUNED for Friday’s post.

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to subscribe for email delivery of The Displaced Dispatch, a round up of the week’s posts from The Displaced Nation. Sign up for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

Image: Travel – Map of the World by Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigit