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“I don’t care what they think. They get paid to do a job, not question my lifestyle.”
I think about what happens when this all comes to an end. What then? But surely it won’t be anytime soon if he’s planning on getting me an apartment?
I try not to get too lost in the semantics of it all, but it’s a little hard not to.
“I really don’t need an apartment, Alistair. We barely know each other.”
He looks up mid-sip from his coffee cup. “That doesn’t matter.”
I frown. “Are you doing all of this because you still feel guilty?”
“You can’t honestly sit there and say that you didn’t want to thump me at least once when reflecting back on our history together.”
“You’re right. I was angry for a long time, but I’ve come to realise a lot of things were out of your control. I wanted someone to blame and you were the only one alive left, so I turned it on you. I know now that you weren’t to blame.”
“Not even a little bit? For letting that witch take you away?”
I rest a hand on his arm. I never imagined I’d be the one making it okay, or that I’d even forgive him, but other than going to jail for kidnapping me, what else could he have done?
“She had full custody. And like you said, it wouldn’t have proven anything but futile to fight it in court. You weren’t to know.”
“Don’t be so sure, Charlize. Your mother told me plenty of times what a terrible woman she was — an awful Mother. And when she took you away, it ate at me for years.”
“I never knew.”
“Remember I wrote to you, but we both know how all of that ended.”
A wash of emotion floods through me at the thought. “I wish I’d received the letters. That makes me sad.”
He snorts. “Your grandmother was too caught up in how much she hated me, as well as losing her daughter. I suppose she wanted to latch onto the only thing she had left. What gets me is why she didn’t be the best grandmother she could, instead of being a cunt.”
My eyes go wide, then I burst out laughing. I mean, she was a horrible woman and he doesn't know the heart of it. But I imagine how she’d turn in her grave hearing him say those words.
“You always did have a way with words.”
He glares at me. “I despise that woman and everything about her. I always will.”
I nod. I understand. “Yes, but then that eats away at you. Like a slowly spreading poison. Then one day, you have nothing left but a hollow self, because you spent all of this time putting your energy into something you couldn’t change then and you certainly can’t now.”
His lips part as he takes me in. “That’s a very intelligent thing to say. I never looked at it like that before. I spend too much time in my own head, thinking. Rinse and repeat.”
“Well don’t. I got through it. When I got away from her, things were better.”
He stares at me. “I want you to be honest with me.”
Uh, oh. I look down into my lap, subconsciously knowing this conversation was coming.
“Alistair…”
“Did she ever hit you?”
I clam up. My walls come down as I tuck my hair behind my ears. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
“You can tell me anything,” he says, and I can’t meet his eyes. I don’t want his sympathy. I don’t want anything. “When you’re ready.”
I haven’t even told my friends the worst of it, just that she was a bad woman. When I had the chance to stay on in the US and eventually get permanent residency, I never went back to Australia. Only for her funeral, and I wonder why I even bothered to do that.
He tilts my chin back up to face him.“Don’t ever hide from me.”
