A Way Back to Happy Read online

  It’s astounding how many thirty-year-olds manage to live such fulfilling lives. If only I hadn’t fallen pregnant and married a wanker. There’s no way I’ll ever start a blog because no one in his or her right mind would want to read it. I guess the goldfish story might appeal to some, in a humorous, slice-of-life kind of way. And I make a pretty mean blackberry crumble; which I guess I could try to photograph artistically. I’d struggle to dredge up anything else in my life that was Insta-worthy. Plus I’m simply not attractive enough.

  Paul walks in and shuts the door. Instantly nervous, I close Instagram, and place my phone on the bedside table. Surprisingly, Paul sits down on the edge of the bed next to my hip. The bed sags with his weight and I resist the impulse to move away. When we met he was trim, extremely well-built, with muscles he wasn’t backwards in displaying, and so full of energy I had a hard time keeping up. Now he won’t even walk the three blocks to the park. As for kicking a ball around with Freddie in the backyard – forget it.

  “We need to talk,” he says with a sigh. I swear he makes even talking to me look effortful.

  I frown. “Okay.”

  Paul runs a hand through his dark hair and I concentrate on the crisp crumb on his shirt. “We don’t make each other happy,” he says, quietly. “We haven’t done for a very long time. Not since Freddie was born.”

  This is not what I expected. When I look up, Paul’s expression is gentle, wary even. He hasn’t looked at me that way in months. I clear my throat and open my mouth but I can’t talk.

  Paul sighs again. “I’m leaving you, Emma. I’ve tried to make it work. For Freddie’s sake. But I can’t do it anymore.”

  I blink over and over again.

  “I’ve met someone else,” he mutters.

  My voice returns. “You what?”

  “Through a friend at work. No one you know.” He pauses for a second. Shuffles his big shoes on the carpet. Why didn’t I realise something was up when he changed out of his suit into a shirt, jeans and leather shoes? Paul usually goes barefoot and wears baggy shorts and a T-shirt in the evenings. “I’m moving in with her,” he says, his voice firmer, angrier.

  My body starts to shake, my teeth chattering as if I’m cold. I stare at his shiny brown belt, poking out beneath his shirt. He polishes that belt every Sunday night without fail, along with his shoes. He’s a stickler for routine, rules, regulations. This is not some spur-of-the-moment act. Paul will have been planning this for months.

  “I still want to see Freddie, be involved,” he states. “Every second weekend or something. I can’t take him of course, not with the hours I do.”

  I nod. It’s all I’m capable of. Paul lifts his arm and for a moment I think he’s going to reach for me. Instead, he rubs his hand on his leg, sighs loudly, stands, and walks to his wardrobe. As he lifts out a suitcase, he grunts and I can tell it’s heavy. I wonder how long the suitcase has been in there. Waiting.

  “You packed already?” I croak.

  “I’m sorry, Em.” He won’t look at me now. “I’ll call you in a few days.”

  He leaves the room, staggering with the weight. I listen to his lopsided walk down the hall. Then I hear the front door open and close with a bang.

  The house is silent with my husband no longer in it.

  “Holy shit,” I whisper.

  Climbing off the bed, I move on stiff legs into the lounge and stare at the front door. I walk up to it and place my palm flat against the wood. Turning my head, I catch sight of my reflection in the hall mirror. My ordinary brown shoulder-length hair frames my ordinary pale face. My ordinary brown eyes are wide, startled. The thirty-three-year-old woman in the mirror begins to smile. I smile back, and raise my clenched fist. “Yes,” I hiss, before my knees buckle and I collapse to the floor.

  Two

  Nine Weeks Before

  “Mum you don’t need to keep doing this.” I stand back and open the door wider.

  “Of course I do, you’re my daughter. Who else is going to help you through a crisis like this?” Mum grips my shoulders with her long, bony fingers and kisses the air next to my cheek. “Leave the door open. Your father’s parking.”

  Sighing, I watch my mother stride towards the kitchen in her favourite stilettos – she’s the only woman over the age of sixty-five I’ve ever encountered who wears stilettos every day except Sundays (being a day of rest, Mum says). I thought she might stop wearing them when she retired from teaching last year – how impractical is it, by the way, to run after a bunch of eight-year-olds in pointy heels? But there’s been no let-up. And she’s not once complained of sore feet. How is that humanly possible? I wear heels for an hour and my feet and calf muscles start screaming in agony. That’s if I haven’t already rolled an ankle. I’m a comfort first, fashion second kind of girl, much to Mum’s dismay.

  Mum’s head nods this way and that, assessing the surroundings, looking for signs of weakness. She’s desperate to pick up the pieces of her daughter’s tragic life. Tell me all the ways I’ve gone wrong.

  “Where’s Freddie? How’s he coping? Has he asked about his father again? What did you say?”

  “Mum, you asked those same questions yesterday. Nothing’s changed. Freddie is in his room playing with his train set. He’s fine. He’s used to Paul not being here for days on end.”

  Mum frowns. “You’re not letting him think his father is just away on some work trip again?”

  “No, Mum. I’m not.” I’ve been deliberately vague with Freddie. I simply told him his dad was having a bit of time to himself and would be back to see him soon. Freddie was very happy with my explanation, but I know Mum won’t be quite so satisfied.

  I’m thankful to hear Dad’s footsteps coming up the path. “Hey, Dad,” I say, brightly. “We’ve got to stop bumping into each other like this.”

  Dad is wearing his usual uniform of beige pants and navy polo shirt. His shoes are the same scuffed loafers he’s worn for years. Dad smiles and shakes his head. “Your mother’s idea, not mine.”

  He hugs me tightly and I inhale his familiar scent of peppermints, coffee, and MDF wood. I used to love visiting Dad at the warehouse as a kid and watching kitchens being built and loaded like giant puzzle pieces onto trucks ready to be assembled in someone’s house. Dad started the business himself when he was twenty-eight years old. He had a background in building and thought there was a gap in the market for kit-set style kitchens. Turns out there was a gap, only Dad wasn’t the only one to see it. Business boomed for a few years, then competition grew tighter and tighter. Dad doesn’t seem to stress when he has a few quiet months – not that he lets on to me, anyway. Mum on the other hand is convinced they’ll be destitute and on the streets if they don’t get some orders immediately. It’s even worse now Mum is retired and spends a few hours a week sorting paperwork at the warehouse. Dad and I have gently suggested she go back to teaching part-time but she says she wants to be on-hand to help me with Freddie. Not that I want her help. Or have ever asked for it.

  “I’m doing fine you know,” I say.

  Dad releases me. “Oh, I can see that. Your mother is the one who needs convincing.” He winks at Mum then wanders down the hallway in search of Freddie.

  “Did you hear back about the job?” Mum asks, opening the fridge. She glares at the contents and closes the door. Nothing in the world would get in the way of me and a fridge full of food. Half the neighbourhood could be struck down with the plague and I would still risk a trip to the market, or Jack’s Grocery Store. It’s proper food too, none of that pre-packaged, ready-meal rubbish. If I hadn’t married Paul and had a baby, I imagine I’d be posting arty photos on Instagram of my cardamom ginger waffles and receiving 10,000 likes from my avid followers, with requests to please, please put the recipe up on my blog.

  “Not yet,” I mutter.

  I’ve stretched the truth a little. I haven’t had a job interview as such, but I’ve mentioned to a few of the local cafés that I’m available for work. They seemed receptive, asked me some questions and took down my phone number, which is practically the same thing. I’ve been letting Mum think I’m trying to find a job in journalism or copywriting again, but I’m not. Paul was the one who encouraged (more like pushed) me into that sort of work in the first place. Now is my chance to do something I actually want to do. Just because I studied English and History at university doesn’t mean I have to work in a job related to those subjects. I don’t want to sit at a desk all day busting a gut to meet a deadline, or write some bullshit drivel about the value of owning a dark red lipstick. The one thing I know about myself is how much I love food. Not just eating it, but seeking out fresh, seasonal ingredients, cooking with them, experimenting with different flavours and coming up with my own unique dishes. When I’m in my kitchen, I lose track of time. It’s the one place where I feel a sense of peace. I even told Mum once, many moons ago, that I’d like to run my own café one day, but it’s like she didn’t hear me. She nodded vacantly, smiled, and changed the subject.

  Mum raises her eyebrows. “It might pay to be proactive, Emma. Give them a follow-up call about the job.”

  I love my mum, but there are occasions – and this is one of them – when I wish she wasn’t living in the same suburb as me, or the same city. Make that the same country.

  “Freddie and I have eaten already, Mum.” I close the front door. “If I’d known you were going to pop round we would have waited. There are plenty of leftovers. It’s chicken curry.”

  Mum waves her hand in the air, and places her shiny black leather handbag on the kitchen bench. Her nails are perfect as usual. She never misses her weekly manicure. I, on the other hand, still bite my nails, and the last time I had them painted was the day before my wedding.

  “We’ve eat
en, darling. Wouldn’t want to turn up and create more stress for you.” Mum unzips her bag and pulls out a business card. “Betty gave this to me today. It’s the name of her therapist. Lovely man apparently. Thought you might find it useful. I know you find it hard sometimes, opening up, but I really think it’s for the best, darling. A way to process what’s happened.”

  Mum’s eyes dart from my nose, to my chin, to my forehead. She does that when she’s anxious. Anything but look me in the eye. And I know she’s trying. We’ve always had a funny kind of relationship. I guess because we’re so different to each other. I’m way more like Dad. He and I naturally band together, out of necessity more than anything. The more neurotic Mum gets, the more laid-back we’re forced to be. Dad and I don’t do dramatics. We leave that up to Mum. Growing up, I often wished I wasn’t an only child. A brother or sister might have taken the focus off my failings. The weird thing is, I’ve had several people tap me on the shoulder over the years simply so they could gush and carry on about how grateful they were to have Mum as their teacher. They said she was the best teacher they’d had: fun, supportive and encouraging. From all reports, Mum was a different person in the classroom to the parent she was at home.

  “I’m not sure I need to see a therapist, Mum. I feel good. It’s a relief more than anything.”

  Mum tips her head to the side and purses her lips. “A relief? That your marriage has broken up, and you’re a thirty-three-year-old mother without a job?”

  I shake my head, forcing a smile. “Lily says thirty is the new twenty. And I’m working on the job thing. You know I wasn’t happy with Paul, don’t you?”

  Up till now, Mum’s been holding out the therapist’s card between us. Now she slams it down on the bench. “Of course I know you weren’t happy. I felt helpless and…” she trails off, her face stricken. I’m surprised how badly Mum has taken my recent split from Paul. She never appeared to like him much. Well, that’s not true. Mum adored Paul when she first met him. Probably because he was a fellow kiwi and there wasn’t any risk of him whisking me away overseas as Edward (otherwise known as the ex-boyfriend who chewed me up and spat me out) had done. I met Edward when I was a student in Dunedin. I was in my final year of a Bachelor of Arts degree and still didn’t have a clue what I was going to do with my life. Edward was backpacking around NZ and happened to stumble into the Irish pub I worked at on Friday nights. He was terribly British and terribly charming, and I fell for him within seconds of him shaking his dirty blonde hair in my face and asking for a pint. Three months later I abandoned my degree, abandoned my friends and family, and abandoned my country to follow Edward to London. Mum was devastated of course: her only child dropping out of university and moving to the other side of the world. I felt guilty every time she phoned and asked when I was going home.

  What I didn’t say was that I had no intention of ever leaving the UK. I was going to stay in London – a city I adored – continue to work in the café off Oxford St where I had landed a fantastic part-time job, get engaged to the love of my life, Edward, and spend long weekends with his very British family at their very British grand estate in Surrey. Instead Edward broke my heart into a million pieces by shagging his flatmate who I thought was a lovely girl until she confessed they’d been having sex for nearly a year and she thought it was about time I pulled my head out of the clouds (her words). I was on a flight home to Auckland within a week.

  Even now, all these years later, just thinking about Edward gets my heart pounding. He was like a wild horse, borderline crazy, and the most self-absorbed person I’d ever come across, but by God he was fun to be with. He lit a fire in me that burnt out of control.

  Paul certainly helped douse the flames. When he came up to me and introduced himself at a party I’d been dragged along to with Lily, I was immediately absorbed by him. He was so calm and assured. Smartly dressed, organised. Paul had everything and everyone completely under control. There was no sign of any wild streak. He was opposite to Edward in every way, and I thought he was the exact person I needed. Someone to make me feel like I wasn’t adrift and on fire anymore.

  Mum loved the way Paul encouraged me to get a proper job, a decent haircut, and a more sophisticated wardrobe. He booked and paid for me to attend a journalism course. Since I’d studied English at University, he said, it made perfect sense to find work in a related area. He wrote my CV, sent it out, helped me decide what to wear to the interviews. And when I was offered a job writing copy for an advertising company, Paul was far more excited than I was. Dad was the only one who expressed concern. When he asked me if it was really what I wanted to do, I laughed. Of course it was what I wanted. I loved pleasing Paul.

  It wasn’t long before Paul and I were buying a house together, and shopping around for the best deal on a fridge, and a vacuum cleaner, and insurance. It took months before I realised that I hardly ever saw Mum and Dad anymore, or my friends. Whenever I suggested we have them over, or meet up for a drink or a meal, Paul said he was too tired, or too busy, or he simply didn’t feel like seeing them. Then I fell pregnant, and we went from shocked, to Paul planning our wedding in the space of twenty minutes. It was too late to do anything, though my friends tried to tell me I needed to think about what I wanted, not what Paul kept telling me should happen. I knew they didn’t like him, but he was the father of my unborn child, and everything was organised. How could I back out? It was going to be fine.

  Mum sniffs loudly. “Before you married,” she says, her lower lip shaking, “you were this vibrant, happy, beautiful person, and then… you disappeared, Emma. Something in you just died.”

  I quickly look away from Mum’s eyes, shiny with tears. Her outburst is not something I can handle right now. Walking to the couch, I sit down, and tuck my shaking hands between my thighs. “It wasn’t that bad,” I murmur.

  “Darling.” Mum comes to sit on the couch but doesn’t try to hug me. Thank goodness. “All I want to do is help.”

  Taking a deep breath, I meet her eye. “I know, Mum.”

  “What can I do? Name it, and I’ll do it.” Mum squeezes my leg. It takes every ounce of willpower to stop myself from collapsing against her. I need to get out.

  “My friends are catching up for a drink tonight down at Morellis. I said I couldn’t make it, but if you could maybe stay and babysit? Only if it works for you, Mum. I don’t have to go, it was just—”

  “Go,” Mum says quickly. “It’s a great idea. Get out. See your friends. Go for as long as you want. Your father and I will be just fine with Freddie.”

  “You sure?”

  Mum stands. “Absolutely. We haven’t spent nearly enough time with our grandson. Now go and get dressed.”

  “I wasn’t planning on getting changed.”

  Mum looks at me like I’ve grown another head. “Emma Tilssen, I insist you get out of those jeans. They’ve got rips in them for heaven’s sake. And that sweater is the same one Freddie used to throw up on as a baby.”

  Standing, I hug Mum briefly, swallowing over the lump in my throat. “Okay, okay. I’ll get into something fancier, just for you.”

  I let go and quickly walk towards my bedroom. My bedroom, not our bedroom. Not anymore.

  It wasn’t a lie about my friends catching up. The get-together had been planned for weeks. It was the only date that worked for all of us, and I’d planned to go and have an absolute bender. I was fully prepared to get home at 3 a.m. to face a disapproving husband. In fact, I think that was part of the motivation.

  But last night I phoned Lily and pulled out. They knew Paul had left me – they were the first people I told. I simply wasn’t ready to face their analysis of the situation. Not yet.

  We’ve known each other since university days. Lily, Mags, Trish and I flatted together, and we had a crazy time. Our grades suffered, due to the fact we rarely made it to any lectures, but that was the least of our concerns. Well, Trish was fine, of course. She can survive on three hours sleep and is naturally the cleverest person I have ever met. She’s also the dumbest blonde on the planet, which makes no sense, until you meet her.