Page 127 of (Not) The One
‘Yes. I’m happy about it. I think we both are.’
‘Then why are you frowning, hmm? I take it you’re not together.’
‘No.’
‘I don’t understand you young people. In my day, you found the one that made you happy and then you did your damndest to make sure they’d never want anyone but you.’
‘That’s just it. I do want her. I find I love her, Dad.’
‘Ah. A terrible business, love. Isn’t it?’ Yet he smiles and I find myself smiling back at him. It feels weird.
‘I’ve definitely had more fun times.’ More fun times with Miranda than he’d care to hear, that’s for certain. But then last night was the kind of fun you only find in the dentist’s chair. And in the car this morning, too.
‘Love,’ he sort of grumble-huffs. ‘It’s like slicing your chest open voluntarily with a rusty spoon, then letting them have a good old rummage through to see if they find anything they like. What about this girl then? Has she found anything she likes about you?’
So many ways to answer this question. But I’ll keep it simple and smut free.
‘She’s scared.’
‘Of you?’ He sounds offended.
‘She’s younger, but not too young, obviously.’ I rush on. ‘Maybe it shouldn’t work, not on paper, but it does. If only I could convince her to take a chance.
‘Well, you’re a lot to take on. But children need fathers, so you carry on.’
‘I’m trying. And it’s not bringing out the best in me. I’ve manipulated her into moving in with me.’
‘Hmph.’
‘That’s it? That’s all you’ve got to say?’
‘Did I ever tell you that your mother was engaged to another man before I came along?’ I just about catch myself from cursing, because fuck no, he has not. ‘Hmm. She was due to get married the following month, but I wasn’t going to stand for that.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Well, she told me she loved this other chap. What could I do?’
‘Please don’t tell me you locked her in a basement somewhere.’
‘Ha! As if I could’ve gotten her to do anything she didn’t want to. She was as stubborn as the day is long. The looks of a thoroughbred and the obstinacy of a mule.’
‘That sounds like someone I know,’ I mutter, thinking of how I’d described Miranda in similar terms.
‘I should think you’d recognise your own description so.’
He’s deranged! I’m not fucking stubborn. What the hell am I doing asking an octogenarian for advice on modern relationship problems? This wouldn’t have happened in his day. You got them pregnant and you got to keep them, regardless of the suitability of the match. Well, perhaps not forty years ago, but maybe sixty.
‘Anyway, I told her that I didn’t doubt she was in love. We all fall in love at some time or another. But not all loves are equal. Some loves are short stories, and some are novel length. Some are just tiny bylines in our lives. I promised your mother I’d love her into an epic tale, the kind that spans oceans and continents.’
‘So she left him.’ Well, obviously.
‘No, she married him,’ he answers with a grin. ‘It lasted a week.’
‘How do I not know any of this?’
‘Because it had nothing to do with our lives. But I’ll tell you something, I was wrong about love and distance, because my love for your mother has travelled between heaven and earth.’
‘Dad.’ What do you say after that?
