Eye for an Eye

breath, let the moment pass, then his need to know overpowered him. He hated himself for asking, but Maureen was closer to Gail than anyone. Even Harry.
    ‘What did she say?’ he asked.
    ‘About what?’
    ‘About my visit.’
    ‘You don’t want to know.’
    ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think I do.’
    Maureen took a second to respond, as if deciding whether or not to tell him. When she finally spoke, her voice sounded flat and dead. Gail at her worst.
    ‘She said you didn’t stay. That you never said a word to Harry. That you couldn’t stand being in the same room as her. That you’d been drinking.’ She hesitated, as if waiting for feedback. But Gilchrist was damned if he was going to play along. ‘Would you like to hear more?’
    ‘Sure.’
    ‘She said you never even asked how she was keeping, Dad.’
    Gilchrist caught the rise in her voice, and felt his teeth grit. ‘That’s not true—’
    ‘If it’s not, then why would Mum say it?’
    ‘Because she hates me—’
    ‘No she doesn’t.’
    ‘She wants to hurt me, Mo.’
    ‘She wants you to feel some of the pain she felt, Dad.’
    Gilchrist felt his fingers tighten around his mobile.
    ‘Did you know Mum cried every day for two months after you split up?’
    ‘I wasn’t exactly doing backward somersaults with joy myself, you know.’
    ‘It still didn’t stop you from splitting up.’
    ‘In case it’s slipped your mind, your mother left me. Not the other way around.’
    ‘It takes two to tango, Dad. Have you ever asked yourself why she found someone else?’
    ‘I know why she found someone else.’
    ‘Do you?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Let’s hear it.’
    Gilchrist hated that Maureen had finagled the argument around to this topic. He felt there were certain things in life that children should not know about their parents. Or maybe he was just being old fashioned.
    ‘I’m waiting.’
    ‘Your mother fell out of love with me, Mo.’
    ‘Oh, no, Dad. You’re not getting away as easy as that. Mum loved you. Mum’s always loved you. She still loves you. Don’t you see that?’
    ‘Are we talking about the same person, here? The same woman who told me she was glad to have found Harry because at long last she had someone who cared for her? And sexually satisfied her?’ He regretted his last comment the instant the words left his mouth.
    ‘How can you say that?’
    ‘It’s the truth.’
    ‘No it’s not. It’s bullshit. It’s fucking bullshit.’
    ‘Watch your language, young woman.’
    ‘Oh, piss off, Dad.’
    Gilchrist rubbed his forehead, waiting for the burring on the line to announce they had been disconnected. He could never win an argument with Maureen. Ever since the age of twelve, when she had shouted at him on the beach and accused him of favouring Jack over her, she had known how to skip her way around him. Rationally or otherwise.
    ‘You still there?’ he asked.
    ‘Barely.’
    He heard her sniff. ‘Listen, Mo. I’m sorry.’ He took a deep breath, then let it out. ‘Your mum and me, we loved each other once. Some parts of us still do. I believe that. But after a while, it just ... we just drifted apart.’ He held on to the phone, praying for some response. But it was Maureen’s turn to say nothing. ‘These things happen, Mo. People change. Families split up.’
    ‘But why did it have to happen to
our
family, Dad? Why did we all have to split up? Can you tell me that?’
    He pressed the phone to his mouth, wished it was his lips to her hair, the way he used to when he came home from work and crept upstairs to her bedroom and kissed her sleeping face. He had no answer for her. He had no answer for himself.
    ‘I have to go, Dad.’ She gave another sniff.
    ‘Listen, Mo, I—’
    The line disconnected.
    Silent, Gilchrist lowered his mobile. He felt abandoned. He felt as if he had just taken Maureen to the station and was watching her train depart, listening to the sound of its wheels on the tracks fade from his senses, knowing that when it did, when he could no longer hear their metallic rattle, then that would be the last sound he would ever hear of her.
    He powered down his mobile.
    But Maureen’s voice echoed in his mind.
Why did it have to happen to
our
family, Dad? Why did we all have to split up? Can you tell me that?
    It happened because, because ...
    Because I had a job. Because I put that job before my family. Because I made no effort to spend time with my wife, or watch my children grow up.
    Because, because