Another Life Altogether: A Novel - By Elaine Beale Page 0,118

in all that sun and heat. Or maybe I’d get sent to live with a foster family who lived in a neat little house on a neat little street? I found myself wondering if Tracey and Amanda’s parents might take me in.

For a while, I managed to buoy myself up as I thought about these possibilities, but then, as darkness began to ease over the dull gray sky outside, I felt my optimism deflate. It was ridiculous for me to think that anyone would really want me. The other night, I’d been ignored by Tracey at the disco, and my father had forgotten me and left me to walk home alone in the snow. Yesterday, if he had wanted, he could have taken me with him, but he didn’t care about me enough for that. He’d left me with my mother so that he could become someone like Frank—a man who carried a photograph of his children in his wallet, looking at their picture with fondness when he was no longer burdened by them every day. I would become a smiling face, frozen in a remembered moment, so that he could think of me as happy when, really, I was miserable and raw.

All of this seemed too much to bear until I thought again of how I had walked home with Amanda and how, beneath the warm lights of the village Christmas tree, she had placed that kiss on my lips. And I realized then that Amanda had not left me. In fact, she had given me something to hold on to, a piece of certainty in this baffling and desolate world. I knew that this meant that Amanda must like me, must really care for me—and, in a way, that wasn’t so different from the way I cared for her. Girls didn’t kiss girls unless, like those housewives on the problem page, they had different kinds of feelings for them.

I saw all the ways that Amanda had signaled this to me—how, that first time we’d met, she’d invited me to stand close to her under her umbrella, and how, the second time we saw each other, she’d asked me to smooth suntan lotion over her skin. How she’d defended me when everyone had teased me, how she’d confided in me at the bus stop about all her difficulties with Stan. How she’d pulled me up to dance with her at the disco, and how she’d leaned so close to me I’d felt her breath against my ear. It seemed no coincidence that, immediately after breaking up with Stan, she had kissed me. Clearly, she had been trying to tell me something. Clearly, she knew how I felt about her and she felt something similar in return. At the thought of all this, my hope rose, no longer held down in the terrible reality of this day.

IT WAS LATE WHEN I heard a car growl up the driveway. I ran over to the window, and as I saw my father pull up in front of the house I wanted to wave, bang on the window, shout in excitement. But I didn’t. After all, he might just be coming back for his things. I turned and took a seat beside my mother, who had been making a study of her lap. “Dad’s here,” I said. She looked up, her eyes showing a slight glimmer, and then she turned expectantly toward the door.

He entered, his clothes rumpled and clearly slept in, his pullover stretched out and saggy at the elbows. His hair was windblown, exposing his bald patch. While the skin under his eyes was dark and saggy, his face had a waxy tinge.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said after lowering himself into his armchair. “I’ve been thinking a lot. And I’ve decided that things can’t go on like this.”

I looked at him steadily, my stomach a knot, knowing that he was about to announce his permanent departure, that he was going to leave my mother and me alone. It was all I could do to stop myself jumping up and throwing myself on the floor in front of him, pleading, “Take me with you, take me with you. Don’t leave me here with her.” Instead, I gripped the edges of the settee cushion with both hands.

“I think things call for drastic measures,” he continued.

I felt hot, woozy. I thought I might be sick.

“So,” my father said, looking at my mother and sweeping a wayward strand of hair from his face. “I’ve had