with invisible wings. ‘How is all this not enough for you, April? Tell me?’
One of the ‘other men’ inevitably ended up lighting a spark in my mom and my parents divorced. My papa stayed in Dubai and I went with my mom back to her home town of Rockport, Maine. At first, I was delighted about this new arrangement, believing I’d get a whole parent to myself. My mom was infinitely happier, keen to show off her new fiancé – an ear, nose and throat specialist called Hank – to old friends. It’s always baffled me how adamant she was to see the world. I mean, my papa gave her that on a plate, and yet, she ended up settling in the lobster town where she was born.
There was a lack of affordable nannies in Rockport, and the last thing a woman preparing for an East Coast white wedding needed was a ten-year-old not settling into the local elementary school. All the other kids had been attending since they learnt to write their name and I was the new kid. The one with the weird accent. The one who asked too many questions.
‘I’ve spoken to your papa and he wants to help you,’ my mom told me, smiling. ‘He’s going to let you go to boarding school in England. This is every little girl’s dream. I couldn’t get enough of Malory Towers when I was your age.’
Malory Towers it was not. I lasted a few years before I was kicked out.
With Paige settled and asleep, my mom began the long drive north to Rockport.
‘Paige is really beautiful,’ I said, secret code for another apology.
‘She’s an angel, isn’t she?’
‘I can babysit her whenever you want. You know, whenever you and Hank wanna go out to dinner, or to a party, or something?’
My mom shifted in her seat, adjusted her breast within the bra cup, then the other side.
‘That’s better,’ she said to herself.
‘I really like babies,’ I continued.
‘There’s more to babies than just liking them.’
‘I know. They’re hard work.’
‘They can be.’
‘But liking them’s a pretty good start, right?’
‘You also like ballet, Zara. It doesn’t mean you’re Anna Pavlova.’
I counted the gas stations, the motels, and waited for my mom to ask me about what happened at school, why I was forced to leave. Paige needed feeding again, so I decided to make myself scarce and hung out in a roadside McDonalds for a while, picking at some nuggets, licking the salt off the fries.
‘Are you okay?’ my mom asked when we started the final stretch home.
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
‘What do you mean, you don’t know?’
‘If I was okay, people would want to be around me. But they don’t.’
‘Zara, that’s ridiculous. You choose the wrong people to be around, that’s your problem.’
‘But, I don’t mean to choose the wrong ones. They always seem so nice.’
‘And a teacher old enough to be your father? That didn’t seem wrong to you?’
‘He was nice to me, Mom. That’s all.’
‘I don’t want to hear it, Zara,’ she snapped, holding her hand up to my face. ‘I only asked if you were okay. Why can’t you just be okay?’
‘I was only being honest.’
‘And that’s fine, honey. But, I can’t get into this right now. I need to concentrate.’
Paige woke up, started crying, but the road leading into Rockport was congested and there was nowhere to pull over. Leaning across into the back seat, I found the pacifier and slipped it into my baby half-sister’s tiny mouth, but Paige spat it out, unable to be soothed. The radio crackled, the country song playing becoming disjointed as the singer sang about loving you forever and ever, Amen. My mom started crying, too.
It was never going to work.
It wouldn’t have been fair on Paige. She was a blank canvas, whereas I was spilt paint, too much of a mess to start cleaning up amongst diapers and lullabies. So, it was back to Dubai where I could attend a school with a British curriculum, picking up at the point I was booted out, my papa once again giving my mom exactly what she wanted. Freedom.
But it wasn’t freedom to see the world.
It was the freedom to become a good mom; to get it right this time.
The journey to Heathrow continues smoothly.
We’re making good time, hitting no congestion, not getting slowed down by the bad weather, which has cleared up a little further south. I’ve been attempting to paint my nails with the polish Marina gave me as a leaving present.