_Your situation._ The person whose face you touched in your hallway. A word that reduced five months to a noun that sounded like a medical condition.
‘My situation,’ Neil said.
‘Your... the arrangement. With the teacher.’
‘His name is Rory.’
‘With Rory. Yes.’ She said the name. ‘I’m not going to pretend I didn’t see what I saw at the party, Neil. I’m your mother. I notice things.’
‘I know you notice things.’
‘And what I noticed... the gesture, the... it suggested a degree of familiarity that goes beyond...’
‘I wiped paint off his face. Yes.’
Silence. He’d said it directly. Direct statement disrupted the choreography.
‘I wiped paint off his face,’ Neil repeated. ‘Because he had paint on his face. Because he always has paint on his face. I’ve been wiping it off for months. Because he’s my partner. And taking care of him is what I do.’
‘I’d rather we didn’t discuss this on the phone,’ Diane said. ‘I’d like you to come. Sunday. Your father will be here.’
‘Does Dad know?’
A pause. ‘I’ve told him. Yes.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He’s... processing. In his way.’
‘Mum. What did you say? When you told him.’
Neither spoke.
‘I said what needed to be said.’
‘What needed to be said according to whom?’
‘I told him that you were... involved. With the art teacher. And that it would need to be managed.’
_Managed_. Neil heard it the way he’d heard _disgraceful_ twenty years ago, not as a grenade but as a door, closing softly, on oiled hinges, with perfect manners.
‘Managed,’ he repeated.
‘I mean... there’s Freddie to think about. And the school. And your father’s... you know how your father is, Neil. If it were just us, if it were private, I wouldn’t... but people talk. The neighbours. The school parents. I’m trying to... I just think there’s a way to do this that doesn’t...’
‘Doesn’t what?’
‘That doesn’t make it harder than it needs to be.’
The sentence hung in the kitchen. Neil looked at Freddie’s drawings on the fridge. The dragon. The whale. The tree with BRAVE in purple.
‘You changed the channel before Dad said _disgraceful_. Two men holding hands on tv. You reached for the remote first. I was fifteen. I remember the food, shepherd’s pie. I remember the footage. And I remember that your hand moved before his mouth did.’
Silence.
‘You’ve been managing me for twenty years, Mum. Managing me and managing Dad and managing the silence and calling it protection. And the protection cost me...’ His voice steadied. ‘The protection cost me my twenties. My marriage. And then car parks.’
‘Car parks?’ Faint. Lost.
