Page 146 of Undefined Terms

‘Thanks for not being careful. For saying it.’

Silence, a different kind.

‘You’re my son, Ron. Both of you are. I’m not going to whisper about that in my own living room.’

She hangs up, phone, screen, kitchen. My kitchen, the Manchester one, the kettle that clicked while Mum was talking. I pour the water, mug the blue one, tea, three sugars, no milk because I forgot again.

The flat’s silent, Celyn’s still asleep, the duvet, the foot. The breathing I can hear from the kitchen, slow, even, the sleeping-breath. Celyn doesn’t know yet. Doesn’t know that the word ‘they’ left Mum’s mouth and entered a room with football on the telly and cans on the table and a man who doesn’t know what to do with it.

I lean on the counter. The tea. The steam.

I think about Dad, anger would be easier. What Dad does is, absence. The volume turning down.

I drink the tea, stand in the kitchen, wait.

Except last night he didn’t finish the can. That’s. I don’t know what that is. A different sign, the routine broke. The kettle’s clicked off. Water cooling. The concrete’s already down. Setting or not. The choice is done.

Dad might call, or Dad might not. Both live in the same space. Mum said the thing she couldn’t unsay. Opened a door I didn’t know was closed. She probably held it for a year, waiting for me to be ready. Nobody waits that long. Eventually the words come out at the kitchen table with the football on and the secret drops into the room like a brick.

Two years ago I did this with Ewan. Two years of Mum saying ‘he’ll come round’ and two years of him not coming round until he did. Different man, but the same waiting. The same kettle going cold.

The difference is. I’m not waiting for Ewan anymore. I’m waiting for my dad to understand that what he doesn’t understand isn’t his job to understand. That the world didn’t break. Just expanded. Just got a bit bigger and a bit quicker and a bit more open.

The tea sits in the mug. Three sugars, no milk. This is what out looks like, apparently. A son who doesn’t hide toothbrushes or drive three hours in a panic.

Real is harder. Real is standing in a kitchen waiting for a phone that might not ring.

The waiting is the worst part. The space before the conversation. The space where the phone might ring or might not and both options are unbearable and the body can’t sit down so I’m at the counter with the tea going cold and my hands opening and closing, opening and closing, looking for something to measure.

Celyn walks in at half twelve. The hair, the face, sleep in the eyes.

‘Morning.’

‘Afternoon.’

‘Don’t.’ The yawn. Arms up, the t-shirt riding, the stomach, the hip. Celyn pads to the kettle. Bare feet on the cold floor. Fills it. Clicks it. The routine.

‘You’re doing the hands thing,’ Celyn says. Opening the tea tin.

‘What hands thing.’

‘The measuring thing. The thing you do when something’s wrong and you can’t fix it with a trowel.’

I look at my hands. Spread.

‘Mum called,’ I say.

Celyn turns, the face changes. The morning softness hardens into attention. The reading.

‘And?’

‘Dad knows.’

The kettle, the steam. Celyn puts the tea tin down. Comes to the counter, stands next to me, close. The warmth from sleep on the skin.

‘How?’

‘Mum said “they” in front of him. Didn’t mean to. Just. Said it.’