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“Yeah, and he’s got some wicked bruises. Apparently, he had fifteen stitches inside his mouth!”
“That must be painful.” No imagination required; Matt had detailed the precise extent of its painfulness with rather colourful details over breakfast, involving a red-hot poker and my rear end.
Ryan selected the biggest slice of pizza. I watched as he picked off every single one of the olives.
“Yeah, that’s what I said! But he must be hard as nails, because none of his injuries seemed to bother him. I don’t reckon you’d be that brave.”
Were we talking about the same chap?
“And, Dad, he told me that you were always getting into trouble at school. Playing truant and smoking and drinking.”
I laughed, and an unexpected thrill of pleasure hummed through me. Yep, same chap. Some things never changed. Matt might have been the worst patient ever, but his sense of mischief hadn’t deserted him over the years. “He’s such a liar. Don’t trust a word that comes out of his bloody mouth.”
Ryan grinned. “Language! You’ve just proved he’s not a liar, because he also said that every other word you spoke was a swear word! You had a mouth like a navvy, whatever that means. And apparently, you were in detention, like, almost once a week? You were rubbish at maths too, which you’ve never told me. He said he taught you everything you know.”
Me and my house guest needed to have some strong words. At least he’d cheered Ryan up though. The terrible twos were nothing compared to navigating a prickly teenager. He appraised me with something bordering on admiration; stories of bad-boy Alex had elevated me in my son’s eyes, which was no bad thing. Even if the bad-boy tales were a pack of lies.
Seeing him so happy gladdened me. Something had bothered my son recently, and I hadn’t pinned down what. From cursory text exchanges with Samantha, neither had she. His school reports were decent, so they weren’t the problem; he had plenty of friends and a good relationship with both of us. Girl trouble? As yet, that was unexplored territory.
“How did school go today?”
“K.”
Did you see Chloe?”
“Duh, yeah?”
“Is she okay?”
Chloe was (to my knowledge) his first ever girlfriend, and to be honest, not whom I’d have chosen. Which accounted for most of her appeal. She was a full school year older than him, and I doubted very much that Ryan was Chloe’s first boyfriend. From our brief encounters when she’d picked Ryan up in her little Fiat 500, she seemed seventeen going on twenty-five. I had a feeling my sweet boy might have bitten off more than he could chew.
Ryan crammed the last triangle of pizza into his mouth and pushed his chair back from the table. “What is this? Twenty questions?”
Three actually, although maybe I should have stopped after one. The shutters had slammed down, and I doubted he’d raise them again until morning. But at least my girl trouble theory had been confirmed.
“Could you scrape those olives into the bin and put your plate in the dishwasher, please?”
I bit my tongue as he did as I asked, the plate slotted at a precarious angle in the bottom rack of the dishwasher and his water glass haphazardly thrown in next to it, instead of on the top rack with all the other glasses. I might as well have done it myself. Yet another mundane interaction with my teenage son that left me floundering. Moments like this had me sometimes wishing I was still married, so we could navigate them together.
I’d become used to Ryan’s brittle mood swings, but it didn’t make them easier to manage. As I restacked the dishwasher, I pondered where I’d gone wrong. Enquiring about Chloe had been a dad worried about his son’s happiness and wanting to help. He’d interpreted that as nosy parental interrogation. As a result, he couldn’t escape me and the kitchen fast enough, but not before I’d then compounded his annoyance by reminding him to perform the reasonable task of clearing away his own plate. I could have done it myself, but if I pussy-footed around him after every minor contretemps, then how could I nudge him into one day becoming a competent, independent adult?
Feeling older than my forty-something years, I listened as his size-twelve feet stomped up the stairs, followed by the none-too-gentle closing of his bedroom door, the signal our short evening together had come to an end.
“That was a dirty trick to play. I really wish you hadn’t done that, Alex.”
Whichever drivel I’d selected to watch on the telly after Ryan had gone to bed hadn’t held my attention. Dozing in the comfy armchair nearest the fire, I hadn’t heard Matt wander barefoot out of his room. I started, to find him leaning against the door frame between the sitting room and the kitchen, a mug of something in his hand. Masked by puffiness and bruising, his facial expressions were difficult to discern, although he hadn’t sounded annoyed. Sorrowful, maybe.
“Should you be up and about? You could have shouted to me if you’d wanted something.”
He waved my concern away. “I’m fine, stop going on.”
“What did you wish I hadn’t done?”
I hadn’t done much of anything except irritate my son by my mere existence and make pizza. In retrospect, maybe a poor choice for someone with a sore mouth and limited jaw opening. Matt hadn’t complained when I’d produced it, however, and trust me, he wouldn’t have held back.
“You shouldn’t have sent your son in to say hello.”
He sank with a wince and a curse into the sofa opposite, bracing his ribs with his good arm. It was the first time he’d ventured out of his room, giving me hope he’d started to feel better. In the flickering firelight, the bruising under his eyes had the effect of making his gaze even more dark and impenetrable.
