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“It’s not a deep, dark secret,” I said. “He told me himself.”
“Yes, but that didn’t mean it was okay for you to tell us. It’s none of our business, Marius.”
“You told him about my foreskin.”
“No.” My dad moved to the dinette, pushed my clothes out of the way, and sat down. “You told him about your foreskin.”
I gestured wildly in their direction. “Well, you dragged Mr. Froderick into this.”
“That wasn’t to hurt you,” Dad pointed out.
“It’s still embarrassing, though.”
My dad gave me the sort of look you never want to receive from your father. Especially a father as gentle and loving as mine. “So what?”
Mum had started vigorously stuffing Tupperware back into carrier bags. “I’m sorry, paczek. I really am. He looked lonely without you. Sitting there on your pillow.”
I suddenly realised I had no idea what I was feeling. Or rather, I did, and it was almost entirely shame. And not just “oh my mother is being a bit full on.” But the deep, squalid, murky kind of shame that came from having shown a bit too much of who you really were. Which, of course, was the last thing I’d wanted.
Because I liked Leo.
I liked him far too much.
“Can…” I asked. “Can I have Mr. F? Please.”
Mum picked him gently off the table and delivered him into my embrace. He was getting a little shabby, his fur pressed flat from cuddling and his colour faded to a gentle mint, despite many pillowcase-mediated trips through the washing machine. But something about the way his arms fell and his feet stuck out suggested…I wasn’t sure what else to call it…but openheartedness? And his bulbous plastic eyes, for all they were a little scratched, continued to regard the world with what had always seemed to me a benign and sympathetic curiosity. I tucked him into his usual space against my shoulder. If nothing else, it was hard to let down a cuddly toy. Although I suppose I kind of had. In a way.
“I didn’t mean to leave him behind,” I said. He’d accompanied me to university. Through various student accommodations and rented rooms. Then to rooms I’d shared with Edwin. Then to the house we’d bought. And then—not really knowing what else to do as I’d drifted between places or couch-surfed listlessly from friend-to-friend—I’d stashed him with my parents and tried to forget I’d ever cared.
“I don’t suppose”—my dad’s voice was so neutral right then,it could have sat out the Second World War—“you want to tell us what’s going on?”
“What do you mean?”
“These last few years.” That was Mum. Infinitely less neutral. “We don’t know where you’ve been. Or what you’ve been doing.”
“I’ve been around. And I’ve been doing what I’m usually doing.”
“You haven’t, though,” she persisted. “Something’s changed.”
I stared at the ceiling, remembering how it had gleamed last night with the shadows off the water. “I’m pretty sure I’ve always been like this.”
“Don’t bullshit your mother, Marius.”
As if I didn’t bullshit everybody. “You do remember,” I said, “that major breakup I had fairly recently.”
Having finished her bagging, Mum came and perched on the far edge of the sofa. “It was nearly four years ago. If Edwin can move on, then—”
“It’s not a competition,” I snapped.
“I just meant, maybe you can forgive yourself for hurting him?”
I pushed my face into Mr. F. This was what I got for using my ex to justify my shitty behaviour. “I’ll try,” I said—though mostly so Mum would leave it alone.
“And do you know,” Dad added, “that we’re here for you?”
I gave a frog-smothered snuffle of laughter. “You’re here for me to a fucking fault.”
“Well, we love you,” said Mum.
