“I’m well, Indira. How are you?” He didn’t quite imitate her tone, but close.
She paused and in a slightly less friendly but more normal tone said, “I thought I’d just call to check if your mum has been discharged from hospital.”
She could have texted: How’s your mum? That’s what he would have done. Or she could have just disappeared from his life like other ex-girlfriends, but she was staying in touch, remaining dutifully apprised of family news. He wanted to tell her this wasn’t necessary. If he wasn’t getting her warm body next to him in bed, he didn’t want her cold friendly voice in his ear.
“She’s back home,” he said. “They only kept her two nights.”
“Oh, good. That’s good. And is that girl still staying with them?”
“Yeah,” said Logan. “She is. She cooks for them. Mum loves it. It’s…” It’s strange. It’s nice. It’s comforting. It’s kind of frightening. He didn’t know what to say or feel about Savannah. She seemed to make both his parents happy. How could he complain about that? He looked at the blank spot above the television. “How are you?”
Indira was in Perth, where her parents had relocated a year ago. She did not get on with her parents. Yet she was prepared to stay with them on the other side of the country. That’s how badly she no longer wanted to be in a relationship with Logan.
“This morning my parents yelled at each other for ten minutes about a water glass,” she said, and she forgot to use her clone voice. “They don’t even seem to be aware they’re yelling. That’s just their default position.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. Why did you leave me?
“Anyway, I’m checking out a place this afternoon that looks promising.” Back to her friendly clone voice.
“We never yelled at each other,” said Logan, and he held his breath because talking about their relationship was against their unspoken rules of engagement. Come home. Please put your god-awful painting back up on the wall.
There was a long pause.
“We never really argued,” said Logan. “Did we?” Why did you leave? Can you come home now please?
“There’s no point talking about this now,” said Indira. “I’ve got to—”
Logan spoke fast. “On Father’s Day, just before Mum collapsed, she was getting really upset about you and me breaking up, and Brooke and Grant breaking up?
?”
“Brooke is well rid of him,” said Indira, who had taken against Grant in a way that Logan had never really understood.
Logan barreled on. “And anyway, she asked if she and Dad had not set a good example to us. Of a good marriage.”
“Your mum and dad have a great relationship,” said Indira. “They’re so cute together. I’ll call your mum today.” He could hear pain in her voice. She loved Logan’s parents. She’d probably talked more to them in the past five years than Logan had. Talking to his parents was like a domestic duty he’d handed over to her because she was so good at it, like she’d handed over bathroom cleaning to him because he was so good at streak-free shower screens.
“They do have a great relationship,” agreed Logan. “Although, it’s funny, when you called I was thinking about how my dad used to…” He couldn’t find the right word for what his dad used to do and he wasn’t sure if he really wanted to talk about it anyway.
“How your dad used to what?” said Indira, as if she wanted to know, and if this was a way to keep her on the phone and hear her normal voice, then he would take it.
“He used to do this thing when we were kids … maybe three or four times a year. Not that often. It wasn’t a big deal.” Except that it was kind of a big deal. “I’m sure I told you,” he said.
“You never told me,” said Indira. Her voice sounded a little louder in his ear, as if she’d just sat up, and so he sat up straighter too.
“Oh,” said Logan. “Well. If my dad got angry enough about something, he’d just … walk away.”
“You mean he avoided conflict,” said Indira. There were certain syllables where he could hear the trace of her long-lost English accent. Just on the “con” in conflict.
“I guess that’s what he was doing,” said Logan. “It didn’t feel like he was avoiding conflict, it felt like a punishment. Because you never knew how long it would be before he came back.”
“But—I don’t quite get it. Where did he go?”
“We never knew.” What would happen if he asked now? Where did you go, Dad? What was that all about?
“So he didn’t just leave the room. He left the house?”
“Yeah,” said Logan. “Once Troy and I were fighting in the back of the car on the way to a tournament, and Dad stopped the car on a six-lane highway, got out, walked off, and we didn’t see him again until the following night.”