A Half Forgotten Song Read Free Page B

watching something loud and tacky on TV,” he said. Ali shot him an impatient look.
    “Well, I hope you’ve been doing more with her all these weeks than just plonking her down in front of—”
    “Oh, give it a rest, Ali. I really don’t need parenting lessons from you.” He said it calmly, half amusedly. Ali took another deep breath and held it. “I’m sure Elise will tell you what we’ve been up to. Els! Mummy’s here!” He put his head through the door to the stairs and shouted this up to her. He had been dreading her departure for so many weeks, since Ali had told him about the move and all the fighting and discussing and fighting again had changed nothing at all. Now the dread of it had grown almost unbearable, and since the time had come, he wanted it over with. Do it quickly, make it hurt less.
    Ali put her hand on his arm. “Hang on, before you call her. Don’t you want to talk about . . .” She trailed off, shrugged, and splayed her fingers, searching for words.
    “Exactly,” said Zach. “We’ve talked and talked, and you’ve told me what you want, and I’ve told you what I want, and the upshot is you’re going to do what you want, and I can go hang. So just do it, Ali,” he said, suddenly bone-weary. His eyes were aching, and he rubbed them with his thumbs.
    “This is a chance for a completely new start for Elise and me—a new life. We’ll be happier. She can forget all about . . .”
    “All about me?”
    “All about all the . . . upheaval. The stress of the divorce.”
    “I’m never going to think it’s a good idea that you take her away from me, so there’s no point you trying to convince me. I’m always going to think it’s unfair. I never contested custody because . . . because I didn’t want to make things worse. Make them harder, for her and for us. And this is how you thank me for that. You move her three thousand miles away, and turn me into some guy who sees her two or three times a year and sends her presents she doesn’t like because he’s so far out of touch with what she does like . . .”
    “It wasn’t about that. It wasn’t about you . . .” Ali’s eyes flashed angrily, and Zach saw the guilt there, too; saw that she’d struggled with the decision. Oddly, it made him feel no better that she had.
    “How would you feel, Ali? How would you feel in my place?” he asked intently. For a horrifying second, he thought he might cry. But he didn’t. He held Ali’s gaze and made her see; and some emotion caused her cheeks to flush, her eyes to grow bright and desperate. What that emotion was, Zach could no longer read, and just at that moment Elise came rushing downstairs and flew into her mother’s arms.
    As they left, Zach hugged Elise and tried to keep smiling, tried to reassure her that she didn’t need to feel guilty. But when Elise started to cry, he couldn’t keep it up—his smile became a grimace and tears blurred his last view of her, so in the end he stopped trying to pretend it was all right. Elise gulped and sobbed and scrubbed at her eyes with her knuckles, and Zach held her at arm’s length and wiped her face for her.
    “I love you very much, Els. And I’ll see you very soon,” he said, giving the statements no ambiguity, no hint of a maybe. She nodded, taking huge, hitching breaths. “Come on. One last smile for your dad before you go.” She gave it a good try, her small, round mouth curling up at the corners even as sobs shook her chest. Zach kissed her and stood up.
    “Go on,” he said to Ali brutally. “Go on now.” Ali reached down for Elise’s hand and towed her away along the pavement to where her car was parked. Elise turned and waved from the backseat. Waved until the car was out of sight down the hill and around the corner. And when it was, Zach felt something switch off inside him. He couldn’t tell what it was, but he knew it was vital. Numb, he sank down onto the front step of the gallery, and sat there for a