Tonight is a First-Born night. I collected her from one of The Ex's colleagues and was offered a nice cup of tea and a sit down. I declined - I wasn't about to waste precious First-Born time chewing the cud over next week's wedding.
She: "Such a shame you can't come..."
Me: "Yeah. Well, stuff do to do, you know?"
She: "It would have been nice though, for the sake of First-Born. It wasn't her fault that you and The Ex grew apart in the way that you did..."
Me: "..."
She: "...and it was so nice of The Boyfriend to look after her when you left..."
Me: (quietly) "...she told you that?"
She: "Oh yes. But its nice you've both been so amicable about it all."
Its been a while since I've had to deal with The Lie (go back to the beginning of this journal for the origin of The Lie.) I'd almost forgotten about it. The palms of my hands itched and the desire to spew the poisonous truth into the innocent face of the pleasant middle-aged woman in front of me was overwhelming.
Me: "Thanks for looking after First-Born. See you next time..."
I sat in the car, knuckles white on the steering wheel. First-born fiddled with the radio and tried to find a CD she liked (sadly, the autochanger is somewhat bereft of Pop-Idol material, so she settled on something silly from the 90s.) As she struggled with the seat-belt she glanced up at me: "I'm not supposed to tell anyone either. But its ok - you and I know what really happened and thats all that matters."
I could have cried.
