Page 83 of The Elements

We both sleep through the last few hours of the Dubai flight and emerge, slightly groggy, into the airport, where we shuffle toward our next gate for the short layover.

Slumped in our seats, I’m scrolling through my phone while Emmet is staring into the distance, lost in thought.

His hair is a mess and he’s compulsively running his fingers through it, giving off a definite air of anxiety.

Without a word, he wanders off to the bathroom, leaving his bag and phone on the seat next to me, and, a minute or so later, when it buzzes, I glance toward it, where a message from Damian has popped up.

U made ur mind up yet? it says, and I frown but don’t touch it.

If I did, Emmet would surely reappear just as I’m looking at it.

Still, I can’t help but wonder what he’s referring to.

It doesn’t take long for me to find out, however, for when my son returns, he has a rather determined expression on his face.

He sits down, looks at the phone for a moment, reads the message, taps a quick reply, then puts it in his pocket before clearing his throat.

When he speaks, his tone suggests that he’s been thinking about what he’s about to say for some time and is fully prepared for an argument.

“Dad,” he says.

“What’s up?”

“There’s something I need to tell you.”

“OK.”

“Only you can’t be angry with me.”

Perhaps he wants to talk about the pictures on his phone.

It’s not the ideal time to discuss them, but it would certainly be a lot easier if he brought the topic up rather than me having to introduce it.

I’ve spent more than a year counseling a boy only slightly older than him who gave in to a sextortion scam on Snapchat, clearing almost $3,000 from his parents’ bank account before they discovered what was going on and reported the incident to the police.

Although, thankfully, the pictures and videos he sent to his blackmailer never made it into the public domain or to his list of contacts, as had been threatened, he remains utterly traumatized by the incident, which went on for months, and a chill spreads through me as I wonder whether Emmet has found himself in a similar situation.

“Go on,” I say.

“No, you have to promise.”

“Just tell me.”

He takes a deep breath, then exhales slowly.

“I’m not getting on this plane.”

Of everything I might have anticipated, this never occurred to me. But at least it’s not as bad as what it might have been.

“I’m sorry?”

“I said I’m not getting on this plane. I’m not going any further. I’m staying here.”

I turn to look at him, to see whether he’s serious. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years from my patients, it’s the importance of remaining calm when someone says something that is clearly designed for a reaction.

“Emmet,” I say, glancing at my watch. “Boarding is due to start in about fifteen minutes, so you don’t really have much choice. We’ve done the long part of the flight already. This is the shorter one. We’ll be there before you know it.”

“It’s not about the length of the journey,” he tells me. “I’m just not going, it’s as simple as that. You go if you want to. But I’m staying here.”

“What, here in the airport? For the next five nights?”

“You can book me a hotel room,” he says. “It’s Dubai. There’s thousands of them.”

“And five nights in one of them would cost more than this entire trip.”

“Oh, please,” he says, rolling his eyes. “You’re loaded.”

“I’m not loaded,” I say. “But that’s hardly the point. I’m not leaving you on your own in a strange city. We agreed to make this trip together, remember, you and me? We have to be there for her.”

“Why?” he asks.

“Why what?”

“Why do we have to be there for her?”

It takes me a moment to come up with what I realize is an unsatisfactory, and possibly dishonest, answer.

“Because if things were the other way around, she’d be there for you.”

“Like she’s been in the past, you mean?”

He throws his head far back over the seat, staring up at the ceiling, remaining silent for a moment, as if he can’t quite comprehend the duplicity of adults. I know he’s telling himself that he’ll never be the same when he’s older. But he will. We all are.

“You see your mother regularly,” I tell him, and he laughs bitterly.

“I see her once or twice a year at most,” he replies. “It’s not like she goes out of her way to spend time with me.”

“You spend a month with her.”

“Wrong. I come here for a month but I spend most of it sitting on my own in her apartment, reading books, watching movies, or down in the pool, while she’s flying around somewhere.

When she does bother to show up, she’s either too tired to hang out with me or can’t think of anything for us to do.

Last time, she came back from Singapore after three days away and seemed to forget that I was even staying there.

I literally came out of my bedroom to say hello, and she screamed like I was a burglar.

I swear, it took her a minute even to recognize me. ”

“She was probably jet-lagged, that’s all.”

“Pilots don’t get jet-lagged,” he replies with utter certainty, and I have no idea whether this is true or just something he’s read online.

“She’s your mother,” I say.

“No. She’s your ex-wife. There’s a difference.”

I can only imagine how deeply it would hurt Rebecca if she heard this remark—it reminds me of how she always referred to Brendan as Vanessa’s ex-husband—and there’s a part of me that wishes she had.

Because as fortunate as I’ve felt at being my son’s primary guardian, it’s shocked me how small a part Rebecca has played in his upbringing.

Emmet was only four years old when the whole mess with Furia led to the end of our marriage.

When it became clear that the infidelity would prove to be the closing act of our relationship, the plan had been that Rebecca would remain in Sydney and he would divide his time between us.

I had grown to love Australia, my practice was there, and I had neither reason nor inclination to return to the Northern Hemisphere.

And for the first twelve months, this arrangement worked reasonably well.

But when the airline reorganized its pilot’s schedule, it made more sense for her to relocate to their hub in Dubai, and I was worried that she’d want to take Emmet with her.

He was settled in school, had his circle of close friends, was thriving at Bondi’s Nippers Club, and I felt it would be cruel to remove him from that.

The pain of the betrayal had left things raw between us, however, and I was uncertain how Rebecca would respond to my suggestion that Emmet remain in my custody full-time, assuming she’d refuse, but to my surprise, she agreed, even expressing a sense of relief that she was free to live her own life.

While her selfishness troubled me, I had no intention of challenging her on it.

After all, had she insisted on taking him, and had the courts permitted her to do so, I would have had no choice but to follow her. But no, she just left him.

Last year was the first time Emmet asked whether he could cancel his visit—he was distraught at the idea of being torn away from his beloved beach over Christmas—and I used my dwindling authority to insist that he go, because I wanted him to maintain a relationship with his mother.

I’d already anticipated that he would put up more of a fight this coming year, and that, at fifteen, he might even win, but because of the circumstances that have brought us to this airport now, I assume that visit won’t be happening anyway.

Ahead, I notice an airline employee preparing the desk and another relocating the stanchions that separate the queues for first, business, and economy passengers. There’s simply no way that I’m leaving him here alone.

“Emmet,” I begin, but he raises a hand and cuts me off.

“I mean it,” he says. “Honestly, Dad, this isn’t a sudden decision. I’ve been thinking about it ever since we boarded in Sydney.”

“Oh, that long? Wow. A whole thirteen hours.”

“And I don’t want to go any further. Look, I know Dubai pretty well and I’m not a little kid anymore.

All you need to do is book someplace on your phone.

You can do it right now; there’s free Wi-Fi.

It doesn’t have to be any place fancy.” He smiles a little, hoping to charm me.

“I mean, not a dive though. A pool would be nice.”

“A pool would be lovely,” I agree. “As would a penthouse suite, a gym, a sauna, a massage, and twenty-four-hour room service. But none of those things are going to happen.”

“Not for you, maybe.”

“Not for you either.”

“I’ll be fine,” he says, looking me directly in the eye. “I’m fourteen.”

“When you say ‘I’m fourteen,’” I tell him, “my response is you’re only fourteen. The preposition matters.”

“ Only isn’t a preposition,” he says. “It’s an adverb.”

He’s probably right. He’s the reader, after all, not me.

Around us, I can tell that the other passengers are sensing the impending boarding announcement as they’re starting to gather their things, preparing to rush the gate like a pack of feral dogs the moment someone so much as taps the microphone.

“Can I be really honest with you about something?” says Emmet, and I nod. “Of course.”

“And you’ll hear me out?”

“I’ll hear you out.”