Michael couldn’t stop thinking about the sound of his father’s voice. He couldn’t quite believe that they’d spoken. He couldn’t get over how simple it was just to say hello, to start a conversation.
Since then, he’d been trying not to mind that his Dad was with Delphine and he wasn’t. Trying not to mind was a skill he had made his own. He had tried not to mind that his father let Étienne steal Mum from them. He had tried not to mind about all the things his father should have said and done, such as asking that Michael stay with him instead of going to France. His father had never once said that. He had never once put up a fight. Maybe he thought he should take it as read, but you can’t, when you’re a kid, read those kind of things. You don’t have the vocabulary.
Laroche’s vocabulary was coming on no end, however. He’d read one whole paragraph today, from some paranormal gothic fantasy called The Monstrumologist, which had surely put his skills to the test.
“You should sign up with Education for an adult literacy course,” he said and Laroche looked at him as if he were something he’d trodden in.