Free How to Be Good by Nick Hornby

them how naughty I’ve been, I will pack my bags and go. That first night I don’t sleep at all, and I feel that I’ll never be able to rest until I’ve answered every single one of the questions that thrash around in my head like fish in a trawler net. Most of these questions (will David let me come round to watch the dinosaur programme on Monday nights?) choke and die; a couple of them, the bigger, more tenacious ones, just refuse to let go. Here’s one: what rights do I have? You see, I don’t want a divorce. OK, I know I did, before, when I didn’t know what it meant and I didn’t know what I felt and I didn’t know how awful the prospect would seem – but now I don’t, and I’m (almost) positive I’d do (almost) anything to get my marriage back on track. And if that is the case, why should I be the one who tells the kids? If he won’t contemplate any pacific alternative, why should I do his dirty work? What if I just don’t go? What would he do then? I go round and round on this other loop, too: we’re never going to get out of this mess, things have gone too far, it’s always going to be awful whenever it happens, best get out now . . . And all the time I know, somewhere in me, that I will never be able to sit down and tell my children that I’m leaving them.
    â€˜Where’s Dad?’ Molly asks next morning. It’s always Molly who asks that question, especially since David’s Wisdom of Solomon judgement the other day; Tom no longer seems interested.
    â€˜He’s away on business,’ I say, as if David were another personaltogether. It’s an answer born out of a lack of sleep, because it could never apply to David’s life and work. For the last few years the children have listened to him grumbling about having to go down to the newsagent’s to use the photocopier; how, then, has he suddenly become the kind of man who stays in hotels in the major capitals of Europe eating power breakfasts?
    â€˜He hasn’t got any business,’ says Tom matter-of-factly.
    â€˜Yes he has,’ says Molly, sweetly and loyally.
    â€˜What is it then?’ Tom may prefer his mother to his father at the moment, but his inability to resist cruelty when the opportunity presents itself does not, I would argue, come from me.
    â€˜Why are you always horrible to Daddy?’
    â€˜Why is it horrible asking what business he does?’
    â€˜Because you know he doesn’t do any and you’re rubbing it in.’
    Tom looks at me and shakes his head.
    â€˜You’re rubbish at arguing, Molly.’
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜Because you just said he doesn’t do any. That’s what I said, and you told me I was being horrible.’
    Molly stops, thinks for a moment, tells Tom that she hates him and wanders off to get ready for school. Poor David! Even his staunchest defender cannot actually convince herself that he does anything resembling a proper Daddy job. If I were any kind of right-thinking parent I’d get involved, explain that fathers do all sorts of different things, but I hate David so much at the moment that I can’t be bothered.
    â€˜So where is he really?’ Tom asks me.
    â€˜He’s gone to stay with a friend.’
    â€˜Because you’re getting divorced?’
    â€˜We’re not getting divorced.’
    â€˜So why has he gone to stay with a friend?’
    â€˜You’ve been to stay with friends. Doesn’t mean you’re getting divorced.’
    â€˜I’m not married. And when I go to stay with a friend I tell you I’m going and I say goodbye.’
    â€˜Is that what’s bothering you? He didn’t tell you he was going?’
    â€˜I don’t care whether he says goodbye or not. But I know something’s wrong.’
    â€˜Daddy and I had an argument.’
    â€˜See. You’re getting a divorce.’
    It would be so easy to say something