by Anna Bloom
“Lennie can get them.”
I shook my head. “No, you should be there. You haven’t seen them much the last couple of weeks. Do you have them every Wednesday?”
This was bonkers. I’d told the man I loved him, had spent hours in his bed, in his arms, but didn’t know what day he looked after his children.
“Every Wednesday and every other weekend.”
“What do you do together?”
“Footie, rugby, whatever is on. They play a lot of sport.”
My face scrunched at the mention of such an appalling pastime.
“And then we normally watch the match with Liam and Ryan.”
“You’re a big close family then?”
He laughed and ran a rueful hand though his hair. “Too close. Julie hated it. Couldn't bear us all being together all the time.”
I made myself a solemn promise there and then that no matter how hard it physically was for me, I wouldn’t shy away from the Carling clan.
“When are you going to start planning what to do with the shop?”
He slipped me a slow smile. “I don’t know. I think I need to discuss it in more detail with my branding expert.”
“Oh no. My branding work with you is done. Now I need to go and make some money before we go bust and I lose all my staff.”
“That bad?” His brow creased in concern. “You never really said before.”
“I was going to chuck it all in, nearly did actually, but then Liam rang. I don’t know...”
“What?”
A gut busting sigh exploded from my lips. “I don’t know. I think I realised the other day that I’ve just become my mother. I live in the small bubble of safety. I judged my ma for the fact she’s never stayed in contact with my dad’s family, but I’ve done the same for Hannah.” I blew a strand of hair out of my face. “I think for a minute there, after... after I thought I wouldn’t see you again, I felt this almost reprieve that I could let the bubble go. But I can’t do that, can I? Fred, Natalie, the others in the office… they rely on me as much as I rely on them.”
Matthew shifted forward until we were toe to toe. “Why don’t you just slowly expand your bubble?”
“How?”
“You could let me in.”
I met his gaze. Possibility whirled around us. All I had to do was reach for it and grab it.
“I have let you in. But this is all new. I’ve never dated anyone before, other than Paul. I have no idea how this all works.”
“Ronnie.” He kissed me lightly on the lips. “Me neither. But I’ve dreamt of you and I’m not going to let fear of the unknown ruin this.”
“So, we go from one day not ever seeing each other, to the next one hundred percent full throttle?”
He shrugged. “As I said, this is all new. Let’s make it what we want it to be.”
“You make it sound easy.”
“Who says it has to be hard?”
“You haven’t met my mother yet... not properly... or Hannah.”
“Okay. You make some tea; everything is over there. I’m going to go and book your return.”
“Okay.”
We hesitated over a long searing kiss that made my toes scrunch into tight balls.
“Okay.” He grinned, eyes shining. “I’m in your bubble.”
I laughed and my chest lightened. “My bubble is growing.”
Mother and Daughter
Ronnie
“So, are you officially dating?” Hannah ripped a bagel into shreds and scattered them onto her plate.
“You actually have to eat some of that, you know? It doesn’t magically transport into your stomach.” I cast a critical eye over her. She’d seemed better the last couple of weeks—a little less stompy and Godzilla like—but I didn’t trust it. No, I didn’t trust it at all.
“And you can’t avoid questions.” She shot me a look so disparaging, she could only have learnt it from my mother.
“Maybe I can avoid them if they are questions you aren’t supposed to ask. I’m the grown-up remember?”
Her eye roll said it all.
“So do I get to meet him?”
“Who?” My voice wobbled, squeaking and then deepening until I sounded like a teenage boy on the cusp of dropping his balls.
“Oh, Mum. Give it up. You chased him down the street, got stuck on a train to Scotland, and since you got home your face has been varying shades of what Annabelle calls, ‘I soooo like him' red."
“You’re thirteen. You girls aren’t supposed to be talking about boys. Or… Liking. Anyone. Ever.”
She smirked. “This is tactical avoidance. We learned about it in PHSE.”
“In what? What's PHSE?”
“Anyway. So, Mr Scotland…”
“You mean Matthew?”
“Oooh,” she made a kissing noise, “Matthew.”
It wasn’t so much I didn’t want to talk about him, because I did, obsessively forever. I could talk about, dream about, fantasize about that man until the earth stopped turning. But at the same time, I didn’t want to freak her out.
Cool, calm, and collected. That’s what I needed to be right now. I was the grown up. I could control this situation.
“What about him?” I couldn’t help it. My heart flapped inside my ribcage at the mere mention of his name, and a red-hot rash spread up my throat and along my face, prickling my skin a shade of deep red. I could see myself in the stainless-steel splashback of the cooker—I’d morphed into a five-foot beetroot. Clearing my throat, I flicked a glance at the clock and then shivered all over when I knew he’d call soon.
Why was Scotland so far away? It wasn’t fair. We’d wasted so much time being angry with each other last week when he rented the apartment around the corner. I could have been strolling around there now, knocking on the door, asking to be let in…
Hannah coughed loudly. “Earth to Mother.”
“Sorry.” I shook my head to clear my spiralling thoughts.
“Welllllll?” She rolled her hand with her consonant. “You haven’t said anything since you got home. What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” Come on Ronnie. You can style this one out.
“So are you dating?”
“I don’t know.” Total truth. “We didn’t really talk about it.” Or actually very much at all—I don’t need to tell her that though.
“Tell me what happened and then I can help you decide.” She tucked her legs up onto the kitchen chair and settled with her arms hooked over her knees.
My face burned far beyond ‘I so like him' red. “Uh. We talked.” If talking is done without words and using lips and hands as the main source of communication.
“About what? Did you tell him you loved him?”
Ooh, tricky one to answer. “I think so.” I pulled at the neckline of my jumper, my skin sizzling under the polyester. Words were said, and not said. The clash of our teeth echoed in my head and I cleared my throat.
Hannah’s eyes narrowed into slits and I knew our short time of conversing was about to blow. “So you aren’t going to tell me anything?”
“It’s not that I don’t want to tell you, it’s that I don’t have any answers. We talked. I told him,” My cheeks became nuclear, “that I liked him.” Her eyes narrowed to nothing more than a cat’s gaze in bright sunlight. “But he lives in Scotland, and he has two children. We’ve lived a whole lot of life without one another, and I don’t know what happens with that.”
Hannah sat up a little straighter, her eyelashes widening. “Children?”
“Uh.” God, this was a messed-up situation. I’d just declared undying love to a man my daughter hadn’t even met—officially.
My heart squeezed in my chest and try as I might I couldn’t ignore the fact Matthew and I might have gone about this all wrong. Everything about us had always been wrong, but we’d just levelled up into a new game called Wing It.
“Yeah.” I tried to sound nonchalant about the fact there stood a good chance I fully inten
ded to give Hannah two ready-made, Scottish stepbrothers. “Jack and Ewan. They seem cute.”
Her gaze narrowed again. “And how old are they?”
I winced. “Six and eight.” I rushed the words, saying them quicker so they wouldn’t come as such a shock—everyone knows this doesn’t work. Still, it’s always worth a try.
“Hmm.” She sucked her teeth for a minute. “Better than a disgusting smelly older boy.”
“That’s very true.” I nodded, eager to carry on with the positives. Any positives.
“And not a baby.” She pulled a face, turning her lips at the corners and making a gagging noise. “Ewww. You aren’t going to have a baby, are you?”
“Ewww, why are you even saying that? Babies aren’t my forte.”
“Oh, thank you,” she retorted.
“And anyway, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Matthew and I haven’t even had a date yet.”
The thought struck like thunder from up high. We hadn’t even had a date yet. Hannah watched me, a smile playing on her lips. “Nonna said you would rush in headfirst.”
Her barb pulled me back from my helter-skelter of panic. “Where is Nonna with her font of never-ending wisdom?”
“She’s gone to bingo.”
“Don’t be silly. Where is she really?” I stepped for the hallway and hollered up the stairs. “Maaaaaaaa.”
“No really, she’s at bingo. She said, and I quote, ‘Who knows when your mother will be back from her gallivanting. I need to go to bingo and meet Marge’.”
I walked back to the kitchen table. “Who’s Marge?” I really needed to talk to Ma about her crazy idea of moving out. Her new friends probably needed to be vetted as well. My mother seemed determined to take my criticism regarding her sheltered existence to heart and now planned to sell the house from under us.
That was not what I intended.
Hannah gave her obligatory slump of her shoulders. “I don’t know. Some poor woman at the old people's home, I’m guessing.” She switched the conversation's direction, taking me unawares. “Are we going to talk about Ange?”
My stomach dropped. Angela. Her betrayal in our friendship stung like a sting from a killer bee. I kept trying to shove it from my mind, but it gnawed at the edges with the determination of a dog with a new bone. She’d lied. Maybe wilfully kept Matthew and I apart… How the hell did we move on from that? I shook my head at Hannah. “I don’t want to talk about Ange. Let’s talk about babies instead.”
“Mum, this is important. She was devastated when you left Friday night, and she is my godmother; you can’t just ignore her.”
Ah! The godmother card.
My face scrunched into folds of dismay. “Yeah, Hannah, she was devastated,” I emphasised the word, “because she knows she’s done some really crappy things.”
“But we all make mistakes though. You told me you did with this Matthew guy.”
I opened my mouth to tell her that Matthew wasn’t just some Matthew guy. He was the guy, the only one in all of existence. That when God created the Garden of Eden and allowed Adam to walk under the trees, what he was putting in place was a prototype for Matthew Carling.
But of course, to Hannah, Matthew was just some guy. A man who turned up just over a week ago and turned our small world upside down.
Still, a week-and-a-half ago, Hannah and I wouldn’t have been talking. She’d have been in her room and I would have been downstairs cursing my pathetic life.
Things had changed.
“Ange lied, Hannah. Lying is never good.”
“But, Mum, she looked so lonely and lost.”
That ping flicked my chest again. “I’ll call her.” Next week. “Now. Have you got homework to do?”
“No, Annabelle and I did it yesterday while you were gallivanting.” She smirked a smile. Let it be known it leant heavily towards a smirk, but not enough that I could tell her off.
“Okay. It’s late, and I’m knackered. Shall we call it a night and we can talk more tomorrow if you like?”
“Is this where you try to tell me that life isn’t going to change and I don’t need to worry about it?”
“Yes. Exactly.”
“It’s okay, Mum. Zoe’s mum got a new boyfriend. I know what happens.”
“What happens?” I asked her, hands on my hips.
I could really do with someone telling me.
“First you lose loads of weight and you employ a babysitter on a full-time basis. Then once you are super skinny despite going out to eat all the time, you’ll bring this Matthew guy home and move him in and expect us to be a happy family forever.”
“Well that’s not true. I’d never force it on you.” I paused. “How skinny exactly?”
A sly smile slipped over her face. “Night, Mum.” She got up and came close and I realised a beat too late she wanted a hug.
“Oh.” I oophed the word as I squeezed her in my arms.
“I missed you.”
“I missed you too.” With my hands on her shoulders I pushed her back so I could maintain eye contact. “I promise you, Hannah. I’m not rushing anything. You can ask however many questions you want, ask anything you like. If you aren’t sure or comfortable then we stop and talk it through, okay?”
“You’re happy though, right?”
My soul flickered within me, dancing to its own tune, a Scottish reel. “Yeah. I think so. I never thought this would happen.”
“Then I’m happy. It will all work out.”
“It will.” I meant it. One hundred percent.
“Night, Mum.”
I watched her up the stairs and then debated whether to wait up to speak to Ma. I should tell her where I’d been, should find out what she was going on about when she said she was moving to a place with a wet room.
Discussions definitely needed to take place.
Then my phone rang, and I dove for my handbag, grabbing it out from the bottom with a little boom in my heart as Matthew’s face flashed on the screen with an incoming Messenger call.
“Hi,” I gushed.
“You made it home okay?”
I unravelled at the major and minors. “Yes, yes.” God, I sounded like I’d run a marathon smoking a packet of Marlborough Lights. “Yeah, sorry, I was just talking to Hannah.”
“Not your mother then?” His Scottish drawl made my insides steam until I pulled at the collar of my jumper again.
“She’s at bingo.”
“That’s convenient.”
“I’m worried about her.”
“She’s a grown woman.” I walked up the stairs to my room and kicked at the door, dragging my bag behind me. Matthew’s face had been guarded when I’d reclaimed ownership of my clothes in his shrine drawer. Even the thought of him folding my clothes in those big hands of his, in the hope I would come back, did strange pitter patter things to my heart.
This ride we were on was running at full pelt and liable to give me whiplash. It couldn’t possibly have just been days since he’d come back. Since I’d found him again.
I fell backwards onto my mattress, focusing on the seventies style swirls on the ceiling. “This is different isn’t it?”
“What is?”
“Talking.”
There was a pause and a rustling round. “I think we are past talking.”
“Mm.”
“Spit it out.” He chuckled low and my ovaries twinged.
“Well. Hannah just said something.”
“Uh, huh?”
“We haven’t been on a date have we, Matthew? I mean, there we were standing on a train and declaring our undying love, and we haven’t even been to the cinema together.”
“Ah! That’s not true. We went to the cinema in the second year at uni.”
I sat up against the headboard trawling through my memories of 2004. “Did we?”
“Yes, I remember. You kept dropping popcorn down your top and I think you thought I didn’t see you fishing it out.”
The memory heaved
its way back into my grey matter. “I’d forgotten,” I said. How could I have forgotten that? In the dark… the atmosphere tense… me just wishing he’d kiss me… which he never did until a week ago.
And kiss me he did. In a way that made it quite clear I’d always been doing it completely wrong.
“You had your hands down your bra and I had such a hard-on I thought my zip was going to bust.”
I burst out a laugh. “That’s dirty.”
“I can be very dirty.”
“Mm.” I replicated Hannah's slanted glare at the ceiling. “Is it wrong I hate the fact you might have been dirty with someone else? I know it’s stupid. I know you’ve been married and stuff, but…” Stuff is a wardrobe I’ve shut, locked, and pushed a chair against the handle in case things I don’t want to know come tumbling out.
“Ronnie. You’re over-thinking.”
He’s right. The claw of anxiety tightened up my throat.
A pause I didn’t want stretched between us. I wanted pauses and unsaid words to be a thing of the past.
“I realised Hannah didn’t know you had kids.”
“And?”
“She said so long as it wasn’t a baby she didn’t mind.”
“She’s got a point.”
“That’s exactly what I said.”
He chuckled and hearing him breathe down the line felt like true magic. Not an illusion or a dream; but rather that real magic lived inside me, giving me everything I’d ever wanted. I had a daughter who seemed to want to talk to me, and I had Matthew. Matthew, he was mine.
“So dating?” He let it dangle.
“Bit hard with four hundred miles between us.”
“Hard, but not impossible.”
The future stretched in front of us like a motorway to the unknown.
“I should get some sleep. I’ve got work tomorrow.”
“You should.”
Neither of us hung up.
“Do you know what Liam is planning?” I asked.
On Monday, the day I thought I’d lost everything. Liam, Matthew’s younger brother, had called me with the prospect of work. Prospects that could keep my team employed. Permanent security for my business dazzled its shiny gilded reward just within my reaching distance.