“It’s okay, Carl. You were right. And I probably wouldn’t have brought him back if I’d thought I could get away with it.” He smiles sadly and then presses a small bottle of pills into my hand.
“Please, take them. They’re mild antidepressants, they’ll help.” He nods encouragingly, “and I would like to offer you counselling. No charge, obviously.” He attempts a joke, and I thank him before I turn around and head for the car.
“Paige, I can get somebody to drive you,” he calls, but I shake my head and I wave away his offer.
I have only taken a few steps when I feel something inside of me cave in; the pillar of strength that I have been hanging onto finally falls away and my soul seems to shear in half, in a blinding, torturous moment of pain so bad that I realise that this is truly something I will not come back from. The world is empty without Adam; a cold, barren, wasteland that I want no part of. I will not live in a world where love does not exist. I refuse. Promise or no promise; this is my choice, nobody else’s.
Chapter 35
I don’t know how I make it to my mother’s house but I find myself parked in the driveway, my face wet with tears.
“Paige!” My mother’s squawk rouses me from my reverie and I turn as she yanks open the door, her face appearing a moment later, panic etched all over it. “Paige! Honey! What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“I didn’t know where else to go,” is all I can manage before the blackness that has been threatening to overcome me finally wins, the darkness engulfs me and everything mercifully turns to black.
When I come to I am lying in my old bed surrounded by memories of my childhood. For some reason, it only strikes me now, that although my mother converted my step-sisters' rooms at the first chance she got, she has not changed a thing in my own bedroom. Even my faded Paula Abdul poster is still stuck on the far wall and the pink dream-catcher is still hanging from the ceiling. Before I have a chance to ponder what this means, the door opens and my mother bustles in, a tray of tea and biscuits in her hands.
“Oh good, you’re up!” she announces before placing the tray on the bedside table next to my old clock radio.
She sits down awkwardly on the edge of the bed, smelling of White Linen and slightly of cigarettes. I smile; I bet the stress has her puffing away like crazy. I start to giggle and then find that I cannot stop. Soon, tears are streaming down my cheeks and my mother, looking suddenly afraid and regarding me with all the concern one would a psychiatric patient, only serves to fuel my laughter. I laugh out loud, long and hard, clutching my sides, a stitch forming in my stomach. Slowly the laughter gives way to tears and great choking sobs wrack my body. I gag suddenly and my mother reaches for the plastic dustbin under my desk, bringing it to my mouth just in time. I heave, throwing up what little I have in my stomach.
“There, there,” my mother rubs my back as I vomit again and again until there is nothing left and I am gagging and spitting up nothing but bile. She rises, taking the soiled bin with her and returns a moment later with a warm facecloth which she uses to wipe my face and neck. I feel so cold and my body is shivering. She helps me to sit up, propping me up with pillows behind me and then pulls my duvet over me, adding my old crocheted blanket for good measure.
“Now,” she hands me a steaming mug of tea, “get this down Paige, you’ll feel better,” she orders and I smile, thinking how often I have used tea as a remedy for any bad situation. I take a small sip, grateful to be rid of the terrible taste in my mouth. My mother hands me a ginger biscuit and I nibble on it, my thoughts a whirl of confusion in my head.
“Paige,” she sounds so worried that I finally meet her gaze, surprised at the raw emotion on her face. “What's going on love?” she asks gently and hesitantly, as though unsure of her reception, and I realise for the first time in my life, that the distance between us may not have been entirely her fault.
“I can’t...” I whisper, not knowing how to tell her the story, where to even start.
“You can,” she instructs, her tone leaving no room for argument, “you can and you will.”
Once I start I cannot stop and the whole story pours out of me, hurting me over and over again as if I am being tortured by a relentless agony that will never cease. My mother does not interrupt me except to yell at Frank to “get out” when he unwittingly sticks his head around the door to check how I am doing. Reminding me of a lioness protecting her cub, my mother sits still by my side, her hand on my leg, the only sign of any emotion on her part being the supportive squeezing of my thigh whenever the story becomes too much for me to bear. This, and her unflappable, steadfast determination gives me the strength to finish. Exhausted with so much emotional unveiling I flop back onto the pillows closing my eyes. I feel like I could sleep forever.
There is silence for the longest time, then I hear her take a deep breath and I mentally prepare myself for what must be coming.
“Some things are not meant to be, Paige,” she begins, “trust me, I know. Look at me and your father.” I jerk my head up in shock; my mother avoids speaking of my dad at all costs and for her to voluntarily bring him up is very surprising.
“It’s different, Mom,” I insist. “I love him. I loved him,” I correct and my voice breaks. I take a moment to compose myself. “I loved him so much.”
“Do you think I didn’t love your father?” she asks and I frown, sniffing loudly. “Of course you do,” she answers her own question, shaking her head sadly from side to side. “Paige, you judge me so harshly. I know you’ve always held this against me. I know how much you loved him. He was an amazing man. I loved him too; once.” She is right, I realise. I have always held it against her. I know how devastated he was when she left him and how he never got over her. Even at the height of his disease he always remembered her, even more than me. Maybe I was jealous of that and for the first time I feel ashamed that I gave her so little chance. I cast my eyes down to the floor but she notices immediately.
“Look at me sweetheart,” she murmurs, and I slowly raise my eyes to hers.
“I did love your father and he gave me the greatest gift of my life. He gave me you,” she inclines her head towards me and she sounds so sincere that I find that I am smiling, even as the tears are welling in my eyes. “I fell out of love, Paige,” she shrugs helplessly, and now I see that real tears are glistening in her own eyes and she bites her cheek, trying to curb her emotions. This is a side of my mother I have never seen. “I didn’t want to; I tried to see things through but I couldn’t live a lie.” She takes a deep breath.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, in a small voice. Maybe if she had been honest with me I would have seen things differently, our relationship could have been so different.
“Would you have listened?” she asks, a sad smile on her face. “You loved him so very, very much, and you needed someone to blame,” she shrugs her shoulders and I want to cry even more, at her selflessness.
“I couldn’t live a lie,” she continues, “just like you couldn’t, Paigey.”
She is right. I couldn’t live with Adam knowing it was a lie; knowing that it wasn’t the truth and that the fairy tale was not who he was meant to be, not who we were meant to be. I had to do the right thing. I had to let him go; for him, as well as for myself. I see my mother through new eyes and for the first time I realise that perhaps we are not so different after all. Perhaps my strength is not solely the legacy of my father. I bite my lip trying to hold back my own tears and I nod my head, trying to convey that I finally understand.
“I’m sorry, mom,” I whisper. I'm sorry that I've judged her so harshly. She's silly and she's fickle, but her heart is beautiful and she has always wanted what is best for me.
“Paige,” my mother’s voice is more gentle than I have ever heard and, as her arms come around me, the dam that I've been trying so hard to keep up bursts. “Some things just aren’t meant to be, my angel; no matter how badly you want them to be.” I close my eyes and sob into her shoulder, cling
ing to her silk shirt and drenching it in my tears.
“I don’t want you to do anything stupid,” she continues, and I know exactly what she is referring to. She has seen me broken before and that was nowhere near as bad as this. “Promise me you won’t do anything reckless,” she adds, and I wish she didn’t look so earnest, so sincere. I cannot make any promises yet. I don’t know how this story is going to end. Right now I cannot comprehend living; living without Adam. How will I go on? What will I become? I don't have the answers and I am far too tired to try and figure it all out.
I close my eyes and lie back letting my mother’s presence soothe me and, as I cross the line between the real world and the land of dreams, Adam’s face swims in my vision, my favourite smile lighting up his handsome face. He looks exactly as I remember him and he is holding a boring, black umbrella.
“You didn’t really think I would be gone for good, did you?” he asks chuckling.
The following morning I wake up almost wishing I hadn’t. An empty, barren life stretches before me and I want nothing to do with it. Just as I am about to curl up on my side and go back to sleep there is a sharp rapping and Frank’s head pops around my bedroom door.
“Your mum sent me to wake you Paige, breakfast is ready,” he winks and I nod in acknowledgement.
I drag myself out of bed, wrapping my blanket around my shoulders and, pulling on my old purple slippers with the pom-poms on the front, I head downstairs.
Frank is reading the morning newspaper in the kitchen and mom is nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s she?” I yawn, taking in the broken eggshells and assortment of bacon, mushrooms and chopped tomatoes littering the kitchen table.
“Sneaking a puff,” he doesn’t look up from the paper, but points over his shoulder to where my mother's shadow is clearly visible behind the sheets hanging on the washing-line, smoke billowing over the line and its contents. A giggle escapes me and Frank glances up, regarding me over the paper.
“You gonna be okay?”
“I don’t know,” I take a piece of bacon from the plate, nibbling it while I wait. Frank nods and folds the paper tossing it onto the sofa behind him.
“Eat up, she’s really gone to town.”
I start loading my plate, watching my mother who is now taking down the washing.
“She loves you, you know,” Frank interrupts my reverie. “Do you know what she said to me when we were dating?” I shake my head. “She said, ‘Love me, love my child'. She said that if I wanted to marry her I had better be prepared to love you like my own. Surprised?” he asks; my confusion obvious. I had always thought mom married Frank for his money and security and that my wellbeing had not come into the equation.
“A little bit,” I admit and Frank smiles fondly.
“Luckily Paige, you were a very easy child to love; I didn’t need any prompting.”
“You've been amazing, Frank, I couldn’t have asked for a better father figure.”
“Do you know why she never visited your father?”
“No,” I answer truthfully. I have always believed that my mom couldn’t be bothered but now I'm not so sure. I'm not sure if I really know her at all.
“She couldn’t take it,” Frank explains, “she would get ready to go and then she would collapse, crying. It broke her heart to see him like that. It was easier for her to stay away.”
I finish my breakfast which is surprisingly delicious and do the washing up. The mindless chore at least gives me something to do. As soon as I'm finished I head straight back up to my room, burrowing under the covers and closing my eyes, although I know I will not be able to sleep. I lie for hours just staring at the ceiling still adorned with glow stars from my childhood. At lunch time it is my mom, not Frank, who pokes her head around the door.
“Lunch is ready.”
I repeat the same process for two days; heaving myself out of bed, wandering downstairs, eating something, washing dishes and climbing back upstairs and into bed. I am merely biding my time; this is no life, this is simply existence on a plain far removed from the beauty and excitement I had imagined my life would be; my life with Adam.
On the fourth day my mother's head appears around my door, a frown creasing her forehead.
“You have a visitor,” she announces. This is so unexpected that I sit bolt upright in my bed almost decapitating myself on the wooden headboard.
“Who is it?”
“See for yourself,” she instructs and then, just before she closes the door, “and for heaven's sake Paige brush your hair before you come downstairs, you look awful.”
Chapter 36
I swing my legs out of bed and shuffle into the bathroom. My mother is right, I look terrible. Dark circles ring my eyes from lack of sleep and my hair is sticking up at all angles. I pull on a pair of jeans and my yellow sweater which reminds me painfully of Adam, and I try, half-heartedly, to pull a comb through my tangled locks before I give up and scrape it back into a messy bun. I walk down the stairs without any real anticipation of who my visitor could be. No doubt it is Carl come to check if I am okay or maybe Jax. I wouldn’t put it past my mom to invite her around to try and cheer me up.
To my surprise when I enter the sitting-room it’s neither Jax nor Carl who stands to greet me.
“Hi, Paige,” Lizzy’s shy smile is the last thing I expected and I stand, temporarily speechless, before I scan the room, half-desperate, half-terrified of what I might find.
“He’s not here,” Lizzy assures me hastily, “he didn’t even want me to come, but I wanted to see you.”
“Why?” I slump down on the sofa clutching one of the gold scatter cushions to my chest and pulling idly at the tassels.
“To see if you're okay.”
I laugh at that; a forced, angry sound.
“I’m fine.”
“You really don't look fine,” she prompts timidly and I stop fiddling with the cushion to glare at her.
“How do you think I am, Lizzy?” She draws in a deep breath.
“I think you’re heartbroken. I think you’re wondering what reason you have to wake up in the morning. I think you hate me and you hate Simon.”
“Why are you here?” I ask again, wanting nothing more than to go back to bed.
“Because I know how you feel,” she says simply, and I open my mouth to yell at her, to tell her that she has no idea how I feel, no idea what it’s like to lose the thing you love most in the world and then I remember that she does.
“You didn’t really lose him,” I point out.
“I thought I had,” she counters immediately and we lapse into silence once more.
“How did you deal with it?” I ask eventually, my curiosity getting the better of me.
“A lot like this,” she gestures at me with one arm, “for a while. Then I realised that this would be the last thing he would want me to do.”
“Simon would probably want you to clean out the pantry,” I snap childishly but she ignores me, fixing me with her huge luminous blue eyes.
“What would Adam want you to do, Paige?”
“It doesn’t matter; he’s not here.” I wipe furiously at the tears that are welling in my eyes.
“Why do you love him?” I ask viciously. I have never been able to fathom what this wonderful girl sees in Simon. She smiles, seeming to know exactly what I am thinking.
“He’s warm, and kind, and he treats me like gold. I know what you must think, Paige. I’m sure you didn’t see him at his best. But imagine how you would have acted, if you were in his situation? If your life had been commandeered by someone else, and every time you came around, you were with people you didn’t know, doing things you didn’t want to do? Simon was like a puppet on a string.”
I am about to snap at her, to protect Adam and the accusation that he was the cause of Simon’s awful attitude, but the words die on my lips. I have never thought about it like this before. Jacob and Kyle didn’t have a life of their own to get back to, that’s why th
ey never really resisted, or disliked me. Simon knew better. He hated me for being a farce, an unwilling accomplice to Adam’s existence. He had a life to get back to, he had Lizzy. And he never waivered in his search for her.
Sensing the subtle shift in my mood, Lizzy changes the subject abruptly.
“Carl says that they may appear in time; the others. He says that as long as Simon stays in counselling it's unlikely but not impossible.”
I don’t react. I don’t want to think about it; it's Lizzy’s problem.
“What should I do if they come back?” she asks and I shrug.
“Ask Carl.”
“I’m asking you.”
“This isn’t going to work Lizzy. I know what you’re trying to do. I’m not going to play this game with you. Just leave, please.”
“I will if you answer the question,” she stands her ground and I sigh.
“Don’t get too close to Jacob; keep your distance. He doesn’t like to be touched. He’s like a little boy; he’s in a lot of pain and needs special handling. Ask him about Fergus. He’s Jacob’s dog,” I explain, in answer to her puzzled look.
“Just keep him calm, make him tea. He won’t stay long.” I can hear the compassion in my own words and I hate Lizzy for what she is doing.
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