This Love

by Anna Bloom

  “Baby?” I pull Isaac into my arms and wrap him tight. The comfort blanket I can’t live without. “Go back to sleep, my love.”

  Isaac has crawled into my bed every night since the sides were taken off his cot bed. I know mums aren’t supposed to admit it. We are supposed to be stern, and use all that tough love — you must sleep in your own bed — bullshit. The truth is, I love my snuggles with my fair-haired wonder.

  I especially love the fact he always sleeps in when he wakes in my bed. None of that bouncing around, chanting, “Lets watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” as he karate kicks me in the head.

  Quickly, his breathing settles back into an even, heavy breath that lets me know he was probably just sleepwalking. Leaning back against my pillow I take a deep intake of air. I don’t know if it’s the wine, or the conversation with Danni, but that dream felt so real, being dragged from it feels like being ripped out of the womb and delivered straight into a sterile theatre room.

  I stare up at the dark ceiling, the glow from the street lamps outside casting shapes along the ceiling. The hours in the dark are my personal nemesis. Those moments where I wonder what I have done, the path I have been on, and what in hell I am going to do. I made some big decisions ten years ago, decisions I based on entirely selfish reasoning. I know it’s not going to take long for those selfish choices to come out into the open. Then I will no longer just be living under my own judgment, but that of everyone else as well.

  Being in this town is making it all the more painful. The realistic dream, plus the flush of memories which have waved over me every moment since my return, makes this dark moment feel like it might not end.

  Freddy Bale.

  All my adult life I’ve run from the memories of him. How it was before his racing accident, the days in the hospital afterwards. How I lived and breathed him, how for those few hours in the hospital that cold January day, I thought he’d died and how my heart felt like it was going to cave with the pressure of the moment.

  Groaning, I sit back up in bed and stare around me. The shape of my old bedroom furniture looms back at me. Nothing’s changed in the room since I’ve left. Not that it’s been left as a shrine either; I had to shift a fair few boxes of junk yesterday to make room for us. But the bare basics of furniture, curtains, and carpet are all the same ones I thought made me look like a sophisticated grown up when I was a teenager. I now realise they made me look like a colour blind psychotic. The only things missing are the pictures of Freddy that used to brighten the room. I’m guessing they were trashed after I left.

  Unable to resist, I get up and head to the old built in wardrobe. Shoved in the furthest corner of the top shelf is a shoebox labeled ‘Keep Sakes.’ Grabbing the box and dodging a cascade of dust and cobwebs I lower it into the safety of my arms and move to the window. I pull back the curtain and allow the streetlight to stream in and illuminate the contents buried so long ago from prying eyes. There in the corner is the ‘Keep Sake’ I’m looking for. Shining dimly in the light is the tarnished silver locket Freddy gave me for my eighteenth birthday. I rub my thumb over the engraved front and a smear of the tarnish transfers itself onto my hand. The locket still weighs heavy in my hand. I used to think it was because it meant so much to me, that’s why I could feel it more than an average locket. Now I realise it’s because it’s old and heavy. Simple as that.

  I know inside there will be a picture I don’t want to look at. Me: younger, prettier, happier. Freddy, just being Freddy. Not the man who turned up hours ago on my doorstep, looking like a boy I used to know but who was really a stranger.

  All the uncertainty of the last couple of weeks hangs heavy over my heart and just for one split second I hesitate over the choice I made all those years ago. It was selfish, but I have to keep telling myself it was the right choice to make.

  I walk back to the bed, the locket dangling from the chain. As I tuck myself back in, I wrap the chain loosely around my fingers so the locket is securely held in the centre of my hand. Then I finally fall asleep and dream of Freddy Bale all over again.

  * * *

  “Mum?”

  “No Ninja Turtles.”

  Isaac pokes me hard. “I haven’t watched TMNT since I was six.”

  “That long? It seems like yesterday.”

  “What’s this?” I still have my eyes firmly shut but I feel him turn my hands and tug at the locket still weaved around my fingers.

  “Just an old necklace,” I say, hoping he will drop it.

  “Who gave it to you?”

  “Isaac, I don’t even have my eyes open, do we have to do that question thing?” He peels one of my eyes open and I roll away from his fingers.

  “Can I give it to someone one day?”

  My hormones must be doing something crazy because his words make tears sting in my eyes. “Maybe.” But what I mean is, maybe not, because in all truth, I think I have to give it back to the person who gave it to me.

  “Mum?”

  “Yes?”

  Isaac sits crossed legged, tapping his knees with his hands, and looks at me through his fringe. "Am I seeing dad this weekend?”

  He’s not your dad. I bite my tongue. I know I can’t say that, it would break every parenting rule ever created. I mean, Isaac knows Elliot — my ex — isn’t his real dad, but I guess in his little world, Elliot is the closest thing he’s ever had.

  It’s a shame I can’t get it to work. Try as I have, I just can’t. There is something fundamentally wrong. I can’t get my heart to behave and do what it should. Love the nice man who dotes on you and your son. My heart doesn’t want that.

  “Weekend after, baby. We’ve got to get you ready for school.” Isaac’s face clouds with my words. I don’t blame him, I wouldn’t be looking forward to starting a new school in year five. “It’s a nice school, I promise.”

  Frowning, he keeps his words to himself and concentrates on doodling along the pattern of the bed linen.

  “And, you’ll see your dad next week. Okay?” I tilt his chin up so his eyes meet mine.

  “Okay, can I ask another question?” Isaac tucks his feet up underneath him.

  “Sure.”

  “Nanny’s pretty sick isn’t she?”

  I pick up Isaacs hand in mine, it’s nearly as big. My baby isn’t a baby anymore. The thought makes my heart pang with an engulfing flood of emotions. Regret, sadness, joy. All of these things at once.

  “Yeah, she is. “

  “She’s crazy isn’t she?”

  “That obvious?”

  “Yesterday she thought you were young again and talked about a boy.”

  “Yeah, she just got confused that’s all, this illness makes her confused a lot of the time.”

  Isaac grins. “Yesterday, she thought I was Meals on Wheels.”

  “You too? I thought it was just me!”

  “She asked that man, too, the one who came while you were in the garden with your friend.”

  “What man?”

  “I don’t know,” he shrugs. “Some man, nan asked if he was meals on wheels, when he said no, she stared at him a bit closer and then started shouting at him, telling him to go away and leave his daughter alone before he ruined her life.” He shakes his head at the craziness of it all. I can barely get my lungs to work.

  Did Freddy come back after I slammed the door in his face?”

  “Next time that happens, honey, you have to come and get me. Nanny shouldn’t be opening doors to people, she could let anyone in.”

  “That’s what I thought, that’s why I followed her.”

  He looks at me proudly. “Well done, very grown up of you, Isaac.” There is nothing a nine year old boy likes more than thinking he is a grown up.

  “Do we have to stay until she gets better?”

  I scrunch my face at this. “I don’t know.”

  “Do we have to stay until she dies?”

  “Isaac!” I can’t really blame him for thinking it, though. “Why?”

&n
bsp; “Because I want to go home.”

  “Can’t this be your home?”

  He shakes his head firmly. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “How about we give it a year, you and me, see how we feel by the end of a year?”

  Isaac looks torn. I guess a year is a long time to a nine-year old. “Do I have to?”

  “Yes.” I give the firm parental nod that all the parenting books say puts me in charge and hold my hand out so we can shake on my plan.

  “Can I call her Crazy Nanny Barb?”

  I think about it for a moment. “Sure, but don’t call it to her face.”

  Isaac jumps of the bed. “Okay.”

  As he leaves the room, I sit on the bed and smile at my son that’s got so big and sensible. Crazy Nanny Barb. I like that. Wish I’d thought of it.

  TOWN

  We’ve been back one whole week. It’s making the year look like an infinite eternity. Isaac starts school on Monday the first day of the Autumn term and he’s as nervous as hell. Even I’m nervous, worried sick he’s not going to get on, won’t make any friends, will be behind, or that all the other mums won’t talk to me. It can’t be all about him.

  I’m rushing around town getting all the supplies we need. It’s very last minute, but I’ve barely had a moment to myself all week. I don’t know how mum was surviving before we got back. It’s a full time occupation, trying to make sure she’s not wandering down the street in her nightie or setting fire to baked beans — both things have happened in the last few days.

  Dani has been around, helping where she can. I had an uncomfortable moment where I had to wave at Grant Bale who was sat down the end of the drive in his car. “Come and talk to him,” she prompted. Hell no!

  I haven’t had any other visitors. The locket which keeps finding its way into my hand every night feels heavier and heavier with every passing day, like it’s reminding me I need to grow a pair and return the damn thing.

  The one thing I do want to do in town, is get some paint for Isaac’s room. He’s now refusing to sleep in there at all. He says it’s a granny room and freaks him out. I can’t really blame him.

  My mum isn’t even that old, young by some standards but the early Alzheimer’s has aged her far beyond her years.

  I steer my way into the small DIY shop. It’s one of those places where all the stock is covered in dust and precariously balanced, cramming as much onto the shelves as possible.

  I work my way around to the paints and gaze blankly at the selection. Now it comes to it, I’m not sure what colour a nine year old would like.

  Finally, I settle for a moss coloured green and some brilliant white. I’m attempting to carry four big tins to the counter when someone grabs one out of my hands. I glance to the left to say thank you but the words die in my throat. It’s him.

  Shit, he still looks beautiful.

  Truly beautiful.

  Hair slightly darker than I remember but still very fair, wide mouth, always quick to grin, and the ocean blue eyes which were created to drown in.

  “Mrs. Williamson.” He nods in greeting and my heart gives three almighty pumps and then possibly stops working. My knees start to knock together, my limbs as awkward as a puppet on a string. Nerves run through my system, making my body feel like it’s shutting down.

  “Bleugh.” Apparently my standard tongue-tied response hasn’t improved in ten years. Actually, I can’t remember being tongue-tied in the last ten years. Well apart from that moment where I struggled to say “I do,” and sounded it out like a five year old practising their phonics.

  “I d-o-o,” should have been the first sign.

  “Painting?” he asks, hoisting the tins onto the counter.

  “Nope, I needed some door-stops.”

  A small twitch lifts the left side of his mouth, just the smallest movement, but I see it all the same.

  “Want some help getting them to your car?”

  “Uh.” My mouth flaps about. “Uh.” The car is parked right down the other end of the High Street.

  Freddy leans back and folds his arms across his chest, waiting for me to answer. By the look on his face, I’d guess he remembers that sometimes I find situations like this particularly challenging.

  ‘Yes,” I blurt, eventually, just to stop him staring at me that way. His eyes are a challenge, I’m trying not to look in them, I know if I do it will make it harder. Painfully harder. “Thank you.”

  Freddy moves himself out of the way, leaning his long legs against the counter while I struggle to pay. And when I say struggle, what I mean is that my fingers won’t work and my hands are shaking.

  Finally we are ready to leave the shop, but only after a mortifying ten minute process where by I firstly can’t get my damn bank card out of my purse with my useless fingers, and then secondly my mind goes completely blank and I can’t remember my pin number. The whole time he watches me with an amused look on his face.

  He follows me out into the sunlit street, and the warm air smacks me straight in the face, making my top lip sweat. My hands are busy holding a can of paint so I just have to walk on with it glistening there. I trail my way to the car, his legs matching my short stubbies, just like he never stopped trying to slow his pace to mine.

  He doesn’t say a word.

  Neither do I.

  By the time we’ve reached the car park, the atmosphere between us is so heavy a summer storm could erupt over our heads and drench us to our skin. I walk, my legs numb and heavy towards my beat up Citroen.

  If I’m expecting him to say something about the dire condition of my car, he doesn’t. I wonder if he remembers we first met because I owned a shit car and it died right outside his garage. Back in the days of car grease and living on lust. My eyes rove over him, searching for any sign of grease, there isn’t any. Just a navy T-shirt and some stone coloured shorts, flip-flops gracing his feet. This is an interesting and —lets be honest— arresting sight. I never got to see Freddy in shorts and flip flops when we were together because he was in hospital the duration of the summer before I left. He can carry it off, there is no doubt about that.

  His lips twitch again but he doesn’t comment on my greedy appraisal. Anyone would think I’ve been living on a planet void of men for ten years.

  When I’ve wrestled the cans into the car, his strong arms helping to swing them up, I turn to speak. I feel this is the moment to break my ten-year vow of silence, say something, anything. I could even tell him my name isn’t really Amber Williamson — well it won’t be much longer. I could tell him the huge decision I made ten years ago, which stopped me coming back. But the look on his face stops any words I have to say. The ocean blues search me like they are trying to find something there, a look of sadness seeps into the new lines around his mouth and the scattering of crinkles which surround his eyes.

  If I could just run my fingers along them, I feel like that would be conversation enough.

  My chest gets that terrible tightening again, I haven’t felt it in so long I’ve almost forgotten how it felt to have someone steal the air out of your lungs.

  “Bye, Amber.” The ocean blues flash and he turns and paces away, much quicker than how we walked here in silence.

  “Bye,” I call back. “Thank you.”

  He doesn’t respond, nor does he turn and look at me again, even though I’m rooted to the spot until he is out of sight.

  Later, I’m restless, Isaac is still out with Elliot, mum is dozing in her chair and I’m sat in front of my laptop drumming a biro against the screen.

  Writing stories came easy — it does come easy I should say. Love stories, all bitter and twisted. Stories with no happy endings. Apart from right now I’m drawing a blank. I’m on my second very large glass of wine when my phone beeps and I eagerly grab at it, desperate for a distraction of any kind.

  How was town? Danni writes. Like she doesn’t bloody know how town was. I feel a little pang of jealousy at the seeming closeness that’s developed between my
old best friend and the boy she once didn’t like, didn’t want me to waste a future on.

  Uneventful. I return.

  Good :)

  What does that mean?

  I decide not to reply, I pour myself another brimming glass of wine instead and peer mournfully at the bottle when I notice I’ve drunk it all in forty minutes.

  A glance at the wall clock tells me it’s eight, I think this day may never end.

  Grabbing my wine, I jump from my seat and start to pace the kitchen, I feel caged in, trapped. My skin is itching, my legs feel all weird, and generally I feel I would be much happier if my son was here with me where he should be.

  Bloody Elliot, I told him to have him home by eight. I know he’s come a long way, but still.

  Half an hour later I hear giggling at the door and rush to swing it open. Isaac bounds in, full of beans, a wide smile spread from ear to ear. “We went to a castle, Mum, it was awesome.”

  “Mm, awesome, I’m sure.” I sigh with a smile, my mind already relaxing with his return. I look up at Elliot standing just outside the door. He looks just like the cute guy who I should have kept as a friend and never married. Glasses and a typically trendy outfit in place, he’s the exact opposite of the man who helped me carry paint to the car today. Stop thinking about him.

  My Freddy thoughts have been officially out of control today, and way over my allocated three.

  “How was he?” I ask, not offering to invite him in.

  “Nervous, you know, he’s worried about school.” Elliot leans against the door, more than aware he’s not being allowed to come in.

  “He’s not the only one!” I laugh before quickly sobering up. “Listen, thanks for today, I know you won’t be able to do it often.”

  Elliot straightens up. “Listen, Amber, I know you and I have problems but Isaac still feels as much mine as ever. I will see him every other weekend.”

  “What? Every other weekend? That’s too much!” It’s too much for me, it’s felt horrible here today without my son.