This Love

by Anna Bloom

  “Amber, you need to listen to me.” He lowers his face until our noses are a hairsbreadth from touching.

  “What? I've got to go.” Why's he delaying me? I try and move away from his grasp but he holds firm. This is time wasting. Why isn’t the ambulance staff loading her into the ambulance?

  “Amber, they aren't taking her to the hospital.”

  I push him away, a sharp shove to the chest. “Don't be silly, Freddy, she's going to wake up soon and need help.”

  “Amber. Shit” His hands find me again, pulling me in tighter, ignoring my insistence to put space between us. “Amber, she's gone. They are going to take her to the morgue.”

  His words don't make any sense. I look at my sleeping mother on the trolley, she looks perfect, a slight grey tint on her skin from passing through the smoke, but other than that she's perfect.

  Reaching my hands for her, I slide them along her face, she's cool but it is cold out in the air. Gentle hands remove my own, entwining our fingers together, Freddy pulls me back as a member of the ambulance crew step forwards and zips up a black bag that I’ve failed to notice underneath her body. “I'm sorry, Miss.” He apologises as he ties my mum into a bag.

  “Mum!” A screech rips through me, tearing through the night air, higher and louder than any of the sirens.

  “Amber,” Freddy speaks into my ear, his arms holding me up as my legs give way beneath me and then exactly as it did eleven years ago when I watched someone else I loved pulled from flames, my eyesight starts to turn dark and lose all concept of what’s going on around me.

  BLACK

  I'm sat on Freddy's bed, allowing the darkness of the room to cloak my fears and swaddle my heavy heart in endless swathes of black. I've been in here for hours, it feels like hours, but then it might be days.

  No. It can't be days because Isaac isn't home yet.

  Isaac. What am I going to tell him?

  I can't feel anything, think anything, I'm just stuck in a void. All I can see is mum on that stretcher. There is nothing else to see apart from that. Every time the image floods into my brain, my legs start to jig and it becomes increasingly difficult to swallow, like my tongue is swollen and won't work again.

  Danni brought me home while Freddy remained behind to help answer questions. Questions possibly about how we went out to dinner and left a woman with severe unpredictable dementia by herself.

  Oh, God.

  This will be the one mistake that I won’t ever be able to forgive myself for.

  All these words just keep whirling around my head. Isaac. Mistake. Dinner. Isaac. Mistake. Dinner. Isaac. Mistake. Dinner.

  My home is burnt to the ground and my mother is dead. There is no making sense of that. We had such a good day today, once we'd got her dressed and out of her wellies. She knew who I was, how old I was, who Freddy was in the present. She'd even asked after the business and his dad, something that she'd never done before, even ten years ago when she was in her right mind.

  The door clicks softly and a triangle of light extends into the room as a tall shadow walks in. Freddy sits on the mattress, his shoulders slumping as he picks up my hand and holds it loosely in his. “How you doing, beautiful?”

  I don't have anything to say, because I don't know how I'm doing. I just continue to jig my leg up and down.

  Carefully, he leans forward and plants a soft kiss on my cheek. I don't lean into the comfort he's trying to provide. I have a dark feeling inside, gnawing at my conscience that I shouldn't be allowed comfort ever again.

  Freddy sits in silence at my side, his index finger tracing a pattern on my palm.

  “We shouldn't have left her alone, Freddy,” I mutter bitterly when the weight of the silence around us becomes too much. I yank my hand away from his tender touch and ball my hands into hard fists.

  “I know.” It's a simple but truthful response.

  “Some birthday, huh?”

  “Amber, I couldn't give a shit about my birthday, I care about you, and Isaac.”

  “Oh, God, Isaac.” The numbness edges out of my chest and a sharp panic takes its place. “Isaac's lost everything in that fire.”

  “Amber, material things can be replaced, Isaac will understand. It's you that's lost everything.”

  As quick as clouds rolling over the sun, my panic flares into anger. “What, a mum that resented me my whole life?”

  Freddy sighs and leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped tight at the knuckle. “Don't think like that now, you're hurt and angry at yourself, let’s get Isaac tomorrow and take this one step at a time.” His dark eyes turn and search for me but I don't want to be found.

  “Step where, Freddy? I don't have anywhere to go? I came here to look after mum, now she's gone and so is my home.”

  I have the clothes on my back, that's it, and a son who's currently with his fake dad. Oh, and my mum's dead.

  “Amber, you are staying here, both of you, you know I wouldn't let you go anywhere else.”

  I give a laugh and the twisted sound reverberates off the walls. “This isn't how it should be. We've been together for what, a month? You don't want me and my son here, a ready made family just moving in.” I laugh some more, delirium taking over. “I mean, you should have the chance to ask me to live with you, not just accept it as something that has to be, I don't want pity.”

  Freddy reaches for me, sliding a finger along the exposed skin of my arm. “This isn't you talking, Amber, it's your pain and your hurt. Isaac is my son, too, I’ll always provide everything that you need.”

  “I don’t want pity,” I mutter again bitterly.

  With a sigh, he gets up from the bed and despite my despair, I still want him to stay with me. I let him walk away, embracing the numbness that invades me.

  “Amber,” he calls softly from the door. “We may have only been dating a month, but I've been in love with you all my life, you'll realise that when it's time.”

  “Why?”

  Confusion flits across his face. “Why what?”

  “Why do you love me?”

  I feel like if I could understand this it would in some way lift the cloud obscuring my vision, preventing me from seeing him, us, clearly.

  A flicker of a small smile lifts the left corner of his mouth and he comes onto his knees in front of me, picking up my hand in his. He turns it, guiding his fingers along the lines of my palm. “Because of these.” His hand lifts to the curve of my cheek where four small moles create a diamond shape. “Because of these.” Next, his fingers graze along the arch of my eyebrow. “And this.”

  “What do you mean?” I want to lean into his touch but I hold myself back, keeping my darkened heart in control of my body.

  “Because for ten, very long years, I couldn’t forget the smallest bit of you. You’re mapped onto my soul.”

  “I don’t deserve that.” I think of the betraying secret I kept from him for ten years, the denial I tried to maintain when I came back to town. I think of me leaving my mum ten years ago, I think of the fact I ran away and never saw my dad properly again. The many wrongs I’ve done hammer along my ribcage building a permanent home in my heart.

  “Let it go, Amber.” He knows what I’m thinking about, how can he forgive me that easily?

  Tracing a feather soft brush of his index finger along the curve of my lip, he watches me for a long moment before the flicker of a smile hints again and he pushes away from me.

  “Where are you going?” I croak back, an intense void of loss and emptiness threatening to pull me under.

  "I'm going to get us a drink, because honestly, I feel like I need one. After that, I'm going to call Elliot, and then, Amber, I'm going to be right here waiting for you to let me in."

  The moment the door closes I go back to staring into the black depths of the room. Later, when Freddy comes back in, I have my back turned, my attention focused on the blank white wall. He stretches himself out alongside me, and the space between us feels like a va
st chasm that I can't cross. Finally, at some point in the night, I edge myself away from Freddy’s fully dressed, sleeping form, and make my way into the sitting area where I throw myself onto the sofa. Even laying next to Freddy feels like a guilty pleasure that I shouldn't be allowed right now.

  * * *

  We make the trip to London in silence. It's been a quiet morning, as we've got ready to go and collect Isaac. Normally, Elliot would make the drop off, but Freddy arranged otherwise. I'm sure he's trying to put some space between the tragedy of yesterday and me, but he can't. He can't take it out of my head.

  My mum is dead.

  I spent ten years ignoring her.

  I spent the eighteen years before that not understanding her.

  I still don't understand her.

  Now I never will.

  My legs starts to jig up and down again as these thoughts run through my head and my heart rate accelerates until I feel clammy and hot, and an over-spill of bile threatens to escape onto the car seat.

  I need to get out of this damn truck and get some air.

  As if he's reading my mind, Freddy checks the lanes of traffic in the rearview before swiftly manoeuvring the car to the hard shoulder. Turning to me from the driver’s side, a crease of worry runs across his brow, making him look his real age for the first time. “Amber, you've got to breathe.” He leans in and places his nose against mine. I want to pull away from his touch but he holds onto me, his hands sliding up my shoulders until they rest along my throat, his thumbs sweeping my jaw. “Breathe.”

  I'm thinking he might kiss me, and to be honest, I'm not sure how I feel about that. It would seem wrong, I think. But I don't need to worry, he doesn't move any closer, he just holds my face in the palm of his hands as he breathes along with me. Eventually I manage to synch my breath with his and my chest rises and falls, taking in more air then it has done since we stood outside my burning house yesterday.

  “That's better,” he murmurs, his hands releasing me and falling back onto the steering wheel.

  “Thank you. I'm sorry.”

  “Amber, you don't have anything to be sorry for.”

  I let out a rueful laugh. “Believe me, Freddy, I have a lot.”

  His quick blue daze casts a look over my face. “Are you ready to pick Isaac up now?”

  I drag in another lungful of air, pretending to myself that I'm still breathing in and out with Freddy's assistance. “Yeah.”

  “Okay.”

  Before he starts the car, my hand shoots out and grasps his. “Freddy, I know this is too much.” I lose my words, not sure what I'm trying to express.

  He lifts his chin and looks directly at me. “What's too much?”

  “Everything, everything we've ever been. I feel like tragedy is following us, determined that we shouldn't be anything more. I can understand if you want to call it a day.”

  He pauses, possibly picking the right words. “So, eleven years ago you sat by my side every single day, you dropped your school work, you lost your friends, you fell out with your family in a way that can't ever be fixed, and you think that this will be too much for me?” He offers a slow shake of his head. “Nothing is too much for you, Amber.”

  I slide back down in my seat, “I hope you're right.”

  Fifteen minutes later and still in silence — although this time not so laden with unspoken words — we pull into my old road. It's lined with Edwardian semis and they stand regal, holding their lofty position off the pavement, surrounded by pruned bushes and neat pathways.

  “Is this where you lived before you came back home?” His voice hesitates over the word home, as he looks critically at the upper end of the suburban middle class living quarters.

  “Yep.” My gaze drifts up the familiar street. “Come on, let’s get Isaac and get this over with.”

  I'm making it sound less than it is, but if I can just pretend that what I'm about to do is nothing major, then I may just get through it.

  “Do you want me to come in with you?” Freddy jumps out of the car without my answer and comes around to open my door.

  “I think I should do this by myself.”

  Hesitating, he runs through this scenario. “I don't want you going into that tosser's house by yourself,” he states firmly.

  “It's okay, I doubt even Elliot can make this situation about himself.”

  Freddy doesn’t look convinced but allows me to pass him by, his feet trailing just one step behind mine up to the blue front door. I rap the brass knocker loudly and hear the shout of excited voices. Freddy stiffens and raises his shoulders so I reach my hand back and give his fingers a brief squeeze, dropping them again as the door flies open.

  “Mum!” Isaac shouts, a wide beam from ear to ear. “I can't believe you ventured out of sticksville to come and get me.” His bright eyes land on Freddy and his smile becomes a fraction smaller.

  “I'll wait outside,” Freddy says, as Elliot comes down the wood floored hallway.

  I step over the threshold and start to close the door but not before Elliot pipes up with, “You can always use your keys, Amber.”

  The door snags shut and I take another deep breath, visualising Freddy standing on the other side, completing the same fundamental task.

  “Mum, what are you and Freddy doing here, and why is he standing outside?”

  Dragging another lungful of air, I turn and face my son, ready to tell him how our lives have changed yet again.

  Despite my absence of months from my old home, it still seems strangely familiar. The gauge taken out of the wall in the hallway when Isaac rode his bike along it is still visible. The pencil lines marking Isaac's height as the four years spent here sped past are still faintly marked on the wall just outside the kitchen. And all my purple cushions and furnishings are still in place, just as I left them.

  A bitter pang tugs at my heart and sets off a tingle of tears, which I try and rapidly blink away.

  I wasn't happy here, the six months I spent on the couch before I left reminds me of this, but on the day after the only other home I've known has burnt down, anything familiar feels good.

  “Isaac, I need you to sit down, baby, and listen to me.”

  He does without question, which must be a lifetime first. I pick his hand up in mine as I race through the right way to say it. I should have thought about this in the car, but the only thing I could think of then was the silence sitting between Freddy and myself.

  “Can you give us a moment, please?” I ask Elliot, who has perched on the other sofa. The one I didn’t sleep on. He hasn't got the smirk on his face I've been associating with him of late; he looks much more like the man that I thought I could fall in love with. Thought but couldn't.

  He doesn't argue, he leaves the room immediately.

  “What is it, Mum?”

  “Isaac, there is no easy way for me to tell you this, but yesterday there was an accident at home, and Nanny was killed in a fire.” I just blurt the words, my own inability to process them ensuring there is no sugar coating to sweeten the truth for my son.

  Isaac's eyes widen so much so they look like they are going to pop out of his head. His free hand reaches for a cushion and he drags it onto his lap, hugging it tight with his arms. He used to hide under these cushions when he was small.

  “Did it hurt?” His voice is small and tight.

  I lean forward and run a hand up and down his back, trying to soothe him. “No, my love, she was asleep, the smoke just became too much, but I promise the flames didn’t hurt her.”

  “The house, is it gone?”

  This is a good question, I haven't been able to make myself go back to check but I've heard that it's still there, soot ridden and damp. “It’s still there, but we can't live there right now.”

  “Oh.” I know my son better than I know myself and I know he wants to ask something else, something uncomfortable.

  “Yes?” I prompt.

  “Does that mean we are coming back here now?”
/>   “What?” I wasn't expecting that. “Is that what you want?”

  There is a beat of silence. “I don't know. Is that what you want, is that why you came to pick me up?”

  I shake my head furiously. “No, Freddy wanted to come and get you so I could tell you here and you didn't come back and not understand why you weren’t going to your Nan's house.”

  His eyes fill with tears at this, and I'm not sure I've said the right thing. “Mum, I don't think I want to go back and see that house. Please don't make me.”

  I shift uncomfortably, not sure how to phrase the next thing I have to say. “Well, you know, Freddy's said we can stay with him, at least until we get ourselves straight.”

  If I'm expecting Isaac to be excited by the prospect of living in a converted garage with it's full access to cars and tools, I'm sorely disappointed.

  Isaac keeps his eyes down. “I want to stay here.”

  Pardon.

  “Isaac, you can't stay here, I don't live here anymore. We don't live here anymore.”

  “Mum, I don't want to go back and see that, please.”

  My heart is torn between giving him what he wants and keeping him with me. “Maybe I can speak to Elliot and ask if you can stay here for a couple of days extra while I get everything sorted, but then, Isaac, you need to come back, you're my son, not Elliot's.” This is a low blow, and I know I'm being cruel, but my capacity for dealing with pain is reaching its stretched limit. “Will you go and speak to Freddy while I talk to Elliot? I know he's worried about you.”

  Isaac throws his arms around my neck. “This isn't about you and Freddy, I promise.”

  Shifting back, I look at Isaac, my fingers automatically brush the fair hair out of his eyes. “I know.”

  As I walk through the house to find Elliot, I know that Isaac and I have just told each other our first lie, and my heart hangs a fraction heavier in my chest as a result.

  ASHES