Don't Forget Me

by Victoria Stevens

  Hazel waited, listening for the but that she knew was sitting heavily on Graham’s tongue.

  “She wasn’t,” he said finally. “If we hadn’t both been so busy, if I’d paid more attention, maybe I would have noticed something was wrong … but I didn’t. I came home from work one day, and she’d gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “Gone.” He nodded. “She left her engagement ring on the kitchen counter with a note asking me not to follow her.”

  “So you didn’t.”

  “No,” he said gently. “Because that’s what she wanted, and you do anything and everything for the ones you love.”

  “But what about me?” she said, but what she really meant was, Did you not love me too?

  Graham’s expression softened. “Hazel, I had no idea. I had no idea she was pregnant with you because she never told me. She never said a word, but I swear if I’d known…”

  “Then what?” Hazel managed to say, because how was that possible? How could her mother have kept her a secret from her own father? All this time she’d thought that not being around was his choice, she’d blamed him for his absence, and it turned out it wasn’t his fault.

  “Then I would’ve followed her to the ends of the earth to find you,” he said. “Anything and everything, Hazel. I’d have done anything and everything to keep you safe and happy and in my life.”

  Hazel swallowed hard, her eyes burning. “I thought—I thought you weren’t around because you didn’t care. I thought you didn’t love me.”

  “Impossible.” He fell quiet, studying her face, but then he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out an envelope, handing it to Hazel. The envelope was pristine and sealed. She turned it over in her hands. Written on the front, in a sloping handwriting that she knew by heart, was her name.

  “Go ahead,” Graham said quietly when she made no move to open it. “Have a read. I think now’s a good time.”

  Her heartbeat picking up pace, she began to unseal the envelope, careful not to tear it, and pulled out its contents. A piece of thick cream paper. A letter written by her mother’s hand in smooth black ink.

  My darling Hazel,

  As I’m writing this, you are sitting in the garden. You are seven years old and you are beautiful. You are perfect. You are far too young to carry the burden I’m about to lay upon you-for that, I am eternally sorry.

  Today is July 3rd. I’ve just returned from the doctor’s office. I’ve been in and out for the last few months, having tests done. The news wasn’t good. Dr. Wilson believes I have the early onset of a disease called Alzheimer’s. He says I display several of the symptoms already, but that I am still in the early stages. He says at this point there is no reason to panic as no one can be sure of what will happen in years to come. I may be fine from here on in, in which case this letter will never make its way to you. I may deteriorate, slowly losing my memories until my mind has turned to pulp. In that case, this letter will find its way to you some years from now. Hopefully later rather than sooner. The purpose of me writing this is not, however, to tell you of the disease. I am sure you will be acquainted with it when you are old enough to understand the implications it brings, but for now I am keeping you in the dark. You do not need to feel the weight of my troubles. No Hazel, the reason I am writing this letter is to tell you that you are truly the best thing that ever happened to me. Truly. If, somewhere down this long road I start to forget that, or fail to tell you it every day, I need to know you will read these words and be reassured. Be reminded that I love you to pieces.

  I will write again. I will write you every month until it becomes impossible. If and when that day comes. You are a beautiful girl, Hazel, and you will have a beautiful life. I cannot promise that I will always be in it, but know that wherever you are, wherever I am, you are in my heart. I love you, sweetheart.

  Yours forever,

  Mum x

  Hazel reread the letter twice, savoring the words and the writing, and only stopped when there were tears in her eyes, and the ink on the page had started to blur beyond comprehension. She swallowed hard, wiping her cheeks roughly with the back of her hand until the tears were gone. Then, finally, she turned to look at Graham.

  He studied her expression again with concerned eyes. “Are you okay?”

  She gave him a watery smile. “Yeah. I think I am.”

  “There’s boxes full of letters in my office, Hazel. She wrote one every single month until she couldn’t. She loved you more than anything.”

  “She wrote it. She told me.” Hazel carefully tucked the letter back into its envelope, keeping it safe.

  “She sent me a letter of my own last year,” Graham said. “Told me all about her illness. She asked if we could speak on the phone, so we arranged a time and made the call. She opened the conversation with your name. It was the first time I heard about you, that I even knew you existed. She said you had my smile and her everything else. I couldn’t imagine anything more beautiful.”

  He shook his head ruefully. “Then she told me about the disease. Told me how fast it was progressing, how bad things were getting. She knew it wouldn’t be long before Social Services got involved and found you somewhere else to live. Unless I wanted you, she said. Unless I’d take you in instead.”

  “And you did.”

  “Of course I did,” Graham said. “It wasn’t even an option not to. She arranged for the lawyer to call when it was time and asked me not to get in touch with you before then. She wanted you to stay with her for as long as you could because she knew she might not see you again.”

  “I … don’t understand.”

  “Hazel, your mum knew she wouldn’t get better,” he said gently. “She wanted to give you a chance at a better life. One here, with me. She wanted you to find a new home and start over.”

  Hazel didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t seem to find any of the right words, her mind a blank. Her mother knew she would never get better, and she had planned this. She planned Hazel coming out to Australia, and she planned for her to build a life with Graham. She never planned on her going back to England, or for them to be reunited. She planned for Hazel to move on, but it was more than that. She planned for her to be happy.

  “She mentioned you once,” Hazel said then because she didn’t know what else to say. “I didn’t know who she was talking about at the time. She went missing one day, and the police found her thirty miles away at a train station that had been deserted for a decade. She spent all afternoon waiting for a train that never came because she wanted to see her Graham.”

  “Hazel,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

  She forced a smile. “She remembered you, that’s all.”

  Hazel turned her head, looking out to sea. Neither of them spoke for a long moment, savoring the stillness. She wished they’d sat down sooner and spoken about her mum—she knew they’d both avoided it because it was painful, but painful things didn’t just go away because you ignored them. Hazel watched the waves as they rushed toward shore, just like she had that second night when she was fresh off the plane and broken into a hundred pieces, but she barely noticed them now. It may have taken a while, but she’d adjusted. She’d fallen in love with this place just like Red promised her she would.

  “I’m sorry,” Graham said finally, breaking the silence. “That you had to go through all that on your own. It shouldn’t have been your responsibility.”

  “No,” she agreed. “It shouldn’t. But it was, and I’m glad I did it. I’m glad I looked after her.”

  “And you did it so well, Hazel. She was so proud of you.”

  “I just … I love her,” she told him. “I love her more than anything in the world, but that’s not enough, is it? It won’t bring her back. It won’t make things right.”

  “No,” he said frankly. “It won’t. She’s only going to get worse.”

  “You’ve known that all along, haven’t you?”

  “Yes. I have.”

  “Why didn�
�t you say anything?”

  “Because you weren’t ready to hear it,” he said simply. “And I was afraid that if you knew that for sure, you’d never have left England in the first place.”

  Hazel exhaled slowly. “I can’t just give up. Even if that’s what she wanted.”

  “You want to return to England?”

  “It’s my home,” she said, before realizing that wasn’t quite true. “It’s all I’ve ever known.”

  “Well, in a few months, you’ll be eighteen,” Graham said. “You’ll be an adult, and you’ll be able to go back to England on your own. I know that’s always been your plan—staying here was only ever supposed to be temporary for you, or—”

  “Or?” Hazel interrupted. “I can go back to England, or?”

  He smiled. “You can do what your mum wanted you to do and stay.”

  “Here? With you?”

  “With all of us,” he corrected. “With your family.”

  “I can’t,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  “But you want to?” Graham said. “You want to stay? You like living here?”

  “I love living here. I love our big white house, and I love my school, and I love my friends. I love the Anchor. I love staying with you, I just…”

  “… love her more?” he finished for her.

  Hazel nodded, swallowing hard. “She’s my mum.”

  “It doesn’t have to be a choice, you know,” Graham said then. “It doesn’t have to be your life here or your life there. There are other options.”

  Hazel lifted her head to look at him, hope blooming in her chest. “Like?”

  “Like splitting your time between here and England? Traveling back and forth? Or we could see about getting your mum moved to a facility over here so she’d be closer?”

  “We could do that?”

  “I made some inquiries about it when you first arrived,” he said carefully. “I didn’t want to do anything about it until you were sure you wanted to stay here with me—that we could be a family together. It’ll be complicated, but it’s definitely doable. We’ll need to make sure that she’s got round-the-clock care, but there are facilities nearby. We could make it happen, if that’s what you want. To stay.”

  “I want to,” she said automatically. Oh God, she wanted to stay so much.

  “You have no idea how much I was hoping you’d say that,” he said, his shoulders slumping with relief. He rummaged in his pocket for a moment. “Here, open your hand.”

  She did as he said, offering up her flat palm. Graham placed a small silver key in the center, tied onto an emerald ribbon, and it was cold and surprisingly heavy and real. Finally, after nearly five months, he had given her a key to the house. Their house.

  She raised her head to meet his eyes.

  “Welcome home,” her dad said softly.

  43

  Hazel woke up to the sound of someone pounding on the front door. She rolled over to check her clock: half past three in the morning. Graham would be sound asleep.

  The knocking persisted. Begrudgingly, she climbed out of bed, pulling a sweater on over her pajamas as she made her way downstairs.

  “All right, I’m coming!” she called, unlocking the door and yanking it open. Red was standing on the doorstep, out of breath and wild-eyed.

  “Red? What’s wrong?”

  “Hazel,” he said. “Is Luca here?”

  She shook her head. “What’s up?”

  “He never came home.”

  “What do you mean he never came home?”

  “I mean he never came home,” he said, voice wavering. “We were supposed to meet Mum and Dad for dinner in town, and he didn’t show. You haven’t seen him?”

  “Not since yesterday afternoon.”

  “Shit,” Red said, running a hand through his hair. “Shit, shit, shit.”

  Hazel ignored the nausea stirring in her stomach, nausea and guilt and the feeling that something was very wrong. With all that had happened with Graham, she’d almost forgotten about Luca overhearing her conversation about her mum. “He’s probably fine, Red. He’s a big boy, what are you so worried about?”

  “Because he…” He broke off, raised his gaze to meet hers. “It doesn’t matter. I have to go find him.”

  “What are you going to do, cycle around the entire town?”

  “If I have to.”

  “Christ,” she muttered. “Let me get some proper clothes on. I’ll come with you.”

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, the two of them were riding along the side of the highway into the town center. Red hadn’t said a word since they’d left the house, too busy scanning the streets and shadows for his brother.

  “He’ll be okay,” Hazel said as they arrived at the pier. “Red, he’s going to be absolutely fine. He’ll just have lost track of time or something. He’ll be all right.”

  Red shook his head furiously, his grip on his handlebars impossibly tight. “No. He doesn’t do that, Hazel. He always comes back. No matter where he goes or what trouble he gets in, he always comes back.”

  She said nothing, and together they continued looking. Red rode almost painfully slow, slow enough to look down the side roads and alleys to check that Luca wasn’t hiding out somewhere in the darkness. Once they’d canvassed the entire center and still found nothing, he slowed his bike to a stop at the side of the road. Hazel followed suit, watched in concern as he rested his bike against a lamppost, defeated.

  “He promised me,” he said. “After last time, he promised me.”

  Hazel frowned. “Last time?”

  Red was quiet for a moment, hands balling in and out of fists by his sides. “The day of Ryan’s funeral. Back in Sydney. All four of us went to the service, Luc and I and Mum and Dad, and then back to his parents’ house for the wake. It was horrible—even for me, and Ryan and I had never been close. I don’t know how Luca managed to hold it together so well. I would’ve lost it.”

  He shook his head. “When we got back home, Luca went straight to bed. Said he was tired. Mum went up later to check on him, but his room was empty. We figured he just needed some air, so we thought nothing of it and sat and waited for him to walk back through the door, waited and waited for him to come back, but he didn’t, not until the next day.”

  His eyes seemed to glaze over and his hands stilled, palms flat against his legs. “Anyway,” he went on briskly. “He’d gotten into a fight, and got messed up real bad. After that night he swore that no matter what he got up to, he’d always come home or call if he needed help.”

  “Do you think that’s where he is? Looking for a fight?”

  “Where else could he be? God, I just … I don’t understand what’s happened, what’s changed. He’s been doing so well. I really thought he was better. Where would he go?”

  Hazel felt sick again, the guilt twisting her insides up. This was on her, this was because of her selfishness. She’d done this. Luca could be out somewhere on his own, getting beat up, getting hurt, and it was her fault.

  “Red,” she said finally, “I know what happened.”

  He looked at her hopefully. “Yeah? What?”

  “Luca and I had a fight earlier.”

  “A fight? About what?”

  “My mum.”

  Red’s brow creased. “Why did you fight about her? Did he say something?”

  “No, it wasn’t him,” she said. She took a deep breath and let it out shakily. “It was me, Red. I let him think she was dead.”

  “You … what?”

  “It was a huge mistake, and I was—”

  “You did what?” he said again. “You let him think your mum died? Why would you do that?”

  “Because he made assumptions and jumped to conclusions and I—”

  She broke off, eyes welling up. I didn’t want to hurt him.

  “I can’t believe this,” he said angrily. “He trusted you.”

  “I was just trying to help!”

  “You call this helping
?”

  “I wanted to give him some support, and I knew I could do it through the running thing,” she said. “It was so important to him, and he only let me help because he thought we were the same, and…”

  She trailed off, turning back to Red with wide eyes. “Wait, I think I know where he might be!”

  It took a moment for Red to catch on, but then it dawned on him all at once. He pushed away from the lamppost and mounted his bike, riding off at double speed.

  44

  The floodlights were off when they pulled into the stadium parking lot, the track completely dark. It looked so different to Hazel like this, so unfamiliar even after all the nights she’d spent there. She jumped off the bike with the wheels still spinning, let it clatter to the ground. Behind her, Red put his bike headlights on to illuminate at least a little of the grass, and she scanned the length of the field frantically.

  Her heart sank. It was empty. She checked again, just to be sure, and then headed back to Red.

  “It’s okay,” he muttered as she bent to pick up her bike. “We’ll just start again in the morning, when it’s daylight and we can actually—”

  “Wait,” she said, catching sight of a movement across the other side of the track. “Give me a minute.”

  She stepped onto the grass. Eyes trained on the shadows on the far side, where the beam of the bike’s headlights didn’t even come close to reaching, she crossed the width of the track. She came to a stop in front of the undergrowth.

  “Luca?”

  No answer. She moved closer, determined, and then finally she found him. He was sitting in a gap in the bushes, arms wrapped around his legs, his expression carefully blank. Relief flooded through her. It’s okay. It’s okay, I’ve got you.

  “Luca,” she said gently. “What are you doing out here?”

  He kept his eyes fixed on the grass in front of him, and said nothing. She crouched down on the ground so that they were level. “We’ve been riding around forever trying to find you. We were really worried about you.”