She took a few moments as she put her thoughts into order. This was it, this was the last time she would see her mother. She let that knowledge be absorbed.
“You don’t see it. You don’t see how you pushed me away. You never put your arm around me or told it was okay, you never gave me affection, or played with me. You never made me feel better about how difficult school was for me. I told you how people treated me, and you made me feel as bad as they did. You are closed off, cold, and I never felt as though I was wanted. You always seemed angry with me. I guess you were angry with dad so I read that as my fault, as he wasn’t here.
“You’re angry because he left you, but he left you because you’re this way. You see me in the same light, now you hate your only child, and you blame me.
“I sought any affection from others and clung to it when it was offered because I needed it. It was often the wrong affection, but I took what I could get because I never got any from you. There was never a reason for me to stay with you because I was never loved here. I was awkward and uncomfortable and alone.
“Those people you hate, loved me for who I was, they never made me feel like a piece of crap. They looked after me. I found the affection I wanted. And I’ll tell you something else, I loved my life on stage.”
Her mother, ashen-faced, looked away, but Em wasn’t finished.
“You sound like you think I deserved what happened to me. Well, you can shove that up your arse. I needed support when I was young and vulnerable, and you refused to help me.
It’s not just that though, you kept so many secrets from me, and thinking back, I don’t understand why you told me about dad at all.”
Rosemary’s chest rose and fell, and after a minute she relaxed and sipped her tea.
“Your Aunt Di kept on at me. We never got on, and she was a pain in the backside, she kept asking me for information about you, so I told her, but she didn’t give it up. In the end, she said that she would find you herself, and tell you. So I told you. I never thought you’d go.”
“The father that you kept from me all my life was dying, and you thought I wouldn’t go? Remember this mother, take my next words with you through the rest of your life. You made me, your actions did this to us. Had you let my father be part of my life, had you given me just a little kindness and affection, had you the capacity for love, we’d have a relationship, so accept responsibility for yourself.”
The two women regarded each other. Ryan shifted a little.
“I think we should go.” Em reined in her frustration and anger.
“You’re just going to leave?”
“You want us to stay? Mother, you need help, haven’t you listened to anything I’ve said? What is wrong with you?”
Em stood, and Ryan followed, the bewilderment on Rosemary’s face gave him pause.
“Mrs Riley, your daughter is successful, strong, and a good person. I have no family, but you can bet that if I did, I would make the most of them while I could. How you can so casually dismiss your daughter in one breath and reproach her in the next is beyond me. I didn’t really get what she meant when she talked to me about you, but I understand now. I hope that one day, and soon, you see what you’re missing out on, and try and put it right, because when you’re old, you’ll regret what you’ve lost, and your life will only consist of what ifs.
“I pity you Mrs Riley, but Em’s right, you should get help, and there’s no shame in it.”
Em’s eyes filled with tears and they left the quiet and pensive house, filled with nothing but silence for the past twenty plus years, holding disappointment and regret. No more, she was done, and as they walked out, she left the past behind.
Em drove, only because she needed something to focus on. She pelted up the motorway.
“Em.”
“I’m okay, just processing.”
“I have no idea what to make of it.”
“Welcome to my whole childhood. Dr Portlock suggested to me that maybe she had her own issues, and while she might, it makes it damn near impossible to have a relationship with her.”
“Will you try and stay in touch?”
“I don’t know.”
Ryan left the next morning, he had distracted her with slow, intense sex when they got back, and she didn’t want him to go, but she had things to sort out. She kissed him hard when she said goodbye, and for the first time, she wasn’t so afraid.
It took a few days to sort out, handing everything over, and leaving Angie kept her busy.
Mags dropped them both off after picking her up from the train station, and Em let Cap sit on her lap when they finally got in. She snuggled with her dog for a bit until she was no longer ecstatic, and decided to punish Em by turning around and only show Em her arse.
Em found her fridge stocked with a huge bunch of flowers on her table, and a single rose on her bed. She smiled. He was coming over after work. She lay on her bed, much missed, and groaned.
She closed her eyes, she only meant to have a quick nap, but it was nearly dark when she woke. She stretched and turned over, not remembering taking her jeans off or pulling her duvet over her. She heard the radio blaring, and a warm deep voice singing along.
She padded out with her hair a mess, in her t-shirt and briefs, pulling on some leggings.
“Hey, hot stuff.” She grinned as Ryan left the kitchen, and picked her up, kissing her. She wrapped her legs around him.
“Thank you.”
“What for?”
“Flowers, food, you.” She nestled into his neck.
“Come, eat.”
Em sat down at the table, neatly laid out with wine and candles.
“This is lovely.”
“I thought about taking you out, but I miss being here with you. You know I hate being at my place. Before we met, I’d be there because I had to be. It was why I was so keen to bunk in with Kevin when he needed a little support.”
Em was starved and ate while he only picked at his, seemingly needing to talk.
“I knew him in passing when we were in the army, and we crossed paths, the same thing that happened to me, happened to him, but only worse. I used to go to the pub all the time, the gym, fuck anywhere, anywhere but being alone in my flat.
“Do you want to know what I did when you were away?”
Em sat forward.
“I’d come here, lie on your bed, think about all the moments we shared here. Warm, loved. My insecurity, my fear took that away from us. I’ll never let you down again like that. Never.”
“I’m your home.”
“Yes.” There it was the bleakness behind his face. He had never really had a home, a place that was his, but her home was, and he should live in it.
“Move in.”
“What?”
“Move in. I want you here, I want this, think about it like this; we both know we’ll do it eventually, so why not just do it now? Get it done. I mean you never know someone unless you live with them, do you? I’m done fucking about if you are.”
“I am.”
“I want this to be our home together. My crap will be your crap.”
“Yes.”
“Really?” she grinned and took his hand.
“When?”
“Now. Go get your shit. Let’s give it a week or two, see if you freak out, or I do. You don’t have much stuff, do you?”
“No. I’ll be like two hours tops.”
“Okay.”
“Are we really doing this?”
“Looks like.”
They finished their dinner, and Em cleaned up while Ryan went to his flat, heart in his mouth. In the bedroom, she moved things about, making room, and space, hands shaking, nerves thick.
She cleared the bedside table on the side he slept on. She was sorting her clothes later when her phone rang.
“You’re not changing your mind. I forbid it.”
“I’m not. I’m packed. More or less. I’m just c
hecking before I leave. You know this is impulsive.”
“Spontaneous, and who’s want to be normal? Come home.”
She helped him bring his stuff in. His kit bag, two big holdalls, two plastic storage boxes, his guitar, a couple of bags of linens and a duvet, two metal cases containing his blades and spare feet, a short stool, and a load of groceries. The sum total of his worldly possessions.
“I made space.”
He began unpacking, putting his cases and boxes in the spare for the moment.
Em put his guitar in the living room as Ryan started unpacking. She made them a cup of tea as he was putting clothes in a drawer. She sipped hers while she sat on the bed.
“We don’t have to do everything together, if you want space, you take it. Do you have anything you want out, I mean, you’re not rooming with me, and you’re not a guest. This is our home. Sudden as that is. I want you to know it’s yours.”
She followed him into the spare room when he dropped a t-shirt and urged her to follow him, and he picked up one of the boxes.
“I never put anything out, it never felt right, but here, I want to.” He opened the box and dug through, and lifted out a packet of photos that were on top of two framed pictures.
It was of him in uniform, younger, not as muscly, and he was smiling, in a casual pose. The other was of his squad, all kitted out, desert behind them.
“I always wondered what you looked like in uniform. I suspected hot as fuck, and I was not wrong. You were so young. Can I see the rest?”
He nodded, and they went into the front room. She put them on the mantel next to a picture of her dad when he was young, and one of Em and him she took before he died.
“We need a picture of us up there too.”
Ryan took over at her laptop as she looked through his pictures, sat on his lap at the desk, while he connected the printer, she opened her photo file, and he looked through them.
“Holy shit.”
“What?”
She held a photo, it was somewhere hot, and he had no top on, sweat on his body, looking off camera, basketball in hand with a huge grin on his face, appearing to be carefree.
“That was just before I got blown up.”
Her eyes were glued to it.
“Em?”
“Uh-huh.” She didn’t look up but went and put in on the fridge. He laughed. “Be right back.”
She went upstairs and picked out the box with her dad’s family pictures, and found a pile of photo frames, filled with old photos of people she didn’t know.
She swapped out one for one of her and Ryan that was taken on her phone when they were lounging around one day with Cap’s snout in frame, and they were both laughing. He also printed one of Em in that small bikini. Jess had taken it the day they sat outside in the garden, and that night was the first that he and Em shared. “This one goes on the fridge too.”
She grinned. “So, what are we going to do, my first night home, and our first night living together.”
“Ooh, I have an idea or two.” He took her hand, grinning as he took her to bed.
Em met Jess for lunch, much like they used to do, and her small but rounded belly was significantly bigger than when Em saw her last.
“Wow.”
“Em. I’m sorry, I feel awful about what happened.”
“About not talking to me, or inferring that I was fucking about?”
“Em, both, I didn’t think he’d take it that way.”
“Done now.”
“I am sorry.”
Em nodded and leant over the table in the café, holding her hot chocolate. “Jess, I’ve never had many female friends, I know with what I did for a job that I was surrounded by women, but few of them were my real friends. You know, when I think back I never really did.” She laughed a little bitterly. “When I was twelve I got my period at school for the first time, in English, and I wasn’t prepared, I was a young twelve, but it seemed like I got my tits and my period overnight.
“I put my hand up, and my teacher must have thought I was going to be sick, so did I, when I stood up, I had leaked through onto my skirt, and Peter Lee pointed and shouted at me. Everyone called me Bloody Em for a year, and next year it was Bloody Tits because they got big.
“I was thirteen, branded for all my school life, by people who hated me for no other reason than boobs. Here’s the thing, it was the boys torturing me because they wanted access to my boobs and I said no, but the girls were crueller. Vicious. Women just seemed to be worse with me, even if I thought they were my friends. I’ve had a few over the years, other people who were like me.
“You’re someone I trusted, and I thought you would never be like that with me.”
Jess swiped at her tears. “I’m sorry. I just thought he’d want to see you. The clips and photos are hot.”
“I’m not angry with you Jess. Really. I just don’t know how to feel about it. Ryan let me down, and we’ve dealt with it. I mean, he’s moved in.”
“Get out.”
Em laughed. “Nope really did. I’d like to be friends with you if it’s what you want.”
Jess reached forward and grabbed Em’s hand. “I do, you’re my best friend. I hope you can forgive me. I miss you Em.”
“You too, twatface.”
“Nobber.” Jess grinned. “So, how is it?”
“Good I think, feels oddly normal. I’m still a little cautious he’ll freak out, but we’ll see. So baby names?”
Em and Jess sat in that café for a few hours, and when she left, she felt like she had her friend back. When she got home and fussed a needy Cap, she settled down in front of her laptop. Time to work again. The one good thing about going to London was the stories she heard.
She smiled and formed an idea for book five. Book four, titled ‘Susan’s Delights’ was coming out in late June. Only a few months away, and she needed to get a shift on with number five.
In early May, on a bright but unusually cold day, Em took delivery of the early copy of her book. She checked the dedication and grinned.
It had taken a few weeks for Em to relax completely with Ryan, but he didn’t freak out, he gave his landlord notice, and that was it. They were living together. They hosted a poker night every few weeks and hung out with Kevin and May.
Jess had just given birth, the little tiny baby, Josh, was pink and wrinkled, and to Em, a little gross, but Jess and Carl were happy if not shell-shocked.
It made Em think about the future. Part of her wanted a family, but the kind that Ryan wanted, and the more she thought about it, the more she wanted it.
For the time being, she focused on just being together. He was unwavering with her, and at first, he tried too hard, but after a while, he let himself show her love, learning how to do it.
Em sat out on her porch bench; she had spent the day cleaning the porch and afterwards, wrapped in a blanket, she sat on it, waiting for Ryan to come home from work.
“What are you doing out here? It’s bloody freezing.”
“Oh, waiting for you.” She smiled at him, and he joined her, he wrapped the blanket around them both and snuggled into it.
They sat in silence. “Did you go and see Jess today?”
“Yeah, I held it.”
“Josh.”
Em laughed. “I had my own delivery too.” She handed him the book from beside her, and he whistled.
“Wow.” He opened it and read the dedication. “To him, and all the nights we share.” He glanced up at her. “Em.” He swallowed, and she grinned.
“Hungry?”
“Starved.”
He pulled her up and took her straight to bed. He set her down and undressed them both as she laughed.
“Read it to me.”
Em didn’t make it ten pages.
That Saturday, Ryan was strange with her. He was up to something. She was lacing up her para boots, while he waited.
“Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise.”
He grabbed a backpack and dumped their stuff in his car, it was warmer that day, the wind had finally changed, and it felt like summer was close by as they drove out of Chadford.
Cap stuck her head out the window as they drove, doggie goggles in place, her tongue flapping in the wind as they cruised the countryside.
She turned the music down they had both been singing to when she checked her phone, an hour into the drive.
“Angie’s finished her chemo; she says everyone misses me, including the boys.”
“Em, anytime you want to go back, we could go, a long weekend, anything. Don’t think you can’t have them in your life. It’s not one or the other. You don’t have to dance for them to be part of you.”
“Really? Thanks, I’d like that.” His eyes, covered with shades, didn’t leave the road, but he grinned, and she knew he meant it.
She scrolled through her inbox.
She opened one from Matt, her agent.
“They’re happy with the final edit of the other book.”
“Have you decided on a pen name?”
“Em Riley.”
“Nice.”
“Yeah. Time to be me.” She picked up his phone from the little shelf under the stereo. She took a selfie, Cap’s furry snout blurred at the front, her face beaming, slightly out of focus, and Ryan’s crisp image was grinning, hands on the wheel, eyes on the road.
It wasn’t perfect, but she’d print it. It was her happy little family.
Ryan indicated, and they turned off, she began to take in the scenery as she sang a song badly, Ryan’s voice mercifully drowned her out. She felt a strange sense of déjà vu.
“I could swear I’ve been here before.”
“You have.”
“Holy fuck.”
“Your dad’s favourite place.”
She was speechless, and that day came back so clearly. She’d paid such careful attention to the road that she hadn’t taken in much of the scenery.
“You okay there?”
“Uh-huh.”
The Way Home Page 20