“It’s okay,” I say, reaching out to touch her shoulder. “You were right. It was a disaster. I wasn’t ready to leave home, and I certainly wasn’t ready to have a child... He left us, Mum. He left us living on our own in an awful bedsit in an awful building in an awful part of London. We had no money, we had no support, we had nothing—it was brutal. Charlie doesn’t even know a lot of this, because what’s the point? I wanted to come home so much, so desperately—I was terrified. But I was too proud, too stubborn. Plus, I was sure you wouldn’t want me back—you hated Rob so much, and I felt sure you wouldn’t accept his baby either.
“I look back now, and I can still remember how angry I felt, Mum, the night I left. How trapped. And yes, you did handle it badly—I’m not going to lie about that. Everything you did seemed to drive me further away from you and closer to him. Calling the police was the final straw. I know you never thought Rob was good enough for me, and I put that down to you both being snobs.”
“There might have been an element of that,” she admits, sniffling delicately, “if I’m totally honest... and it upsets me so much to imagine you thinking we didn’t want you, didn’t want Charlie. Of course we did.”
“I believe you now, Mum—but at that stage you’d given me no reason to think that was true. When your parents accuse the father of your child of abduction and involve the law, it doesn’t feel reassuring—part of me was even worried that you’d want me home, but not want the baby, and I couldn’t accept that. We came as a package deal. Plus, there was that one time I called you...”
I haven’t even told Luke about this. It’s such a painful memory that I think I’ve tried to block it out. But the night I found out that Rob had gone, when I realized that I was truly alone, facingan uncertain future with a baby in tow, I was devastated. We had no money, no security, nothing.
For the first time, I reached out to my parents. I knew I needed help, and I had nowhere else to turn. I remember it so vividly now, even though I’ve tried to forget all about it: standing in a phone box, rain lashing down outside, the door open so I could keep one hand on Charlie’s stroller.
Waiting, trembling with anxiety while the phone rang out, still unsure whether I was doing the right thing or not. When she did answer, I couldn’t explain, I couldn’t tell her—all I managed was to murmur, “Hello, Mum.”
The first words out of her mouth were the ones that effectively sealed the deal for me.
“Jennifer,” she said, after a long pause, “I’m glad to hear from you. Are you all right? Are you still... with him?”
The vitriol she spoke those last few words with is hard to describe. It was like she put all her anger, all her regret, into them—and at that moment, I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t bear one more person letting me down.
I’d hung up, walked briskly away in the rain, letting the drops wash away my tears. I felt like she’d never accept me again, never mind Charlie.
My mother closes her eyes when I mention this. Of course, she had no idea what was happening in my life, how lost I felt, how much I needed support, not rejection. But I now realize that I had no idea what was going on in her life either.
“Yes,” she says finally, her voice sad and low. “The phone call. Well, all I can do is say I regretted it the minute you hung up. I tried to call back, but it just rang out. I don’t know why I reacted like that... I suppose, with the benefit of hindsight, that I was shocked, then angry at what you’d put us through, and then Iblamed it all on Rob. If it was all his fault, it was easier to deal with—it meant it wasn’t ours.”
“I understand that now, Mum, I really do. But back then... well, it was a bad time for me, and I thought I’d made a mistake in contacting you. I thought it was all over—that Charlie was part of Rob, and you’d never get over that.”
“Oh darling, we’re not monsters—of course we would have accepted you both! But... I confess, I do see why you would think that. We had never given you any reason to trust us, had we? We must have seemed like such ogres, such nightmarish authority figures—I can assure you, though, that in private we were absolute jellyfish, just so worried about you and scared for your future. We just felt we needed to keep up a firm front.”
I laugh and reply, “I get that, Mum—I’ve done the same myself, countless times. Look, I’m just trying to say that I understand your side of it better now. I was younger than Charlie is back then, and I still have to remind him to brush his teeth! I know you reacted like you did because you loved me. Then, I just couldn’t see that—all I could see was that I loved Rob with all my heart, and that being with him was the only thing that made me happy, and that if you wanted to get in the way of that—if you wanted him to go to jail!—then you couldn’t possibly care if I was happy or not. It was a mess, and we both helped make it—but it’s in the past.”
She wipes her hands on a tea towel and scrapes the peelings into the waste bin. Every movement is measured and precise, and she is showing no signs of her previous distress, apart from a slight flare to her nostrils.
“You’re right,” she says, transferring my shoddily cut carrots into a pan. “It’s the past. And I’m sorry to be such an emotional wreck about it. That helps nobody.”
I sigh and can’t help but smile. Her idea of an emotional wreck is most people’s idea of calm, cool, and collected.
“Why don’t you go outside for a bit? I have dinner under control. Too many cooks and all that.”
I nod and leave her to it. It is clear she is feeling exposed and vulnerable and doesn’t especially want to be seen like that. I actually feel strangely better, as though we have finally started being honest with each other. I follow the noise around to the side field and see that not only has Luke returned with Joy, but he is playing an enthusiastic game of almost-cricket with my dad, Richard, and the kids. Dad is bowling—making a very small, shambling run-up before he unleashes an overarm—and Luke is batting.
He wallops the ball, and it flies high into the sky, a deep red orb soaring through the blue. Luke starts running, and the others all scream and yell and give one another instructions on how to catch him out. The others gallop over to hover beneath the now descending ball, and in the end they collide and knock one another out of the way. The ball thuds to the grass, and everyone stops play to take a laughter break. Betty and Frank come to join in the fun, dive-bombing the group, everyone tangling up in a rolling ruck of arms and legs and tails.
It is a perfect little tableau, and it makes me giggle. Sunshine, silliness, and smiles. I am surrounded by family—and I realize that I include Luke in that—and I am home. Home for the first time in so long. It is not straightforward, there are still murky waters to be navigated, but at least I am sailing in the right direction for once.
Nobody seems to be bothered with playing anymore once they are horizontal, and my dad waves and says he’s going inside for a nap.
Luke walks over to me, wiping sweat from his brow. He is grinning broadly, and his T-shirt is sticking to his back, and he seems very happy. I guess I must look the same, as he tilts his head to one side and says, “You look like you’re in an exceptionally good mood. What happened?”
“Oh, nothing really,” I reply, picking a stray strand of grass off his shoulder. “Just enjoying the view, I suppose. Maybe I’m having a near-life experience... Where did you get to today? And will you join us for dinner?”
“I drove over to Cape Cornwall and tried to count how many different shades of blue I could see in the ocean. I failed, but I did see some basking sharks off the coast, and swim in a big rock pool, and walk through some fantastic hay meadows. Ended up in St. Just, foraging for pasties. And yes... to dinner, I mean. As long as it’s okay with your parents.”
I confirm that it is and disappear off for a shower and very possibly a small nap myself. I haven’t been sleeping especially well since we arrived, which I suspect is due to a combination of factors all crash-landing at once. Too many things to think about, too many things to feel, too many decisions crowding for space in my mind. That and the fact that my room seems too big now. Maybe I’ll have to move into the caravan if I end up staying here permanently...
Even as the wordpermanentlyscampers across my mind, I feel my muscles clench and my stomach knot. I know that it is the right thing to do; I know it is—I just don’t feel it yet. Eventually, I am sure, the rightness of it will travel from my head all the way down to my heart.
Charlie will be heading to uni at the end of September, but between now and then he can have this stability, this base, this big family that he has always craved. He will always have ahome, always have people around him, always have somewhere safe and happy to come back to during his vacations. He will have a place to call his own. It will be good for him, in both the short and long term.
