“He’s a guy who speaks when he has something to say. An admirable quality in my opinion. And it’s not as if he knows us that well. Rosie was probably worried that he might be overwhelmed by a family Christmas. And then came Jamie’s announcement. It was all a bit intense. She was probably anxious.” He gave a half laugh. “It feels like too much to me and they’re my family.”
“You love having everyone home.”
He hesitated. “Normally, yes.”
She waited. Was he finally going to talk about himself and his own feelings?
“But not this time?”
“It just all feels—I don’t know, Jen. Different. Sad? I suppose I’m increasingly conscious of the passage of time. It seems only yesterday the kids were young and at Christmas we’d be setting up train sets and putting together bicycles and they’d be cannoning into our room before the sun was up wanting to start the day. And now they’re all married—well, not Becky, but no doubt that will come soon enough, and then there will be grandchildren and I just want to stop time because it’s going so fast and—”
She put her hand on his. He saw everything when it was someone else, but not when it was him. “It’s a new phase. It takes time to adjust—isn’t that what you’re always telling everyone else?”
He sighed. “Easy to say, not so easy to do. Although you seem to handle it all easily. Apart from surprise weddings, obviously.”
Was that really what he thought?
She stared at the photographs on her bedside table. “When I dropped Jamie at medical school I cried all day for a week.”
“What?” He frowned. “You were happy for him. You just said that a moment ago.”
“Yes, I was happy at the time, but when we got home, I cried and cried.”
He turned to look at her. “I don’t remember that.”
“You weren’t here. You were working. I dropped the girls at school and then came home and cried.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You were busy at work and you didn’t need to come home to me complaining. And anyway, I felt a bit silly to be honest.What was there to complain about? Our son was doing something he loved. That was a cause for celebration.”
“But you were struggling.”
“Yes. There are so many parenting milestones. Like the day your child starts school, and leaving them there looking so tiny and vulnerable and lost with a hoard of other children feels so wrong and unnatural and you go home to an empty house for the first time and you keep watching the clock, counting the hours until you can pick them up.” She thought back to that day she’d taken Jamie, remembering how tightly he’d held her hand in the moments before she’d taken him into the building. “And if you’re lucky they love it and want to go back the next day, but if they’re miserable and unsettled then you feel like the worst mother in the world and taking them back the next day breaks your heart. But at least they come home.”
“But when you drop them at college, it’s different,” Martin said.
“Yes. You drive home with that empty car, feeling as if part of your life has been torn away. And you know it’s never coming back. ‘Empty nest’ is a mild term for what’s essentially a bereavement of sorts. You try and see it as a new beginning but that doesn’t change the fact it’s an ending.”
There was a long silence and then he cleared his throat. “So how did you deal with it? I mean apart from crying.”
“That only lasted a week.” She thought back to that time. “And I did what I usually do when struggling with change. I forced myself to focus on all the good things. I reminded myself how lucky we were to have a healthy son who had made it adulthood and was excited about his choice of career. I thought about all the patients I looked after when I was a nurse who didn’t have that option. People whose lives had taken an unpredictable, often brutal course. I reminded myself that children leaving home and becoming independent is the natural order of things.”
“That’s true.”
She put her hand on his leg. “And I reminded myself that what I was feeling was normal, and that humans are remarkably adept at handling change. I just had to keep going and reshape my life a little. I had more time with the girls. More time to explore my own interests. And then I went through it all again when the twins left home, but by then I’d learned what I needed to do. Did I feel the loss sometimes? Yes. I still do. I felt it when I went to the forest to get the tree, but I focus on how lucky I am to have all those happy memories stored away. I miss those days because those days were good, and I’m grateful for that time.”
“I don’t remember it hitting me that hard.” He slipped off his shoes. “I felt a bit strange when I walked into Jamie’s room after he’d left for medical school, but I didn’t dwell on it.”
“You didn’t have time to dwell on it. You were so tied up in work—and of course your life didn’t change that much. I was usually the one who took them to school, who helped them navigate friendship challenges, and exam stress.”
He was silent for a moment. “So you’re saying this is the first time I’ve been in a position where I have time to think about change.”
“Yes. And don’t underestimate the impact of that. You’ve been a doctor for your entire adult life. Retiring is a big thing. You’re bound to have conflicted feelings, and this time you can’t block it out with work. As you just said to me, it takes time to adjust. You have to give it that time. Be patient.”
“I’m discovering that giving advice is easier than taking it.” He rubbed his hand over his face. “It’s tough on you and I feel frustrated with myself. I should be able to do better than this.”
She laughed, because it was such a Martin comment. “This isn’t an exam. You don’t pass or fail. It’s an ongoing thing. There are going to be moments when you feel fine, and thenmoments when you don’t, and hopefully those moments become fewer as time passes.”
