Just the lights.
The blinding lights.
‘Mum, are you okay?’Estelle’s voice.Marge squeezed her eyes together, then opened them and squinted as her pupils reacted to the lights above her bed again.‘You gasped in your sleep, as if something was wrong.’
Marge saw the concerned face of her daughter, and immediately tried to make her feel better.‘I’m fine, darling, I promise.Just a dream.’
Only it wasn’t.Marge had replayed that night in her mind a million times and the ending was always the same.Ian was taken from them.And after that, she could never bring herself to tell their daughter the truth, because how could she break her heart all over again?
Estelle sat back down in her chair and pulled the blanket she’d left there over her knees again.‘It was lovely to meet Bernadette.She wasn’t what I expected at all.From everything you told me about Dr Manson, I expected her to be more… I don’t know… stuck-up?’
Marge felt her cheeks rise in a grin.‘No.Definitely not stuck-up.I’d like you to know her better, Estelle.I should have introduced you long before now.’
‘That’s okay, Mum.Plenty of time.’
The way she said it jarred with Marge, but she didn’t correct her.Once upon a time, she’d thought there was plenty of time for everything in life too.The night she’d lost Ian had proved to her that there wasn’t.And now…
‘Anyway, she must have tired you out because you fell asleep before she was out the door.’Estelle’s words were full of warmth and chattiness, as if that was just another normal moment on a normal day.‘And I didn’t get to tell you who I met downstairs… Amber was there.’
Marge’s eyes widened, the lights no longer bothering her.
‘Amber?In the hospital?’Marge couldn’t quite work this out.‘Is she sick?Are the boys okay?’
‘Yes, they’re fine.She said she came into the Emergency Department with a friend who’d had a fall but it’s all okay.’
‘Did you speak to her?’Marge felt her hopes rising.Amber had been someone important to her too, and she’d been so upset when the girls had fallen out.Many times over the last year, she’d thought about calling Amber, telling her about the cancer, hoping it would bring her back to mend things with Estelle so that one good thing could come of this bastard disease, but she’d never been sure enough that it was the right thing to do.She’d never been one to meddle, and she hadn’t wanted to risk making things worse.Instead, she’d chosen to keep quiet.It was a familiar theme in her life.
Still, she missed the boys and she worried for Estelle.Her boyfriend, Craig, was a sweet man, but Amber had been her closest friend, like a sister, and Marge wasn’t sure her daughter would ever come to terms with losing that relationship from her life.
She listened as Estelle replayed the conversation, sadness in every word.
‘I couldn’t lie to her, Mum, but perhaps I should have.Maybe that would have been the best thing to do, but you know I really did think I was doing the right thing, and I couldn’t promise I’d do anything different if it happened again.’
Marge felt partly responsible for Estelle’s decision back then too, because the truth was, she’d been party to her daughter’s actions.When Estelle had found out about Ewan’s affair, she’d come straight to Marge’s house, burst in, harassed and upset.Marge had got the fright of her life, seeing her like that, and sat her down, plied her with tea as she told her the story.
‘I heard Ewan and Craig arguing in the kitchen.They didn’t know I was home.Ewan’s been seeing one of their clients, Mum.An affair.’
Marge had felt her blood run cold.Poor Amber.‘And Craig was telling him to end it?Is that why they were arguing?’
‘No.Ewan was telling him it was already over, and Craig was saying it had better be because he’d risked the reputation of the company as well as his marriage and his family.Urgh, it was a whole big mess of a fight.’
‘And what did you say to Ewan?’
‘Nothing.I left before they even knew I was there.I know I should have gone in and punched him in the face.That’s what Amber would have done.’
She probably wasn’t wrong, but… ‘We don’t all handle things the same way,’ Marge had consoled her.‘That might have made it worse.’Was she trying to make Estelle feel better or herself, because that’s how she would have handled it?She would have turned a blind eye.Walked away.Ignored it.Just as she had with Kenneth Manson all those years.Just as she had with her promise to Ian that they’d tell Estelle the truth.Walk away.Say nothing.
‘What do you think I should do, Mum?I made Craig tell me the whole story afterwards and he says I need to stay out of it.But how can I?’
‘If it were the other way round, would you want Amber to tell you?’
She’d thought about that.‘Yes.But it’s different.There are kids… What if me telling Amber wrecks their family?How could I live with that?’
‘Then I think you have to trust yourself.Sometimes saying nothing is the right thing to do.’
Now, seeing Estelle wrestle with her decision all this time later, Marge wondered again if she’d been thinking about herself when she’d said that.Had she skewed Estelle’s decision to salve her own conscience?It was a tough one.She completely understood Amber being upset at Estelle, but at the same time, she empathised with her daughter’s actions because she’d have done the same – she’d have avoided the confrontation and hoped it would all work out in the end.But then, hadn’t she already realised that wasn’t the best way to handle secrets?
‘Did I say the wrong thing, Mum?What do you think?’
