He smiles at me as he throws a teabag in the same mug I used to drink from as a teenager while I was doing my homework. ‘Hi, Jess. Nice to finally meet you.’ There’s no judgement in his time, no blame for staying away, just friendliness. I unclench, just a little. ‘Cup of tea?’ he asks.
‘No, thanks,’ I say, flapping my hand near my face. ‘Too hot.’ What started off as an uncomfortably muggy morning has now bloomed into a scorching day.
‘Something cold, then?’
I hesitate. I don’t know if I can say what I want to say with an audience, as nice as he seems. Mum must guess what I’m thinking because she says, ‘Why don’t we take a walk and have something to drink later?’
I nod. ‘That would be good.’ I’m glad I lathered myself with sunscreen before leaving the house, and I reach inside my handbag to grab my sunglasses.
Once outside again, we turn right and stroll down the road, saying nothing at first. There’s a park one street over, and I don’t know how I know, but that’s where we’re heading.
Mum takes a deep breath and looks across at me. ‘I meant everything I said in that letter,’ she tells me. ‘And I want to thank you – for going no-contact – it’s what I needed. While I could blame you, and everybody else, for what was happening to me, I could fool myself that things weren’t so bad, that I’d get a grip on it eventually but when, after being so very patient, you pulled the plug … It was the wake-up call I needed. I reached my rock bottom, Jess.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I mutter.
She shakes her ahead. ‘No, don’t be sorry. Like I said in the letter, after behaving ridiculously, I picked myself up, I startedgoing to AA, and this time I really committed. I got a sponsor and I started to do the twelve steps. That was four years ago now.’
‘That’s great,’ I say hesitantly. I sense the truth in her words, but I’m not sure I trust them. But if that’s right, four years is way longer than she has ever stayed sober before. It’s truly impressive.
We pass by the children’s playground, unusually deserted, as everyone must have opted to stay home out of the sun, and pause our conversation briefly as we wait for a dog walker to shoo an inquisitive pair of cockapoos along the path.
‘I’ve gained even more perspective since I wrote you that letter,’ Mum says once we’re past them. ‘I probably don’t get all of it, but I can see how unfair I was to you, even when you were still a child, and how hard the choices I made were on you. I know these might sound like empty promises, but my life is different now.I’mdifferent now. I would like to be part of your life going forward, but I understand if you don’t want that, or if you’re not sure about that.’
I stop walking and look at her. We’re standing just in front of a bench under the shade of a towering horse chestnut, and it seems natural for us both to sit down. For some reason it takes a while before I can form a sentence. ‘Thank you. I want to believe what you’re saying, but … ’
Mum nods sadly. ‘I know. If it’s any help, it took me ages before I believed I could make it stick too. This is the start of a very long journey, I expect, for you and I.’
‘Yes,’ I reply quietly. ‘I think it might be. But it’s a path I would like to explore. That’s as much as I can manage for now.’
I don’t remember Mum smiling the way she is now when she and Dad were together and we were all living as a family, butshe holds her joy in a bit, possibly because she’s scared she might scare me off with it.
‘I’m glad. How about we keep it casual, take things slowly. Would you and Luke like to come over for a barbecue on the bank holiday?’
I exhale. ‘Yes. I think we’d like that.’
By the time I arrive home, I’m sticky, my dress clinging to my back, and utterly exhausted. I have a power nap and then a shower before Luke returns home from work. I want to think about what Mum said, try to unpick it, but my brain is steadfastly refusing. It’s as if it’s had enough to do today and is digging its heels in.
I tell Luke all about it when he gets home. I cry. Big ugly tears, the kind I never usually let him see. The kind I never usually letanyonesee. Luke just holds me until I’ve let it all out.
And then he wipes my eyes. ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’
I nod and snatch another tissue from the box on the coffee table. ‘Yes. Like you said, I can’t just keep running away from things.’
He takes my face in his hands. ‘You weren’t running away – I know I said that in the beginning, but I get it now – you were protecting yourself. You did the right thing going no-contact. But if she is where she is now, and you believe there’s a way to move forward, I am one hundred per cent behind you.’ He breaks off to give me a smacker in the middle of my forehead. ‘And I am so fricking proud of you.’
That’s all he needs to say. My heart melts. We spend the rest of the evening talking, eating, laughing. It reminds me of when wewere first together, and we could easily stay up until the dawn chorus started tweeting.
However, even though we have an ‘early night’, we can’t settle to sleep afterwards. It’s too hot. The fan is on, our sash windows are open top and bottom, but it’s still not enough. Just after midnight, I roll over and grunt. I’d like to cuddle up against Luke, but his body is like a furnace. The only contact we can manage without overheating further is allowing our little fingers to touch.
‘I wish we had a pond,’ I mutter.
‘Huh?’ Luke pushes himself up on one elbow and gives me a confused look.
‘Just enough cool water, somewhere, where we could submerge ourselves and get some relief.’
Luke continues to look at me, but I can tell his mind is whirring.
‘You’re mentally working out how we could fit a pond into our garden and how big the hole would need to be, aren’t you?’ I ask him.
