There you were, challenging me again. My concept of what home meant versus what mattered to you. Peace, calm; no eggshells under your feet.
Ollie was quiet, at first. Too quiet, I thought. Withdrawn, even. It took time for the words to come. But once they did, they were unstoppable, a torrent of guilt and shame that he wasn’t enough for Ryan; hatred he didn’t want to feel for a man he’d never been able to please.
‘What I don’t get is how Dad preferred drink to me,’ he told me one evening.
‘Of course he didn’t.’ The words were out without me even thinking about them. Denial masking the shock I felt.
Ollie just stared at me, as though he’d worked it out. ‘If that’s true, why didn’t he choose me?’
I was acknowledging, too, that alcohol was a powerful adversary. Won every time – even over family.
Moving was, in so many ways, a turning point, changing the direction of all our lives. As we settled in, I spent my spare time digging the garden and starting to grow flowers for Lucy and me, then a few months later, Ollie met his first serious girlfriend. You carried on with your job at the animal sanctuary; for the first time, you started to bring home a friend you’d made there.
Before we knew it, a month had passed. A month in which I had no contact with Ryan. It felt like I’d been granted a reprieve. A part of me still cared, but it was more of a residual kind of love for the man he once was but wasn’t any more, and leaving you and Ollie alone in the house one Saturday afternoon, I called in on him.
When he opened the door, he looked dreadful. ‘What do you want?’ he said unpleasantly.
‘I came to see if there was any post.’ It was an excuse; I’d had our post redirected.
‘There isn’t,’ he said. ‘There isn’t anything for you here.’ As he turned away, to my horror, his shoulders started to shake.
‘Oh, Ryan.’ But as I reached out to touch his arm, he pulled away.
‘Don’t,’ he said. Then, ‘How could you do this, Edie?’
I looked at him for a moment. ‘Do you really want to know? Because if it’s going to turn into an argument, there’s no point me trying to tell you.’
‘I’m not going to argue.’ His voice was flat.
‘You shouldn’t have hit me,’ I said tightly. ‘You hurt me, Ryan. And Ollie and Lexie watched you do it – can you imagine what that did to them?’ When he didn’t say anything, I went on. ‘In your world, this probably doesn’t seem fair to you. But for years, I’ve done everything I can to keep our family together. I’ve lied to our kids. I’ve lied to myself. Now, I suppose…’ Hesitating, I told him how I’d come to see it. ‘Addiction is destroying you, Ryan. And it was destroying our kids. Me, too, if I’m honest. If I’d stayed, all of us would suffer. This way is better for them. And me.’
‘But not for me.’ His jaw was clenched.
I tried my hardest to be sensitive to how he was feeling. But there was only one way to say this. ‘Can’t you try to put yourself in my shoes? If you had a choice – if you could stop your kids going through hell – what would you have done? You hit me in front of them. How can I stay and let them grow up thinking that is acceptable?’ I asked him. When he didn’t speak, I went on. ‘My decision is for Ollie and Lexie. You have no idea how they’ve been feeling – not just recently, but for years, Ryan. Honestly, I felt I had no choice.’
He shrugged. ‘I get it. You’ll all be fine. It doesn’t matter if I’m not.’
I stared at him in exasperation. ‘It does matter. Why do you think I came here?’
‘To get your post,’ he muttered.
‘My post has been redirected,’ I told him. ‘It was an excuse.’ I paused. ‘Get some help, Ryan. For your own sake.’
I’d always seen it as a flaw of the human psyche that we had to reach the darkest, deepest rock bottom before we could begin to pull ourselves up the other side. It would be so much easier if we could shortcut the process. Recognise that change was needed and just get on with it.
But darkness had another purpose, I was discovering. It was a backdrop against which, once you’d glimpsed it, light became staggeringly, breathtakingly beautiful. As more time went by and the past faded behind us, I watched you and Ollie start to blossom like the flowers I was planting. Uncertainty was falling away from you; you were rediscovering a sense of freedom that had long been missing. Freedom to once again be yourselves.
That first year away from Ryan, Ollie’s A levels came and went, after which he decided to take a gap year. Meanwhile, I saw your dedication grow, with it your determination that whatever you did with your life, it would expose more of the suffering in the world.
‘I can’t stop thinking about the farms, Mum.’ You’d spent hours online, studying farming methods and animal welfare standards. ‘There’s this guy who comes to the shelter to help out. His parents have a farm. I haven’t seen it, but he always says how much he hates it there.’
In due course, I met your friend. Not a boyfriend. You made that clear to me; I wondered if he knew how you felt. Jordan, a gentle, lanky boy with brown eyes and thick, curly hair, was clearly besotted with you. Older than you, he drove you home after a Saturday at the shelter.
‘Would you like to stay for supper?’ I asked.
You gave me one of your ferocious looks. ‘I’m busy tonight, Mum – remember?’ Then you turned to Jordan. ‘Before you go, do you think you could show me that website you were talking about?’
Mystified, I watched him follow you upstairs, not sure why I was surprised about the fledgling power you had; wondering if you were a leader, one that others would follow.
