The car dips and rises with the coastal road. Each curve reveals fishing villages nestled into rocky coves. Gulls are wheeling overhead, ancient church spires punctuating the sky.
‘How was I supposed to know? We weren’t allowed to talk about it.’ I told her. ‘At least I wasn’t.’
The truth hung between us in her sunlit kitchen with the gingham curtains and small sculptures crowding the windowsill – rough hands cupped together, a line of heads with closed eyes, a single bird curled in on itself. She’s been sculpting again for the past two years. For almost a decade, she couldn’t bring herself to touch the stone.
The silence was thick with ghosts. The ghost of my dad, always away. The ghost of her depression, a stone blanket smothering every conversation. The ghost of me at thirteen, checking her breathing while she slept.
A tractor pulls out ahead, and I ease off the accelerator, welcoming the forced slowdown. The road narrows here, hedgerows pressing in on both sides, creating a green tunnel that opens suddenly to a view of fields rolling down to the sea.
Mum’s depression wasn’t something we ever discussed. Dad was at sea half the year, and when he was home, he pretended everything was normal. So, I became the one who made sure bills were paid, the house was clean, food was in the cupboards, and neighbours didn’t get suspicious.
At thirteen, I learned to forge my mother’s signature on school permission slips. By fourteen, I cooked a week’s worth of meals and froze them in portions. At fifteen, I knew exactly how to answer when teachers asked why she never came to parents’ evening.
Mum’s face crumpled, lines appearing where there weren’t any moments before. Then her arms were around me. A real hug, not the careful kind. ‘I’m so sorry my illness did all that to us,’ she whispered into my hair. ‘To you.’
I couldn’t feel my hands for a moment. Years of vigilance, of scanning rooms for signs of danger, of managing everyone’s emotions before my own, all acknowledged in one sentence. And in the space of a breath, over a decade of tension began to unspool from my spine.
A flock of birds rises suddenly from a field, startled by something I can’t see. They wheel and turn as one, a dark cloud against the blue sky, before settling again.
No. It wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t my job to carry it all alone. I was a child trying to contain a catastrophe I didn’t understand. The revelation sits heavy in my chest like a boulder.
My mother got help when I was seventeen. Therapy, medication, a support group. She improved enough for me to leave for university in Edinburgh without the constant dread of what I might find when I came home. But I still spent every holiday, every free weekend at home when Dad was away with the Navy.
The road turns its back on the sea. Fields give way to small clusters of houses and, eventually, to the outskirts of Stirling. Traffic thickens, forcing me to focus on the here and now.
By the time I pull into the car park, the sky’s gone grey again, and my shoulders are locked tight. The sudden silence wraps around me.
My phone pings with a text from Charlie:
Brodie texted me that the volunteers are about to climb your so-called boyfriend. You there?
* * *
My boyfriend, right. Yeah. The word lodges behind my breastbone, thin and precise, as if I’ve swallowed a pin and every breath drives it deeper. I text back:
Almost. 2 mins. I got this. See you later!
* * *
But do I? I check my lipstick in the rear-view mirror. Blot. Reapply. Perfect my smile until it seems good enough to fool a crowd, if not the man who’s seen me lose myself beneath his hands.
The childhood that calibrated me – that made me hyper-vigilant, always scanning for emotional weather changes – also made me fantastic at my job. At reading rooms, managing crises, anticipating needs before they’re voiced. But perhaps it’s time to stop running everyone’s emotional weather stations and live in my own climate.
I step out of the car, smoothing down my dress. In two minutes, I have to face Finn. Three days after I let him walk away. No, since I pushed him to, and he didn’t disagree.
I straighten my shoulders, lift my chin, and walk toward the venue. Time to play the part. Not the broken-hearted girlfriend he’s leaving to go to France – the one who never fell in love with him to begin with.
* * *
The MacKenzie Sporting flagship store gleams with that specific retail shine, its windows filled with mannequins in overpriced activewear.
The Kick Off Kindness – Meet & Greet with the Rebels was my idea. Good for one of their biggest sponsors, good for the team, good for the agency.
There’s a reason why my ex stole my ideas. They’re great. And they work: the queue stretches past two storefronts on Stirling’s High Street. Teenagers with phones ready, middle-aged men in jerseys, mothers with small children in oversized Rebels kit. All waiting for a glimpse of the new team in town. All waiting for the man I pushed away.
Deep breath, Theodora. Walk in like your heart isn’t currently beating somewhere outside your body.
The smell hits first. New trainers and floor cleaner with overtones of nervous sweat. The acoustics amplify every sound. Shuffling feet, excited whispers.
