Of course, she started with herself. “I know. I was there. It broke all of us.”
“No, Luke. It broke me. I didn’t tell you because I was embarrassed, but I needed antidepressants just to make it out of bed in the morning. I just didn’t know how to function without your dad. I did some things, made some decisions back then that I would never make now.”
“I’m sorry that happened to you. Really, I am. And I don’t want to get into a pissing contest of who had it worse, but you only lost Dad. We lost Dad and we lost you. And I wasn’t allowed a moment to grieve for either of you.”
“That’s not fair. I was there as best I could be.”
“No, Mum. You weren’t. Do you remember what Dad was buried in?”
“A suit.”
“Yeah, but which one?”
Shelley looked down at the table.
“It was the navy one. I picked it out because you’d always said he looked handsome in fucking navy. You were so out of it, you couldn’t even make the most basic decisions, so I made them for you.”
Silence fell between them.
“I tried my best.” Blue eyes, so like his own, stared up at him. “But your dad was my anchor. And without him, I drifted.”
“And without you, I had to bury my own grief and move on. I couldn’t sit on the sofa and cry, because Iz needed picking up from netball. Or she needed help with her geography homework. Or the form for her school field trip needed filling out. Did you know I forged your signature in her homework diary for twelve months?”
“I know you did a lot. You were like your dad. Always so capable.”
Luke huffed. “Capable. You left me with no choice. I was going to fail my A-levels because of all the time I had to spend looking after you and Iz. And you know what? I couldn’t even think about resitting a year because we needed money. I was brimming with resentment. I love Izabel, but she was your daughter. She needed a parent. Then, you physically left us too. I had no choice but to work. You sold the house, took the money and the life insurance, and gave me the first and last month’s rent on an apartment.”
“You were working by then.”
“Because I’d had to drop out of school, because I was failing, because I was taking care of you and Iz. Jesus Christ, Mum. Don’t you see the broken fucking cycle? I was working a not-much-better-than-minimum-wage job. And you expected me to look after Iz on it. At least as a single parent you could get child support. I took out loans I never told her about so she could go to college.”
“Why didn’t you ask me for help?” He watched her wander to the window where she fixed the curtains that didn’t need fixing.
“You’d already proved you weren’t any help to me. Dad would have been embarrassed by what you did. Not the falling apart, because he held you up all those years. But the after. Leaving the two of us. Taking all the money.”
“His will were his wishes.”
“His will was twenty years old. It predated me. And I didn’t know back then that I could have contested the will or whatever. I wish I had back then, though. Never occurred to me you’d just take it all.”
“Can I explain? We needed the money to buy a house in Brighton. It’s expensive down here.”
“We needed the money to fucking eat, Mum.”
Anger, confusion, and swathes of loss raged through him. His head spun like the moment you realise you’d had one drink more than you should’ve. That weird feeling of spinning and nausea and a nasty taste in your mouth. There was a pack of cigarettes in his bedside table back home, unopened. He’d seriously cut down on cigarettes, but suddenly, he felt as though he needed a hit of something.
“Isn’t this all water under the bridge?” Shelley swiped away the tears that had pooled beneath her eyes. “Why is all this coming up now?”
“It’s nothing you need to know about,” he said. But Willow squeezed his hand. In her eyes, he could see compassion he was struggling to find.
“Tell me, Lukey,” his mum said, and the pet name she had for him when he was little cut like a knife.
“Willow’s pregnant.”
“I’m going to be a grandmother?” Shelley asked, a smile cutting through her mascara-stained cheeks.
He didn’t want her to be happy. “Yes. Willow is American. Lives in Malibu.” It was all the detail he could spare for her. He didn’t want to tell her why saying those words hurt.
“Congratulations to you both.” Shelley grabbed a tissue for her face and cleaned up the streaks in the mirror above the fireplace as she took a deep breath. “I’ve obviously done way more damage than I can ever make up for. None of it was intentional, but that doesn’t ease the hurt, does it? And I’m sorry, Luke. Really sorry. Is this why you are here? The baby bringing issues up from back then?”
Luke sighed and checked the time on his phone. “Something like that.”
Willow reached for his hand, and he kissed her knuckles.
“Are you worried about how to be a good dad?” Shelley asked.
“I don’t want to discuss this with you. But I do understand a little better. I always thought Dad’s death was the thing that hit us all hardest. But I think it was losing you that had the biggest impact on the way my life unfolded. And, you know what, I forgive you for getting so lost in your own grief that you forgot about us.”
He said the words cavalierly . . . but as they settled in his chest, he realised he meant them.
Shelley straightened her shoulders. “I wish I was a stronger person, had a stronger disposition. I managed it by marrying men who could take care of me. You probably think that makes me weak. But it was my way of getting through grief. I guess I relied on you to step into Dad’s shoes.”
“I’m not Dad,” Luke said, trying to bite down the tears that threatened. But something inside him felt unleashed. Cracked open. Raw.
I’m not Dad . . . and I don’t need to be him.
Words he’d wanted to say were now free.
Shelley’s tears fell freely. “Luke. You are every bit as good a man as your father. I knew you’d look after her. I thought it unfair to make her change schools in her GCSE exam year. You always seemed so capable, I guess I just forgot how young you still were. I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry I never realised just how much of a burden it was to you. It was never your job to raise her. You did a fabulous job of caring for her. And if you give your own child what you’ve given me and Izabel, your baby will be fine. But I’m sorry. Truly sorry, that your happiness was the price of everyone else’s, including my own.”
“Are you okay?” Willow asked as he tossed the bags onto the bed of his spare room.
Luke’s shoulders slumped forward. “I don’t know what I thought was going to happen. I said I forgive her, but now I just feel empty. Like the bitterness has gone, but nothing has come in and taken its place. And I realised something while we were sitting in her living room, which Dad’s hard work and life insurance paid for.”
“What’s that?”
Luke pursed his lips and creaked his neck from left to right, as if gearing up to drum. “Every single person I’ve loved in my life has left me or chosen someone else or let me down. Dad. Mum. Iz, with my best friend. My best fucking friend, Willow. And Jase . . . he slept with my sister. And I’ve been trying to make my peace with all this. I’ve apologised to people. I’m trying to be a better person. To learn and grow. But I worry you’re going to leave me too.” He placed his hands on her stomach, rubbing it gently. “You’re going to take my kid to Malibu.”