Authors: Kirsten Rees
Thankfully his phone rang in that moment and as he walked a few metres from where I sat in numb shock and tried to fan my cheeks. Summer was coming to an end and we had come out for a walk in a park near to my home and were sitting people watching when he had kissed me. When my cheeks had cooled, I drank the last of the bottle of juice I had brought and watched as Adam paced on the grass. I wondered who he was talking to but his face was turned away from me and I could see no expressions. He put his phone in his pocket and paused a moment before turning to me and smiling. I thought it a little strange but he was entitled to his privacy.
He took me home then to my family, to my Mother and the moment I walked into the house I realised that how I might eventually feel or not feel about Adam didn't matter. Until I knew my Mother was going to be alright, I couldn't feel anything besides guilt. I knew part of was also that I was too frightened that if I did open my heart again, I wouldn't be able to stop the old tear from ripping its way through it completely.
I had gotten pretty good at keeping my feelings bottled up and I wanted to stay that way for now. My time in Italy had been like summer in the middle of a long, dark winter, but I couldn't allow myself to think of my own happiness. My time away from home was now just another part of my story, it had been a significant part but in the past nevertheless.
I had never spoken of the little orphanage or the fight that terrified me in the bar or anything much about Italy to my Mother. Equally she spoke very little of her time in hospital or her surgery. We spent my twenty-fifth birthday sat in bed watching old movies and eating birthday cake. I’m not sure which of us appreciated the calm more, but it was a nice day of doing nothing much.
She seemed brighter than she had since she left the hospital, which only made the situation worse when I came home a few days later to my Mother looking upset and teary. Assuming the worst, I asked her how she was feeling, if I needed to call the hospital, what could I do to help.
“I’m fine, really Nina, it’s not me.” she said.
“Then who, is everyone okay, has something happened?” My words tumbled out as I knelt beside her and took her still fragile hand in mine.
“Matthew and Anna split up, I know I’m being silly, but I did really care for the girl and I thought that maybe one day…” she sniffed and put a tissue to her eyes.
I gave her a gentle hug, like I was clasping sugar-glass and was afraid she might break.
“I think I’m going to go for a walk and get some fresh air.” said my Mother and patted me on the arm before putting on her coat and heading out.
About twenty minutes later the door opened again but instead of my Mother returning, I heard Matthew’s familiar tread and waiting for him to come in to the kitchen as he always did when he came home.
“Oh hey Nina, is Mother home?” he asked.
“She was upset, so she went for a walk.” I replied.
His face paled and his mouth opened and closed again.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I…I did something stupid. It was a mistake, I cheated on her, but Anna found out and that was it.” he said.
"Matthew, what were you thinking?" I asked.
"Obviously I wasn't." he said through his teeth.
"And just how many times did you make that mistake exactly?" I asked.
He had the decency to look ashamed for the first time.
"I don’t get it - you've spent your life working so hard to prove that you’re better than our Father - university, a great career, a good relationship and then this, how could you?" I asked.
"Don't make me out to be worse than him. He walked out on our Mother and he left us. I made a mistake." he said "I screwed up but I'm sorry for what I did and I'm trying to make amends. But what do you expect, I didn't exactly have the best role model did I!" he said.
"Don't you dare blame him for your mistakes; you're an adult so take some fucking responsibility Matthew." My heart was pounding in my chest and my fists were clenched so tight my nails were digging into the palms. I stormed out of the room.
I had fucked up badly in my life over and over and I really wasn’t in a position to judge, but it wasn't so much that he had made a mistake. He never let go of the blame or anger towards our Father and made a huge deal about being a better man than him. He had fallen off his own pedestal and tried to blame his upbringing for the bruising.
As the months passed and my Mother’s strength began to improve again I dared to let a little hope take hold. Adam was still in my life and I my guard began to relax just a little around him. Every time my phone rang or if I lost the signal and couldn’t keep in touch with home I panicked and yet he was patient and understanding.
The first night my Mother went out with her friends after leaving hospital, I sat in the house trying to read a book and feeling on edge. I asked Adam not to call me to keep the phone line free. So when the house phone rang I jumped up to answer it.
Abruptly it stopped before I got more than a few steps and I heard mumbled conversation in the next room. I listened for any signs of anxiety, but as soon as I heard Joshua’s laughter I slumped back into my twisted slumber.
The next day Adam and I spent an afternoon in the park enjoying the first day of real sunshine that year. It had been an easy, comfortable afternoon but as we sat enjoying the warmth, a couple strolled by holding hands the mood seemed to change. I didn’t want to face him but he moved so I had no choice and I saw the resolve in his eyes.
“I let you leave me before but I’m not giving up on you this time. I was young and I didn’t realise what I had right in front of me.” he said.
After the last few weeks it might have been easy to believe him. “Adam, I don’t know many people that would stick around with all this misery and I’m grateful to you.” I said.
He ran his thumb across my cheek and moved a little closer. “I don’t want you to be grateful, I didn’t spend all this time with you so that you felt like you owe me. I want you feel something, anything for me. Even if we decide that we were right the first time around and we only really need closure, how will we ever know if we don’t at least try?” he asked.
I watched as he closed his eyes and pressed his lips and held them to mine. I sat still trying to relax into the kiss.
Since that first kiss in March, I had kept him at arm’s length so we hadn’t progressed any further and it wasn’t for his lack of trying. He was never insistent in a physical way but this wasn’t the first time he had had a talk with me. And yet until recently ‘I have to get home to my sick Mother’ kinda put a dampener on anything more.
Maybe it was seeing that couple walk passed hand in hand or the feel of the sun on my skin or his words had resonated with me finally, but this time I kissed him back with equal measure. Despite all our talks and the hours we had spent together, I still didn’t know all that much about him. He was as private about his past as I am, but it was more than that. And yet kissing him still felt familiar to me, and it was almost too easy to slip back into what we had all those years ago.
We hadn’t slept together in our previous almost-relationship so this was new territory. It is a terrible thing that it is easier for me to fall into bed, than it is to open my heart to someone. But even as I lay down on his bed later that evening something in me questioned how he felt.
The next morning I woke when a shaft of sunlight shone through a gap in the curtains and the inside of my eyelids shone red. Adam slept quietly beside me, the sheet across his middle and mine and tucked under me as if I’d sub-consciously covered our decency and not moved all night. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected and I guess I’d been avoiding the subject in my head. It hadn’t been rushed or awkward and it felt nice to be held and be able to focus on something other than my life.
It had taken some persuading on my Mother’s part but I had moved into a flat only the week before. Since I’d come home from Italy, I’d spent every night either in our family home or in the same hospital ward waiting for news. So for the first time in a long time I was spending entire nights in unfamiliar surroundings. My Mother had insisted I take Oscar with me at least for a few weeks until I settled in and got to know my neighbours.
Before our night together, Adam and I had spent our free time together going for coffee together and when the weather was good we lay sunbathing in his garden. I would try my hardest to relax and enjoy the warmth of the sunshine. Our brief relationship before had never reached intimacy and yet it felt more secure than this did. This time we had had a sort of friendship and then we crossed that line in to something else. Did it make us a couple or were we just ‘friends with benefits’. I wasn’t sure I felt comfortable with either of the options and so I was too afraid to ask.
One day in the garden, we lay next to each other in the early afternoon talking and kissing. A phone rang from inside and Adam jumped up to answer it. His face was a picture of stress when he returned.
“I have to go into work to sort some minor emergency, I’m so sorry babe but there’s no one else. I’ll be an hour at the most and then we can have the rest of the day together okay.” he said.
It wasn’t a question but I nodded anyway. I watched him pick up his car keys and head swiftly out his garden gate to his car in the driveway. I almost called to him when I noticed his mobile phone lying on the little table by my sun lounger but something stopped me. Ten minutes after I’d heard the sound of his car engine disappear I sat up and looked at the sleek, black gadget.
Password protected – this is wrong but if fate wants me to read this then it’ll let me in. I tried his date of birth – wrong. 1,2,3,4 then 1,2,8,9, his birthday date and month, his favourite number 8 in repeat, his card pin number – all incorrect. I entered the numbers from his private car registration plate that was his pride and joy and finally the phone light up to welcome me. I only realised then how strange it was that he trusted me with his bank card number, but not his phone pin.
I hit messages and it showed one hundred and seventy two in the inbox – all of them read and on skimming through the outbox I saw most of them had been replied to and the majority of them girls. The last few were to me so I skipped them and looked through the others and found various conversations with different girls. There was one conversation with a girl called Kim who had invited herself over on several occasions and the most recent was the first night I had spent with Adam – at least I took priority which was something I tried to find positive in the situation. She wasn’t the only one interested by the looks of the other messages and reading through the outbox most were fairly casual responses but it looked as if at least a few of the feelings were reciprocated.
If we were worth trying again then why was he keeping his options open even after we had slept together? To be fair to him there was little to indicate he cared for any of these girls beyond feeding his sexual appetite and until recently I hadn’t felt ready to fulfill that role yet so perhaps he’d had to satisfy it elsewhere. But I was done with making excuses for other people. I left the phone purposely on my sun lounger and made sure I got all of my things before leaving. I had no intentions of coming back.
We were so careful. So how could this happen. It must be wrong; I reread the instructions again and checked again but the pink cross was still there. I was pregnant. I stumbled from the bathroom to my room and collapsed onto my bed.
Staring at the ceiling I willed myself to wake up but the sharp pain in my foot from falling onto my bed confirmed I was awake. What happens now? It was another three days before I found the - is courage the right word - until I had the guts to see the doctor. I had to be tested again for it to be certain.
“Mr Fairchild, I’m sorry is my class interrupting your reading. It must be a fascinating story; please won’t you be so good as to tell us what has you so captivated. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you look quite so focused in my class before.” demanded the lecturer.
There was a ripple effect of laughter through the class. Alex looked up and his mouth hung open for a few moments until he found the ability to speak. He wasn’t sure if it was the revelation in the diary or the shock of being called out in the middle of class.
“It’s eh…just a notebook sir. Sorry I was just reading some notes.” he said.
He felt a nudge from behind and turned to see his friend DJ with his eyebrow raised in an amused fashion. Alex shook his head and mouthed ‘later’. The rest of the lecture passed unbearably slowly. As soon as the second hand reached the twelve on the clock, he was up and out of his seat, running towards the door.
It was pouring down outside and he shot across the car park to his car. He didn’t make it any further. Within a few minutes the car park grew quieter as his classmates drove away. It was beginning to get a little dark outside and he flicked on the interior light and sat in the car with the notebook in his hands.
It all felt so clinical as I left the sample with the nurse and went back to my flat to wait until I would receive the call to confirm what I already knew. Something - literally - inside of me made me realise that. And yet I wished it wasn't true, aside from the fact that I had never once saw myself as a Mother in my future, I was also completely incapable of looking after a child. I was irresponsible, untidy, disorganised, accident-prone, I drank too much, and I was so emotionally disconnected that I wasn't even sure how I could learn to love and care for someone new.