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She opens a cupboard and takes out one cup. It’s the only cup in there. Then she spoons some coffee grounds into it before turning to face me again. “The same reason I’venevercalled you.”
“Which is what?”
“I didn’t want to bother you. Not after everything…”
We stand in silence as the kettle boils and then she pours hot water into the mug, adds some creamer and hands the cup to me.
“No, you have it,” I say, pushing it back to her.
“You need it more than I do,” she says, arching an eyebrow and casting a critical eye over my appearance.
“Well, I have been driving all night,” I say, taking the mug. “But then, you’ve been working all night… Is that what you do all the time?”
She jerks her head towards the back door. “Let’s sit outside.”
I follow her out and the second I step foot in the back yard, I gasp. The front of the house looks as though no one has loved this place for a very long time, but the back tells an entirely different story. There are flowers everywhere—flowers planted by Grandma and new ones in pots and borders, all different colors of the rainbow. There’s a small fountain in the far corner and small fruit trees dotted along the back.
“It’s stunning out here. Did you do all this?”
“Don’t sound so surprised,” she says. “I had to inherit at least one decent gene from your grandmother.”
She leads me to a wooden bench and we both sit, a little awkwardly.
“So?” I press. “This cleaning job…”
“I’ve been cleaning for years,” she explains, resting her hands on her knees. I’m shocked at how small and leathery they’ve become. She notices me noticing them and shoves them between her legs. “I do whatever job I can get. At the moment, the council offices and Gunners, the new heating company in town, are my biggest jobs, but they’re both overnight. They pay ok though, so I can’t complain.”
“And the fifty grand?”
“It paid off my last debt to the guy who used to get me my painkillers.”
I can feel my blood start to boil. “Who is he?”
Her head spins to look at me and for the first time she looks authoritative, possibly out of fear. “Isaac, it’s none of your business. It was mine, I’ve dealt with it, it’s gone away. He got me those drugs because I begged him to. He gave me a lifeline when I didn’t have any means to pay for them. He didn’t mark up the debt too much—he didn’t play me like some of the dirtbags out there. But, he got ill and didn’t have health insurance.”
I roll my eyes to the ground. “I guess it’s hard to come by in that line of work.”
“Exactly,” Mom smiles. “I owed him, Isaac. He needed all kinds of treatment and he was out of pocket because of me. I had to get him the money. I’m so sorry I came to you but I had nowhere else to go. Cleaning all night and sleeping all day doesn’t leave much time to make friends.”
“And that’s it? You don’t owe him anything anymore?”
“No, nothing. That’s it.” She looks back at the little slice of happiness she’s grown for herself out here. “Anyway, I thought you gave me that money on the proviso I was not to contact you again. I figured it was because you didn’t want anything more to do with me. So, why are you here?”
“I need to ask you some things.”
She shakes her head and growls under her breath. “Ugh, Isaac. I should have known this time would come. I was half-hoping I’d be dead before you got around to wanting this conversation.”
“That’s morbid.”
“Yeah, well, a lifetime of being a shit daughter, a shit wife and a shit mother will do that to you.”
I sigh and focus my gaze on the water fountain. It’s soothing and I feel weirdly at home again even though Mom’s clearly sold everything that used to belong here.
She gets to her feet, unsteadily, then heads for the back door. “There’s something I never showed you. You deserve to see it.”
She returns holding a folded piece of paper. It looks very well-thumbed, fraying at the folds and slightly yellowing. I don’t recognize the handwriting but my name sits at the top of it. As I read, my hands start to shake. I look up at my mother. “Is this…?”
She nods, her eyes filled with tears. My dad’s suicide note. Addressed to me.
