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Mum’s hair looked wild, like windswept candyfloss, so I drew my hairbrush from my handbag to fix it. Before addressing her, I crouched down before her chair, because I remembered how much I’d hated it when people spoke down to me when I’d been in one. ‘Would you like me to brush your hair for you, M— …maybe?’ I’m sure Dad was the only one who noticed I’d shied away from calling her ‘Mum’ at the last moment. I couldn’t see the point in confusing her even further if she really didn’t remember me.
‘Do you know how to do it properly?’ she fired back in a slightly confrontational tone that I’d never heard her use before. What a cruel and sadistic thief this illness was, taking the very best bits of my mum and leaving almost nothing recognisable behind.
‘Actually, I do know how to do it very well,’ I assured her, moving into position behind her chair. ‘I had an excellent teacher.’
Somehow, without any conscious decision, the hair brushing turned into an impromptu mini pampering session. Whilst delving into my make-up bag for a slide to keep her wispy hair in place, I discovered an emery board, a nail varnish and some hand cream. Dad made a rather feeble excuse to absent himself, declaring it was all too girly for him, and that he was going to the lounge area to read the newspaper. But I saw the look in his eyes as he turned at the door and looked back on us; his girls. Always his girls. He was giving me this time; it was his gift to me and nothing he’d given me in my entire life had ever been so precious.
When her nails were done, Mum had wanted the television turned on and instructed me to find her favourite show. I scrolled through the guide with no idea what I was looking for… and then I found it. When Dad eventually returned we were on our third episode of a show devoted entirely to brides selecting their wedding dresses. It was a programme Mum and I had once watched together and I was amazed it was still on the air. But even more amazing was how halfway through the second episode she had reached over and taken hold of my hand. It was a moment I knew I was going to remember and cherish for the rest of my life.
I fed her her lunch. It should have felt weird, and I suppose in a way it was. But there was a tenderness there too as our lives came full circle. She had done all these things – and so much more – for me over forty years ago, and now it was my turn to do them for her.
CHAPTER 4
The visit had been a surprising success, so bursting into tears as soon as Mitch pulled away from the care home was a genuine shock. And this wasn’t genteel, refined weeping either. These were full-on, heart-wrenching sobs; the kind that leave make-up all over your face and make your nose run. We were on a busy road with nowhere to pull over, but I could tell Mitch was desperately looking for somewhere to do so anyway.
‘No. Drive. Just drive,’ I urged as though we were in a getaway car. If he stopped the truck, he would draw me into his arms to comfort me, and that scared me almost as much as my current emotional outburst. Mitch chewed worriedly on his lip but did as I asked, pressing his foot down once more on the accelerator. With one eye on the traffic and the other on me, he reached into the back seat and produced a man-sized box of tissues that he dropped onto my lap.
It took thirty miles and half the box before I finally managed to pull myself together. Throughout it all Mitch had stayed blissfully silent. There hadn’t been a single‘What’s wrong?’or‘Come on now’, which was precisely why I loved him. The thought startled me so much, I stopped midway through a particularly noisy nose blow.As a friend, I added hastily, as though my subconscious was running off down a track it had no business journeying on. Of course,as a friend.
‘Was it worse than you expected?’ he asked eventually. It was the first thing he’d said in almost forty minutes. Mitch was right about one thing, hewasincredibly patient.
‘Uh huh,’ I replied. My voice sounded rough, as if someone had gone over it with sandpaper.
‘That must have been tough,’ he said, and there was so much understanding in his voice I almost lost it all over again. I gave myself a brisk mental shake and turned slightly in my seat.
‘Thank you,’ I said simply. His eyes briefly left the road and found mine. ‘Thank you for knowing not to say anything and thank you for letting me cry it out.’
‘I hate seeing you so upset,’ he said, sounding almost embarrassed by the admission. ‘It makes me feel useless.’ It was an emotion I could tell didn’t sit comfortably with him.
I leant forward and rested my hand for a moment on his forearm. At some point during the day he’d rolled up his shirt sleeves and beneath my palm I could feel the heat of his skin stretched over muscles that appeared to have been hewn from granite. They contracted reflexively at my touch and I immediately withdrew my hand, not wanting to distract him while he was driving.
‘Everything at the care home was just as I remembered it,’ I said sadly, ‘except Mum, that is. I suppose I just wanted to wake up and find everything was exactly the same.’ I gave a small humourless laugh. ‘You’d think I’d be used to this happening by now.’
Mitch shook his head, as though somewhere, just beyond his grasp, were the right words to say, if only he could find them.
‘The crazy thing is I stillfeelyoung.’
‘You still look exactly the same,’ Mitch said, confirming his extreme loyalty, or a dire need for an eye test. Either way I smiled at him warmly. ‘Well, having a daughter who was playing with her dolls house when I went to sleep, and boys when I woke up is taking some getting used to.’
‘Hope has a boyfriend?’
‘She does. And here’s a surprise for you… Ryan doesn’t approve of him. Now there’s a shocker.’
Mitch’s laugh rumbled around the Chevy like a thunder roll. ‘Sam will be disappointed to hear that. I got impression he was pretty keen too. And the two of them were messaging back and forth last night.’
‘They were?’ I asked in surprise. ‘Well, for what it’s worth, I think Sam would be a much better boyfriend than the one Hope has chosen.’ It was impossible not to smile at how Mitch’s face lit up with fatherly pride whenever his son was complimented. ‘But, unfortunately, I think Hope and Sam are unlikely to be anything more than friends right now. She seems pretty keen on this other lad.’
‘Well, friends is always a good place to start,’ Mitch said. ‘It often leads to romance a little further down the line.’ There was something in his voice, or the way his hands had tightened on the steering wheel that set off a silent alarm. Wewerestill talking about our teenage children, weren’t we? I was no longer entirely sure.
‘I’m pretty sure that kind of thing only happens in those romcom films you’re so fond of,’ I teased, dragging us away from the precipice of a conversation I didn’t feel comfortable having.
Mitch must have sensed my discomfort, for he leant forward and switched on the radio and we spent the next thirty minutes listening to a country music station, a genre perfectly suited to a man with a penchant for checked shirts, jeans, and heavy boots.
It was only when we stopped for petrol that I wondered about my reaction; was I guilty of ignoring my own feelings? I’ve never been a jealous person. How could I be, when I’d ended up making friends with the woman who’d married my own fiancé? And yet when Mitch was halfway across the floodlit petrol station forecourt, I certainly felt a frisson of something I wasn’t exactly proud of. Mitch had said very little when I’d asked him about his own day, other than to say:‘It was great, thanks. Sally’s really good company.’
And yet I felt my teeth grind together when his phone juddered in its stand on the dashboard, and above the image of our route home a green banner flashed up announcing an incoming message from Sally.
Thank you for such a wonderful day. It was so good to see you again, Mitch. Next time we must…
