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Meals on Wheels
Now
“Who was it?” Isaac calls down the stairs. Of course he does. Firstly, he couldn’t hear me earlier when I was calling for breakfast, but he heard the door. Typical. Secondly, who exactly does he expect it to be, given he doesn’t know anyone here?
I do.
Oh, God. I do.
Leaning against the door, I take a deep breath, my limbs still frozen in a never-ending shocked spasm. That was much, much quicker than I expected. Much quicker. When I decided to come back, I had it in my head that perhaps one day I may bump into Freddy Bale. He would probably be married, and yes, it would sting like fuck (I do have double standards, I know this) and we would just casually wave across the street to one another and then walk along. My ideas were always surrounded by this comforting rosy glow.
I never expected him to turn up on my doorstep within hours of me being home. I never expected for my lungs to fail the moment I saw him. And I never expected I would blurt out my married name — which isn’t even my real name anymore — and watch a flicker of hurt flash across his ocean blues.
You were never in love with him. You were never in love with him. You were never in love with him.
These words are the cement to my fortress. The one I have securely locked myself in for the last decade, keeping my memories on the outside of the walls. I was never in love with him.
It was lust. A childish crush.
Okay, if I were to be honest, I would admit that the fortress walls are sometimes made of jelly and prone to wobble. I have managed in the last ten years to reduce my Freddy thoughts to three a day, and I believe that to be successful progress.
Now. . . now I’ve seen him, every moment we ever spent together is back in my head, just like it never went away. Freddy Bale.
“Meals on Wheels?” My mother makes me jump out of my skin.
“No, Mum, it’s Amber.” I peel myself away from the door and straighten up.
“I know who you are. I was asking if that was Meals on Wheels at the door?”
Looking at her in puzzlement, I shake my head. All the reading I’ve done has said this can happen: clarity one moment, forgetfulness the next. It’s harder than I thought.
Mum might remember who I am right now, but she hasn’t acknowledged that I’m home. “I suppose you’re going to rush out with that Bale boy again and not spend any time with your father and I today.”
I take a deep breath and blink away the stinging tears. “No, Mum. I’m twenty-eight, remember? I came home yesterday to look after you?” Then comes the truly painful bit. “Mum, Dad’s dead, do you not remember?”
She doesn’t. The dementia started not long after he died of a sudden heart attack last year. So when I said I hadn’t been home to the village in ten years, it wasn’t strictly the truth, I came home last year for three hours to cremate the dad I loved and missed, but whose life my mum had ruined. Ironic that without him, her own life slowly started to deteriorate.
“That boy,” she continues, still clearly stuck in the decade before. “He’s going to be nothing but trouble for you, Amber. You’ve got to stick to your plan, otherwise you will end up like me.”
Tears slip out of the corner of my eyes. I will never be like her. She made sure of that ten years ago when she somehow convinced Freddy Bale to let me go.
“I know, Mum. I will break up with him, I promise.” I soothe her and take her hand, leading her into the kitchen and to the table that’s always been there. “I’ll make you some lunch. Would you like scrambled eggs on toast?”
“Meals on Wheels bring spaghetti Bolognese,” she says.
Bloody spaghetti Bolognese.
“Okay, I can do that.” I think.
Turning, I go to tell her to take a seat, but she’s already wandered off to the chair in the lounge; my dad’s chair.
In the kitchen, I bang around the pots and pans, my frustration making me sound like a percussion instrument. I have things I need to be doing. I need to be unpacking, working out how we are going to fit into this dated house. I need to be working on my new project. My manuscript notes lay in the bottom of my laptop case, but I know I can’t leave them too long. If I don’t write, I don’t work. If I don’t work, then I don’t earn. It’s as simple as that.
I need to not be here.
I’ve made a terrible mistake in coming back. Looking at the faded walls of the kitchen, I know this, and not because of the house, the mess, or even the state my mum is in. I’m just not the same Amber who used to live here.
I could kill Freddy Bale for turning up and making me react this way.
