The Spark - Jules Wake Page 0,118
cheer, I didn’t sleep well. I woke not long after midnight and stared up at the ceiling for several hours. Talking to my dad had stirred up so many memories and emotions. Although it had been amicable, I felt as twisted up as the sheets around my waist. I couldn’t keep things straight in my head; I’d start following one thread and lose it, taking up another. My brain felt like a candy floss machine and I was desperately trying to capture the fly-away wisps of thoughts.
It’s difficult when ingrained perceptions, held for so long that they’re a part of you, are ripped open, and instead of the smooth skin you’ve always had, you’re now looking into an open wound. The story – Mum as a victim, Dad as the villain – had been one of the building blocks of my life, defining so much of me. I hadn’t expected Dad’s side of the story to make me question so many of my entrenched beliefs. I’d always thought my mum was strong and independent. A survivor. I was proud that we were both survivors. Proud that I’d survived a father who hadn’t wanted me. But now I realised that Mum hadn’t survived. She’d existed. It was a revelation that, in the small dark hours, I couldn’t let go of.
Mum could have made so much more of her life if she’d moved on. She blamed Dad for our financial situation, always saying that he’d refused to support us. And yet it was clear he’d been willing and able. Mum had let me believe that Dad had left her in a callous, heartless way, walking out without looking back. I’d believed her to be the victim. Now I wondered if, in fact, Dad had been the victim. He had tried to do the right thing. Marriages broke up. It was a fact of life. It was how you handled that break-up that defined you. Had Mum chosen to be a victim in not accepting that their marriage was over? In refusing him a relationship with me? In turning down his financial support? Her depression couldn’t have been prevented, but was it all down to the break-up? Certainly it had exacerbated the situation but it sounded like, from what Dad said, she’d suffered from depression for many years before they broke up.
I was still ruminating when I became aware of the dawn chorus. Oh God. I had to be at Dad and Alicia’s in five hours’ time. I rolled over and set my alarm, just in case I did fall asleep, and plumped my pillows up in yet another desperate bid to persuade my body into sleep.
My alarm went off what felt like five minutes later. It was half past nine, which gave me half an hour to get ready. Clumsily, I lurched out of bed, numbed by grogginess, fighting my way through the heaviness of sleep to the en suite bathroom. My bleary face stared back at me in the mirror and when self-pitying tears threatened, I filled the sink with cold water and splashed my face. Today I was going to meet my brothers. That was cause for celebration. They were the innocents in all this. Unblemished by any fault in the situation.
Make-up did a little to hide the ravages of the night and when I set out, my mind started racing again and this time my thoughts turned to Sam. Why I chose to torture myself I don’t know, but as I walked, I pulled out my phone and scrolled through my pictures. It was like a tapestry of our history together. I stopped on one in which I’d captured Sam looking up at me, with an intimate knowing smile that looked right into the heart of me, as if he knew all my secrets and my very soul. I bit my lip to stop an involuntary sob and closed my eyes. Swallowing hard, I shoved the phone back in my pocket and strode quickly along the green towards the house.
When I lifted the heavy door knocker, I heard squeals from inside floating through the open windows.
‘She’s here! She’s here!’
I waited a moment and then beyond the door I could hear, ‘No, let me. Let meeee.’
The door opened and two small bodies jostled for position on the doorstep, both peering up at me with three dogs pushing through their legs, sniffing at my legs.
‘Hello, you must be Ben and Toby.’
‘Yes. I’m Ben. I’m ten.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘You’re the lady