Mum was frowning and doing her best to say something, but I didn’t want to hear what she had to say. I wanted her just to listen and be proud of me and to say it was okay.
And it wasn’t only that which made me fill up every inch of breathing and conversation space in her room in the hospice that afternoon. No. At the back of my mind there was the notion that what she truly wanted to tell me was that she loved me and I couldn’t let her. Don’t get me wrong – we did tell each other quite often, but there was something in the atmosphere that afternoon that made me desperately not want to hear it. Almost as if I did then there would be finality in the words. For if she told me she loved me and I told her I loved her too everything would be harmonious, and she would be able to slip off away into the everworld, her work here done.
And I didn’t want that. I wasn’t ready to lose her just yet. So I didn’t let her speak.
God, if only I had. I should have. I should have let her tell me.
She so wanted to. In fact, she was struggling with all her might to tell me.
And now, I know what it was, I am ashamed.
She was seriously worried – rightly so.
If I’d let her speak she would have told me the truth. Then maybe I would have been forewarned. And forewarned is, as they say, forearmed.
But I didn’t, did I?
I gabbled on and on until the nurse came in and had to administer the drugs. And then Mum was tired. When I came back in, she had fallen asleep. So I went home.
And it was that night, as the moon sailed upwards, my mother, along with her unspoken words, finally let go.
But I couldn’t.
And now I was haunted by my stupid stupid actions. Hearing the word ‘sorry’ in my dreams, waking up to unknown sobs.
I moved my legs off the bed and crept into the shower.
Unfortunately there are some stains that just won’t wash away.
Chapter Three
I thought grief would be the worst thing.
Though Mum’s health had been on a steep decline, and I more or less expected it, when death actually came it still shocked me.
During the first few days after she went, there had been pain. Then the sharpness of it eroded, and I was left with this sense of great guilt. Which was worse. Though this guilt was an energiser. It could have made me go round the bend it was so great. But I found a way of handling it – as soon as it came upon me in the mornings, I went into action, hoping that physical exertion might knock regret from its number one spot at the forefront of my mind. It kind of felt that if I didn’t do that, then it would engulf me entirely. Then I could see myself just sitting in the flat, crying and crying on my own. I didn’t want that. Mum wouldn’t have wanted that. So I went with the extreme activity option.
That morning, after I had rinsed as much shame as I could out of my hair, I combed it out in front of the living room mirror. In my twenties I’d earned the nickname ‘Lois Lane’ amongst my friends and peers, partly because I shared a terrier-like commitment to my cub reporter’s role on the local rag. It wasn’t quite the Daily Planet, but I was proud of what I did and used to talk about it non-stop. But there was also a physical resemblance to the actress in the TV series of Superman, Teri Hatcher. We were both dark, had well-defined eyebrows and had short, sassy bobs. I didn’t mind the comparison.
In the mirror today, a pale reflection stared back. I looked worse than I’d expected: my eyes, though grey, had a purple darkness about them – the surrounding skin was dry and blotchy and pink from bouts of unscheduled weeping. My hair, black like Mum’s, was broken up with russet lowlights though there was a good inch of regrowth that needed attention. And I was thinner. Maybe half a stone less than I was two weeks ago. Most people wouldn’t mind that, but it made me look gaunt: although Dad was unusually tall (six foot three), my slight frame had come from the maternal line.