Page 7 of You Were Always the One

Hi. It was nice to see you again. Sorry we didn’t have more time to catch up properly! You looked great by the way. Anyway, you don’t have to reply. I just wanted to say hello again. Riggs

I think about replying. But before I can, the back door bursts open and Grace comes in.

‘Hey, Gracie. Where’s Max?’

She shrugs. ‘Dunno. He wasn’t on the bus.’

I frown at her. ‘So where is he?’

A look of exasperation washes over her face. ‘Mum. I don’t know,’ she repeats. ‘He’s probably at a friend’s.’

I open my mouth to say he should have let me know. But this isn’t Grace’s problem. She goes upstairs, allegedly to do her homework, and I try Max’s phone, but it goes to voicemail. I leave a message.

‘Hi, just wondering if you need a lift home. Give me a call.’

I put my phone down. In three months, Max will be fifteen, his growing independence meaning I am less involved in his life; I won’t always know where he is, or who he’s with. On this occasion, he comes in an hour later – at first, evasive about where he’s been, but then he says he was at a friend’s house and agrees that next time, he’ll tell me.

But family is an ever changing dynamic. Children grow up, the demands of motherhood evolving around their needs. While there’s something else I’m unprepared for, that I’ve never been good at. That I’m not at all sure I want to learn or know the connotations of. That I observe at work every day, that sounds so final.

The art of letting go.

‘The secret is not to,’ Dora says when I visit again the following morning, as I tell her how worried I was about Max. ‘Not completely, that is. You have to let them have their freedom. But I always tried to make sure that we talked, and there were things we did together. As a family. That way, you stay close.’ She pauses, looking at me. ‘What does your husband think?’

‘Miles?’ I shake my head. ‘Miles and I don’t talk about things like this. He isn’t emotional.’

She nods. ‘I think some men find it difficult. But it doesn’t mean they don’t feel. And surely, when it comes to his children, he cares what’s going on in their lives?’

‘He does care.’ I glance towards the window. ‘But I don’t think he knows how to show them that – especially as they’re getting older.’

Dora looks troubled. ‘Oh dear,’ she says. ‘It’s such a shame. Before he knows it, they’ll be grown up. He’ll never get this time back with them.’

‘I know.’ It makes me really sad – for all of them. But I’m not here to talk about me. ‘How are you feeling today? Did you sleep any better?’

‘As a matter of fact, I did.’ Dora seems brighter than yesterday. ‘Natalie and I had a good talk last night, just like you suggested. It was rather emotional. But we were honest.’

My heart warms. ‘I’m so pleased,’ I say. ‘For both of you.’

‘It was the right thing,’ she says. ‘It’s funny how, often, the difficult conversations aren’t as bad as you think they will be.’ She pauses. ‘Life’s a balance, isn’t it? We spend all our lives holding on. To relationships – and our ideas of how everything should be. I don’t know about you, but I used to run myself into the ground, trying to be everything to everyone around me. Now, I wish I’d realised much sooner that no one can do that – at least, not without cost to themselves. And when it comes to relationships…’ She pauses. ‘Well, there’s only so much you can do – especially when someone won’t meet you halfway.’

It’s as though she’s reading my mind, as instantly I’m thinking of Miles.

Her eyes hold mine. ‘I think life’s about working these things out.’ She pauses again. ‘I think I’m getting to where I need to be. In my head.’

‘Are you telling me you’re starting to let go?’ I ask her.

She looks at me thoughtfully. ‘I think I might be.’

That afternoon, back at home, in the brief interlude before my children come in, I ponder what to do about Riggs. Know that if I reply, however carefully I write, it will send a message that goes beyond my words. I tell myself I shouldn’t respond. And I try not to. But the pull is irresistible.

Hello! It was good to see you too! I can’t believe so much time has passed.

I pause typing, not because there aren’t things to say. It’s more how to say them. Actually, it isn’t even that. Seeing Riggs again has stirred up how I used to feel. The end of us that should never have been. The sense of a life I never lived. Happening now, when Miles and I are emotionally distant, it leaves me with the sense that I’m standing on a cliff edge.

I’m still mulling over what to write when Rita calls me.

‘So?’ she demands.

I’ve no idea what she’s getting at. ‘I’m sorry?’