Page 13 of The Second Chance Bus Stop
I stop rummaging in the box and look up at her. We have a lot of pictures from when I was a toddler, it’s true, and Mum is in all of them with me. I never thought about who might have taken them, or why her smile was so wide. Or why she stopped appearing in photos when I got older. There was no one to take them anymore.
‘Let’s go through our photos again this week and see if we can find him somewhere,’ I suggest.
We sit for an hour. Like I feared, there isn’t much, and all the gaps I’m trying to fill with Mum’s memories are still glaringly empty. I read the letters quietly; they’re love proclamations. Begging pleas for him to return to her or let his whereabouts be known.This can’t be Mum, I think. The image of her head over heels in love just doesn’t seem right.This is not how she talks or writes.Do I not know her at all?
‘Where are the rest of them, Mum?’ I ask her.
‘The rest?’
‘Yes, you, know, the other half of them. From Sven... Are there any?’ I say. Then it clicks. There are no replies. It’s all Mum’s letters. Without envelopes and folded up into squares.
‘Why were they returned?’
I pick up another note and read it in my head. Not addressedto anyone, no greeting, just a single plea:If you decided that you didn’t want me any longer, I understand, just let me know that you are safely back in Svedala. E.Mum has long discarded the envelopes. Knowing how she tears and rips paper, I’m not surprised, but that means we have no addresses. Until now. What I hold in my hand is a postcard, an address scribbled across the righthand side, a postal stamp covering half of it. It was returned because of an incomplete postal code.
Finally, maybe there’s something.
‘Svedala, is that the place, Mum? Is that where you were going to move with Sven? Where he lived?’
I see her reaching for the answer. It’s here on paper—I just need it confirmed from this version of my mum, not the hopeless, pleading woman in these letters who I don’t recognize.
‘Yes. Sven from Svedala. Doesn’t that just sound like something you’d make up?’ she says eventually, and I draw a sigh of relief as I am able to finally plan the first part of my trip.
Finally.With the help of the internet, I have narrowed it down to five Svens with the correct surname and birth year already, but this could tighten the search further. I open up Google Maps and mark the small tiny dot before zooming out to find the nearest airport: Copenhagen.
Right. To Svedala, then.
Edith
London
Sons are like weeds. I say this in the nicest of ways, and if you’d seen my front garden you’d not question the affection in my statement. I quite like eccentricity. I certainly like sons. Mine tends to pop up where he’s least expected lately, and always in an attempt to secure my attention.MUM. Did you leave the tap on in the bathroom? The water bill was huge last month.My son, Blade, does not ask questions like most people. Instead they are followed by a long string of words and reprimands. The fastest way to deal with him is to simply sigh.
When I hear the front door inform me that Blade is gone, I swivel out of bed and swallow the tablets he’s left for me on the side table, a chemical sharpness brushing my throat. I don’t remember which day it is, but then I don’t remember a lot of things anymore. I try not to dwell on that. I simply move on to the next thought. Some days my mind is one fast string of images and thoughts in an endless scroll of one to the next, and other days, when I remember more, I can dwell on specifics, can pause and sit with them. There is less anxiety when your thoughts move slowly, when you’re able to stop and hold them for longer.
I walk downstairs the same way I think I always do. Thefloor is cold against the soles of my feet, and I realise I have forgotten my slippers. I stop at the hallway mirror and, as always, feel reassured when my own familiar face looks back at me. I still recognise myself. Marvelous. The kitchen is full of sticky notes that sayDo not touch. Everything bears a warning.Cutlery drawer—sharp objects! Kettle—hot! careful!I finally find something I am allowed to touch: my Thermos flask and a plate containing a sandwich, a handful of grapes and two biscuits. I take it to the table and end up staring at it for an eternity because I am not quite sure what I am supposed to eat first. The phrasefive a daypops up when I look at the grapes, so I conclude that I’ll eat five of them, but the order of events is still unclear. In the end I decide to tackle the sandwich first because I think of Goldilocks and how she first tried the big bowl of porridge, and the sandwich is the largest item on the plate. I eat slowly, trying to halt the imagery and thoughts rushing past in my mind, finding one I can settle on, that I recognise. The house is quiet, and I try to think if I get many visitors these days.
I wonder when Blade will be back. I am so used to my son’s presence that I’m not sure he counts as company at this point. Rather, he is part of my environment, like the rug that’s been there twenty odd years and that I like to brush my feet against when I sit on the sofa. Or the jewellery I don’t take off even for showers. I search my mind for a memory that will tell me when Blade will come home and where he might have gone. As usual the memory I need doesn’t come, but others do, flooding into my consciousness. I am overcome with joy as image after image of Blade’s smiling face floats through my mind like a computer screensaver. The time I taught him to ride a bike, late, at eight years old, far away from the neighbourhood so no friends would risk spotting him. The pride when he finally learnt and the relief at not having to come up with excuses as to why he couldn’t join friends in the park.I’m there, watching him smile and laugh. Then suddenly my mind focuses on something else, more recent, getting close to answering my question about where Blade might be this very moment. Except it’s not, and I’m left no wiser. It’s the image of the box of letters we went through.
Sweden.
Then it appears to me. I remember that I have something to tell Blade, something he must know, about lost chances and regret. The trouble is it keeps slipping away.
There’s a point in life when your future is behind you. It sneaks up on you. You think,Shall I go to Greece or Italy this summer?And then the question changes and bears more weight because it reads in your mind likeShould I go to Greece or Italy this summer—whilst I can?What I mean to say is that your life is in no way over, but you realise that each decision is now judged against whether you can live with yourself if it never happens.
One day I looked at Blade and that damned thought popped up.
I should tell him about Svenwhilst I can.
Zara
London
Zara is packing to her current musical obsession, which is, in Blade’s words, ‘an Irish niche band for cool people’. Packing means throwing things at random into a small hard suitcase then sitting on it whilst zipping it closed, sweat appearing on her forehead.
She still has a spare key for the house, hers since she was a teenager. It was so much closer to school than her own house and she felt more comfortable there. There were no questions about homework or what had happened to her uniform or anything that her mum and dad routinely asked about. To this day she takes out her piercings before she goes to see them to avoid a debate, hating herself and her weak spirit for it.
She’s happy to stay with Edith. It’s really not a favour. Sure, she’s had to cancel a date tonight, but to be fair she would have cancelled it anyway. Zara likes giving people a chance, and so she finds herself swiping for pretty much everyone. She doesn’t want them to end up with no match: life is hard enough without being the last one to be picked. So she swipes and swipes like some relentless serial dater and then has to come up with excuses to never meet up or move the conversation to WhatsApp.
