Page 71 of Maybe
A pang of guilt struck me. Weeks had passed since we’d spoken. I had a list of ready excuses, explaining it away to myself: work, nightshifts, exams, and the small issue of being in love with my brother. But the truth of the matter was... I was emptied out. Not that anyone noticed, except for Ezra. Like the obsolete, battered computers at work, I’d kept on performing out of sheer stubbornness rather than design: laughing with Alaric, fixing dislocated fingers, making small talk with Gerald. Managing a cot death. And living a lie.
Since my dad’s death, the compartment in my head reserved for being my mother’s dependable son, the golden boy who followed his parents' dreams instead of his own, had been filled with all this other shit. And I wasn’t sure I could retrace my steps back to him anymore. Instead of telling his mother her automaton had been swapped out for the real Isaac, I’d avoided her. Which was clearly the level of support one should always offer to a bereaved, alcoholic close relative. If ever I found myself in a similar position, I would obviously expect nothing less of my own children.
I’d learned to fly. I’d flown away.
As my thumb hovered uncertainly over my reply, she texted again, which made my mind up in an instant. What the fuck?
Jonty left his blue sweatshirt behind at my house. If I bring it along, could you pass it on to Ezra?
We met at a small café not far from Dad’s old Harley Street clinic and, by definition, only a stones’ throw from where Ezra’s poor mother died. I’d have probably suggested somewhere else if I wasn’t still reeling from that second text. After three hoursof multiple-choice questions, a lunchtime beer and a pub lunch would have been preferable, but even I knew you didn’t invite an alcoholic to the pub. I settled for a cheese-filled croissant and a flat white. My mum had the same.
In a word, things were awkward between us. After all, our last meal together had ended acrimoniously, and I’d not contacted her since. Guilt clawed at me. Whatever my father’s flaws, she had been grieving; we both had. I should have risen above her gripes about my career and Ezra. Especially now I was in a much better place myself.
“How was the cruise?” I asked. There had been two since we last spoke. “And how are you?”
“Fine.”
A lie wrapped in one syllable. Did I let it slide– we could talk about the twins, the cruise, the latest big Netflix show– or did I call my mum out and endeavour to have our first frank and honest conversation in years? What would Ezra do?
Her fingers tightened around the handle of her coffee cup, knuckles whitening, and her eyes flickered away from mine just a beat too fast, searching for an escape route.I don’t know what I’d been expecting when I’d agreed to meet, but not the defeated shell opposite. I took a deep breath, my mind made up.
“Really?” I queried as she picked at her food. “Because you can tell me if things aren’t great.”
Her teaspoon clattered on the saucer. “No, Isaac. Not really.”
There’s a quiet kind of terror listening to your mum confess she’s an alcoholic. Especially when the cruel truth wasn’t sugar-coated with tears and excuses, and you only had one parent left. I already knew, of course, but nevertheless, it felt like officially being handed the keys to adulthood. As if, from now on, the responsibility to thrive was solely mine, because my mum could no longer offer any solutions to life’s thornier challenges. And Dad was dead.
As unpleasant as it was to hear, I recognised it for the progress it was. Admitting a problem was the first step to solving it, according to everyone who knew these things. Trouble was it also laid you open to the possibility that, if the problem had been going on for decades, it might be impossible to fix.
“I’m sorry I’ve not been around for a while,” I said, ashamed. “If you’d have said, I’d have come and helped.”
“Oh, no. You’re busy with work, I understand. And it’s… it’s not a recent thing.”
“No.” I took a bite of croissant, the pastry dry in my mouth.
“I’m going to a rehab place at the weekend,” she said in a rush. Jonty’s little blue sweater, withguitar heroemblazoned across the front, sat between us. Though it was nicely laundered and folded, she refolded it, smoothing down a sleeve. “I’m not sure how long for. That’s why I’m in this part of town—I’ve been to a clinic up near your dad’s old consulting rooms. Ezra made me do it. He made me contact?—“
“Ezra?”
“Yes. He’s visited me a few times. A couple of times he brought Jonty, when his asthma was bad. I can’t say we’re getting on, but… he’s being a good dad, isn’t he?”
I had a thousand responses to that, especially on the topic of good fathers. As it was, I was too busy picking my jaw up from off the floor to say anything.
“Why? Why did he go to see you?”
She fingered the sweater. “Apparently, to apologise for how he behaved at the memorial service.” She huffed a laugh “Though I don’t think his heart was in it.”
Probably not. I’d been on the receiving end of a few of Ezra’sunfuck youapologies. I tended to come off feeling like he’d rubbed salt into the wound.
“And then I thought he was after money, but he wasn’t. I think he wanted to show me how well he was doing, despite… despite everything.”
She eyed me anxiously. Thateverythingwas doing a lot of heavy lifting, but I let it go. “He looks well, doesn’t he?”
“He looks great.” Clothed, unclothed, playing his guitar, fooling around in dad mode, offering me words of wisdom, and even wearing that bloody apron. I wondered how he’d look when I told him I’d found out about his secret little trips to Richmond. Bashful? Knowing Ez, probably not. “So, when are you going? And where?”
As she filled me in, we sipped our coffees. It was up to me if I told the twins, she said. I probably would, in time, if I caught them at a suitable moment or they noticed she hadn’t been in touch. Inevitably, conversation turned to my job and the exam. Seeing as it was an afternoon for being truthful, I sucked in a deep breath and decided to share a few of my own.
“I’m handing in my notice at work.”
