Page 4 of The Perfect Son
“Morning, baby,” I say.
Jamie slides into the chair across from me, where a bowl and a spoon are waiting for him.
I glance at the clock on the microwave. It’s 8:35 already. Where did the morning go? “We’re going to be late for school again. Sorry. I lost track of time.”
A crease forms on his face. Jamie hates being late for school. He never used to mind. He never used to frown like that either. It’s too adult on his seven-year-old features, but he’s been doing it more and more when he looks at me, taking in the sallow color of my face and the dark smudges under my eyes.
His gaze falls to the box in my hand—the medicine I should take, but don’t. I stand too quickly, dragging the chair legs against the ugly reddish brown floor tiles and dropping the box on top of the post pilebeside the microwave. The stack of letters wobbles under the pressure of the new addition.
When I turn back, the concern is gone and he is a boy again, picking up the box of Rice Krispies and tipping too many grains into an empty bowl.
He needs a haircut, Tessie.
You always say that.
The blond curls, so like mine, are a tad unruly, but he scoops them away from his face so that the strands don’t get in the way of those piercing blue eyes of his. Do you remember the midwife on the day he was born? She tutted at us, cooing over his eyes.“They’ll never stay that blue,”she singsonged. But they have.
I’m putting off the haircut, but it’s not for the same reason that I haven’t opened the post or checked the messages on the answerphone. It’s because the rest of him—the long legs, the square jaw, and the straight nose that ends in a point—is all you, Mark. And if his hair is shorter, then he’ll look so much more like you. Besides, Jamie likes it longer. It’s something to hide behind when his shyness gets the better of him.
“Have you got everything?” I ask. “Where’s your jumper?”
Jamie shrugs, unable to speak with his mouth full of Rice Krispies.
“I’m not sure where it is either. Where did you leave it on Friday?”
“Don’t know,” he replies.
Frustration sweeps through my body. Anger is riding like a cowboy on its back, and the words fire out of me before I can stop them: “Jamie, for Christ’s sake. Where is your bloody school jumper?”
He shrinks back, cowering at the anger in my tone, and now I feel shitty. Really shitty.
He hangs his head, slumping over his bowl, and a single tear rolls down his cheek. “Don’t swear. It’s rude,” he whispers.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt out, crouching beside his chair. “Mummy shouldn’t have snapped, and I definitely shouldn’t have sworn. You haven’t done anything wrong. I’m just not feeling very well this morning, but it’s not your fault.
“I’m sorry.” I pull myself up, gnawing at my bottom lip. “I did some washing over the weekend. I’m sure I saw your jumper hanging up,” I lie. “Eat your breakfast and I’ll look for it.”
Jamie nods and I know we’re all right. As all right as we can be without you.
My slippers slap on the tile floors as I dash out of the kitchen and into the hall with the huge oak front door. I move from room to room, searching for the missing jumper. The dining room is first—the dark shiny wood of your mother’s furniture sitting beside the whopping great fireplace, black with decades of soot. The furniture is the same coloring as the Tudor oak beams that stretch across the ceiling and down the walls.
No jumper.
I don’t remember if I washed it. I don’t remember if I hung it out to dry. It’s another memory lost to the fog I’m living in.
I move across the hall to the living room that overlooks the garden and another fireplace; the Oriental rug with scorch marks dotted at the edges from years of spitting fires. I wanted to bin the rug but you wouldn’t let me.
It suits the room, Tessie.
Maybe it does. I can’t say I care much now. The black corner sofa from our old living room doesn’t look right in here though, does it? It’s too small, too modern, like the flatscreen TV on the glass stand. Perfect for the square living room in our Chelmsford semidetached, but not for here.
I expect to find Jamie’s jumper in a discarded heap by the PlayStation, but it’s not there and I keep on going. Along the hall and around the main staircase, to the rooms beyond: the library crammed with old copies ofReader’s Digest; the other living room, or parlor—whatever it is—stacked with boxes. Half of them are filled with the things we haven’t unpacked, and the other half with your mother’s stuff.
Up the narrow stairs at the back of the house, I peer into the bedrooms. All but ours and Jamie’s are filled with seventy-two years of your mother’s life, and the dirt and grime of a woman who thought herself above cleaning.
She did go a bit doolally in the end.
An understatement if ever I heard one, but who am I to comment on mental health? According to the doctor, I’m depressed.
