The Marriage by K.L. Slater (any book recommendations TXT) 📕

I made some noise, online, offline, anywhere I could. As the incident was still fairly new, several newspapers and women’s magazines were happy to talk to me. I gave them some of what they wanted; that was, to talk openly about my grief. To have my picture taken against a grey sky with tear-filled eyes. But I also got in a line or two about the derisory attitude I’d noticed towards Jesse in the popular press.

Some newspapers changed their tone, talking about the attitude of the media as if they themselves had never been guilty of it.

Incredibly, people sat up and listened. Thanks to the tracing skills of the Royal Mail, I received letters vaguely addressed in the style of ‘Bridget Wilson, Notts. (Mother of Jesse)’ from parents who’d lost their own sons in similar circumstances, thanking me for speaking out. They wanted to share how they had experienced the same attitude from the press and public. More magazines asked for interviews. As time went on, I received invitations to speak in public by various organisations such as bereavement groups and support networks for victims of crime.

My simple, genuine message about kindness and equality quickly garnered more attention, and within a few months I was receiving messages of support from Europe and even the US.

Responding to a public need and with support and funding from sympathetic organisations, I set up the Young Men Matter charity. It grew quickly and prospered. The funding paid for my salary as CEO, and enabled us to operate as a charitable business, accepting payment for events and attracting donations. It had been my full-time job now for the last five years, giving me a good standard of living and no need to work two jobs at minimum wage any longer. But I’d give it all up in a heartbeat to go back to those days with Jesse, when we’d feasted on beans on toast like kings.

After work, through the long evenings at home, I felt so lonely.

Jesse’s father had been nothing more than a one-night stand after a boozy night out. The guy was from out of town and I’d never set eyes on him again. Had no telephone number or address. I didn’t even know his surname. I had lots of contact with Coral, of course. She had gone to school with Jesse and obviously knew him well but she hadn’t had what I’d call a ‘meaningful’ relationship with him. I doubted they’d have stayed together if she hadn’t fallen pregnant with Ellis.

There was literally no one who missed Jesse like I did.

Too much water had gone under the bridge to reinstate my friendship with Jill Billinghurst. Coral had heard on the local gossip grapevine that Jill was a virtual recluse these days, living in a stupor of misery. She’d given up her job at the library, and apart from helping at a local charity shop, she barely left the house.

The thought of such self-pity lit a furnace inside me. Jill should be ashamed of herself. Her son was still alive, wasn’t he? He was the one responsible for Jesse’s death, whether or not by accident. He would start a new life in a couple of years’ time, while my boy languished underground in a cold sleep that would never end.

About two years ago, I received a letter from the prison inviting me to take part in a restorative justice programme designed to bring closure to the families of victims of crime. They enclosed a booklet explaining how it worked, that it would begin with a visit to the prison.

For the first twelve months of his sentence, Tom had written to me with alarming regularity. I hadn’t opened a single one of the letters. Instead, I’d bought a shredder and kept it by the front door. Within seconds of the prison-franked mail hitting the mat, I’d churned what I assumed were his meaningless platitudes and pleas for forgiveness into satisfyingly insubstantial paper strips.

Back then, to open those letters would have felt so disloyal to Jesse’s memory. But in later years, I’d wished I hadn’t destroyed them. Whatever I thought of Tom, he was the only other person who shared my closest memories of Jesse. Memories that were still as vibrant as ever, like beautiful living blooms, far too precious to be buried under a blanket of grief as I’d been trying so hard to do.

It was that realisation that prompted me to complete the enclosed visiting order. Impulsively I took it to the postbox at the end of the street before I changed my mind.

Three days later, I received emailed confirmation of my first visit to see Prisoner #A1756TF Tom Billinghurst at HMP Nottingham the following week.

The morning of the visit I felt queasy, and mooched around the house in my dressing gown, unable to eat any breakfast or lunch.

The visit was at two o’clock. Still debating whether I should follow through with it, I forced myself to shower and get ready, opting for jeans, roll-neck sweater and a leather jacket. I smoothed my hair back into a simple ponytail and applied minimal make-up. Dabbed enough concealer to help disguise the shadows under my eyes and a couple of sweeps from the bronzer brush to brighten the pallor of my skin.

The prison was in the Sherwood area of Nottingham, about a thirty-minute drive from Mansfield. The roads were quieter than I’d expected and I arrived early. I waited in the car park for twenty minutes, reclining the seat a little and closing my eyes to listen to a playlist on Spotify.

Once I got inside the building, the security checks I had to undergo along with hordes of other people took another fifteen minutes.

The visiting hall was large and echoing and filled with grim little square tables and plastic chairs with bowed metal legs. With the other visitors, I filed past bored-looking prison officers standing like sentries around the room and took my seat at the next available table.

The wait for