The Happy Family by Jackie Kabler (electric book reader txt) 📕

I glance sideways at her now. I see the contented expression on her face and feel the gentle pressure of her fingers on my forearm. Such little things that seem so utterly remarkable when you’ve lived without them for thirty years.

Wow. Just wow.

I can’t stop looking at her. Yesterday, after I’d shown her round the house and settled her in the guest bedroom, we’d returned to the lounge and chatted for hours. I’d forced myself to put aside my fears about how much she knew about my life in the years since we’d last been together. There was, after all, nothing I could do to change the past, and if she did know what had happened after she’d left, it hadn’t stopped her wanting to find me now, had it? And if she didn’t, well … nobody else had ever found out, had they? My friends, my colleagues … That realisation brought me some comfort, and so I vowed to put it out of my mind for now at least. There was so much – so much – to catch up on; three decades of life was impossible to sum up in the space of a few hours, and we had so many things to talk about, so many things to learn about each other. And to my great joy, just hours after our reunion, I already feel I have some understanding, some sense, of the sort of person my mother really was back then, and of who she is now.

Now, she works in a small art gallery near Bodmin, organising exhibitions and giving talks to visitors and school groups. Her face lights up when she talks about her work. The most recent exhibition – her ‘favourite EVER’ – was an extravaganza of blown glasswork, stone sculptures, and huge unframed canvasses. She’s taken a sabbatical to come and find me.

‘I can take up to six months, if I want to. Unpaid, of course, but I’ve put a bit aside over the years. They’ll keep the job open for me until September, but until then …’

She’d grinned, her eyes shining, and I’d grinned back. Six months! Does that mean she might stay here, in Cheltenham, for six months? The idea of it made me feel a little breathless with joy.

She likes to do yoga, and walks a lot, I learned. Maybe that partly explains her calmness now, her composure, so different from the younger version of herself, the one whose moods swung from elation to despair at a moment’s notice. She’s had boyfriends, relationships, over the years, some long term, others not, but she’s never married again. How could she? She’s still legally married to Dad, of course.

We talked about him, but only a little. He’s had other relationships too, but nothing serious, and nobody ever moved in. I don’t think he could do it, don’t think he could let himself take a chance on opening up his home, his heart, to someone else, not after her. When I was a child, Mum’s name was never spoken in our house. As I grew up I’d try, now and again, to make him talk about her, about what went wrong, about why she left. I’d wanted details, wanted the story, but I always got the same brief answer, his expression blank as he spoke.

‘We just weren’t compatible in the end, Beth. We loved each other once, but sometimes love isn’t enough. She was too young, and she tried, but we were on different pages when it came to the book of life, as it were. She wasn’t ready for any of it, being a wife, being a mother. So she moved on. Simple as.’

I stopped mentioning her to him eventually. I could see how much it hurt him. But when Eloise was born, when Dad came to the hospital to see us, his eyes wet as he cradled his first grandchild in his arms, I made the mistake of whispering: ‘I wish Mum could be here, Dad. I wish my daughter could know her grandmother.’

Something had flashed in his eyes then.

‘No. She’s better off without her,’ he said. ‘I can forgive your mother for walking out on me, Beth. That is what it is. But forgive her for walking out on you? Never.’

I told my mother none of this last night, of course, and she didn’t ask. No questions about how he was these days, or if he’d found love again. When finally, with a nervous flutter in my stomach, I began to ask her what had happened between them, she gave the same vague sort of answer he’d always given me.

‘He was so much older, love. We were just … just such different people, you know? I knew that if I stayed, it wouldn’t be good for any of us, not for him or for me and certainly not for you. Growing up with two parents who hated each other? No child needs that. I know I hurt you so much, Beth. I know it must be so hard for you to understand, but I knew I couldn’t be the kind of mother you deserved, and that’s why I had to go. I’m so, so sorry. The shame of being a mother who abandoned her child … it’s never left me. I’ll regret it for ever …’

Her eyes had filled with tears again then and I’d wrapped my arms around her, telling her that it was fine, that I did understand. The past was the past.

She’s here now. That’s what’s important, I told myself. It’s what happens from here on that matters. We’ve both suffered pain because of what she did. I can see it in her eyes. What’s the point in dwelling on it now, after so many years?

I did have one more question though.

‘Why now, Mum? Why now, this year, today? Why did you come back now? What changed?’

She shrugged.

‘I’d thought about it for such a long time, but I