Songs For Your Mother by Gordon MacMillan (first color ebook reader .TXT) 📕

‘All I did was cry, sit there and cry,’ she says. ‘No change there. Your mother sent flowers. They were lovely,’ she says.

She did that and never even mentioned it, and I am grateful for that too. My mother has been great, and sending flowers is the kind of thing that you can rely on your mother to do. It’s the kind of detail that my mother is great at. No one ever gets left off the Christmas card list and, as kids, we industrially wrote thank you letters to anyone who remembered us no matter how small or insignificant the token. They got a letter like everybody else. Our letters were checked, and if they were not up to scratch, we would do them again.

We are reflective, and the room is quiet, lit by beams of sunlight, and I am thinking of all those people and how it would be good to see some of them again one day.

‘Tell me about the girl, I want to hear about her,’ TSP says, taking me by surprise. I’d mentioned Lauren only briefly when I described what happened before the truck and I’m reticent about going into detail. Lauren and Will are so linked, and it isn’t fair somehow to talk about something good when the flip side is the polar opposite. When I don’t immediately answer, TSP tells me that it’s okay. She says she wants to hear the story. So, I tell her about Lauren and that one charmed night of possibility that felt like it was conjured out of nothing much at all. I tell her how we talked and walked the night away, played for each other, and how music provided the soundtrack to our evening.

‘You were on your way back,’ TSP says.

I nod, and I don’t want to say anything else. Besides, TSP knows what happened next. After a short silence TSP surprises me again with her next sentence.

‘You should go back,’ she says. ‘If something good comes out of this then that will mean something, won’t it?’

I know what she is getting at when she says this, that somehow if I go back and find Lauren and see what’s possible it will count for something. It will be a positive in the ledger where the loss of Will is such a huge negative. The thing is, I don’t know if I can. When I think about going back, I get the exact same feeling as before. The thought of it makes me physically wince and feel sick to my stomach. It makes me think of the road.

Sara was been my only serious relationship, and that was more than three years ago. There have been women since, and none have lasted more than a few weeks. Maybe my relationship with Lauren would have gone the same way. I mean, why wouldn’t it? However, even as I tell myself this, I’m not sure I believe it. Some things are different. You can feel them in your bones, and that’s what those hours with Lauren felt like.

That said, I know TSP is right: it would mean something, and maybe I owe it to Will to finish what we started. I’m torn though as it does not seem fair, and then I think about Will and I know what he would say. He would tell me to waste no time, and to get back there as soon as possible. That’s why he turned the car around for me in the first place.

Right there and then, I make a vow to go back and find Lauren.

Chapter 7

After another five weeks in the hospital, and strengthened by sessions of physio, me and my crutches get to go home. My mother picks me up and walks me to her car.

Once we are settled in the car my mother doesn’t immediately start the engine. Instead, we sit in the quiet of the interior with the muffled sounds of traffic and a shrieking siren sounding in the distance.

‘How are you feeling?’ my mother asks.

‘I’m fine,’ I say, and I do my best to smile.

However, as I answer, I am shaking my head. I don’t mean to. I want to nod, but the truth is I am not fine. I am on edge. I am back in a car, and I am looking around me, looking for that truck. I know it isn’t there, and that we are safe, but I cannot help myself.

My mother nods, and gives my hand a squeeze, and offers me a smile, and for a moment I feel better.

The engine starts, and we set off. My mother instinctively takes her time as we drive back to the flat I shared with Will in Finsbury Park.

My mother offered to put me up at her house while I recovered and, while it was an attractive and welcome offer, I turned her down. I like going to my mother’s at Christmas, and Easter and the occasional weekends. It’s always nice to go back. I get on well with my mother’s partner David. He’s another doctor, they have been together for years. David is a decent guy. He is a tall, quiet, urbane man with short, sandy-coloured hair who has never married and has no children of his own. He is perfect for my mother, who likes life to be calm and uncomplicated. They go on those holidays in groups on coaches to places where the main attraction is long walks and ancient ruins.

I told my mother that I needed to go home, and she seemed to understand. I need to be at the flat as that’s the place that Will and I lived, and even though he’s gone I need that connection to him.

Once I’m back, the thing I notice most is how eerily quiet the flat is. There’s never any sound other than the noises that I make. Sometimes, I turn off the TV, or the music I am listening to