The End is Where We Begin by Maria Goodin (open ebook .txt) 📕

I’d shrugged. “It’s July. It’s warm outside.”

“Yes, but we’re not outside, are we?” the health visitor had said abruptly. “Stick to Babygros.” She scribbled something damning in her report book.

But as I looked at the baby screaming on my knees, I noticed that his ears, cheeks and fingers were tinged bright pink. Sod what they said. He was too hot, I was sure of it.

I tore the poppers of his Babygro open, prised out his tiny limbs. His skin was warm and blotchy, his little chest rising and falling rapidly as he wailed. I unpeeled the fastenings at either side of his nappy, loosening it just enough to let some air circulate. I held his naked tummy against my damp T-shirt.

For a moment I just stayed there, listening to his crying, feeling his tiny body squirming awkwardly against mine. But then the crying started to subside, turning to more of a moaning, then a mewing, then finally, finally, there was silence.

For a second I contemplated the idea that I might have actually gone deaf.

But when I looked down at him, his eyes were flitting back and forth, contentedly examining the blue of my T-shirt, his little fists clenching and unclenching, grasping the material.

I turned him over onto his back so that we were facing each other. His eyes peered into mine, fascinated, like he was seeing me for the first time. The pinkness that had mottled his skin had subsided. I noticed that his chest was rising and falling almost imperceptibly now, his heartbeat having returned to normal. And with some surprise I noticed that mine had, too.

I couldn’t help it. I smiled. I even gave a little laugh. I’d done it. I’d figured out what the problem was and I’d calmed him down all on my own.

I held my little finger out to him and he clenched it tightly in his first.

And for the first time since his birth I felt hope that I might be able to do this after all.

I remember telling him: “This has to stop.”

“I know.”

“You keep saying you know.”

“I know.”

Michael sat on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands, while I paced slowly around the increasingly small amount of space that was available for pacing. My sister’s old room was becoming a dumping ground for every wandering soul who came and went. Even though she’d been gone for almost four years, traces of Laura still remained: a wonky ceramic bowl she made at school, an old teddy bear perched high on a shelf, and those faded punk-rock posters that no one could be bothered to take down. Then there were Hellie’s contributions: some expensive jeans and tops in the wardrobe, a vanity mirror and some items of make-up. I didn’t know when she’d next be back, or even if she would, so I left it all there, month after month, like an open-ended question. And then finally there was Michael’s stuff. A couple of guitars, some scattered clothes, cigarette packets and bottles.

Far too many empty bottles.

Sometimes I wondered who Michael would have become if he’d never met me. What if Tom had never introduced him to metal music and Max had never shared that first cigarette? What if I’d never given him his first sip of alcohol? I knew he’d made his own choices, but still, I couldn’t help but wonder… Was part of this my fault?

“I’ll stop. I will,” he muttered.

“When?”

“Today.”

I turned my face to the ceiling and sighed heavily. It was like listening to all our previous conversations on replay.

“Yeah, but you won’t, will you?

“I will,” he muttered, rubbing at his eyes. Last year, he’d had a large, weeping angel tattooed on his forearm, its dark wings wrapping around his pale skin. Now a demon was emerging just above it, his twisted, angry face adorned by sketchy horns that couldn’t be completed until Michael had the funds to pay for it.

“I can’t have you around Josh if you’re going to be doing this,” I said, sounding almost apologetic.

Michael looked up at me. His face was white and his dark eyes were bloodshot.

“Josh doesn’t know what’s going on,” he protested, “he’s three.”

“Exactly. He’s three. He’s not a baby anymore. He sees things, he hears things. He understands things.”

Michael shook his head, dismissively. But I’d been thinking about it, and I knew I was right.

“I’m serious, mate. You need to sort yourself out. Or I can’t have you here.”

Even at that point, I wasn’t sure if I meant it. Where else would he go? After his GCSEs, Michael had spent eighteen months driving himself into a state of misery, trying to get to grips with his father’s business, but he’d struggled, just like he’d struggled at school. He was hopeless at his new role, out of his depth and full of anxiety. He’d quit more times than I could count but had always gone back as part of his endless, self-defeating mission to win his father’s approval. He’d started drinking and doing God knows what else just to get through, had fallen in with a few shady types he’d met on the local music scene, and finally got himself thrown out of both the business and his father’s home. Apart from a bit of gigging and busking, he hadn’t worked in almost two years, and if he wasn’t sleeping here, he’d be crashed out on the sofa at one of his new “mates’” places. I didn’t want that. I wanted him to be safe. I wanted him to get his life sorted out. But looking at him now – unwashed hair, nicotine-stained fingernails, empty bottles at his feet – he looked so far removed from that neat, innocent blond-haired boy I once knew that it was hard to believe he was the same person.

“Josh looks up to you, Michael, you know that. He worships you, for God’s sake.”

“But I wouldn’t ever do anything—”

“It’s not that I don’t trust you with him, I do. But you know what he