When I Ran Away by Ilona Bannister (best books under 200 pages .TXT) 📕

Harry with Richard. It had the blue-green tinge that old pictures get as they fade. They were sitting on a wall with the beach behind them. The wind was whipping Richard’s unruly hair, which was kept short on the sides but that curled and waved all over the top of his head. He was in a white shirt with the top two buttons undone, the sleeves rolled up. His forearms and chest were those of a lean but chiseled man, that slim sculpted look that everyone’s parents had in the eighties from cigarettes and coffee.

Richard had a sideways smile that I recognized from my husband’s face. He was looking down at his son, little Harry, about eight years old, in super-short swimming trunks. Harry was laughing, a wide, happy, toothy laugh. Neither one was looking at the camera, immersed in some secret joke. A moment of happiness so true on both their faces I found myself grieving for the father that Harry had lost and the child that he once was.

I bought Harry a silver frame for his birthday. I thought that picture deserved a home. He took the photo out of the drawer and told me about his dad. Harry was thirty-six that day, the same age Richard was when he died. He took the back off the frame to slide the picture in and we looked at it for a long time, me holding on to his arm while he sat there feeling the age of the man in the photo and feeling sadness for the boy who didn’t know he’d lose him soon after this last trip to the seaside. Then he put the picture in its frame back in the drawer. That’s where he keeps it, even now.

Rebecca looks like she knows where the rest of this photo is, so beloved that Harry can barely look at it. Her arms crossed, a lit cigarette held near the crook of her elbow. A strapless sundress, tan shoulders, a tiny gold chain glinting on her collarbone. She isn’t laughing like Harry and Richard, on their side of the photo. She was left out of the joke. She has the look of a mother who’s been taken for granted; needed by her child, but never preferred over Daddy.

Did she get up early and spend all morning packing for the trip, taking care of the details Richard never thought of? Did he make a joke about her, her cross expression, that had Harry in stitches and only confirmed that her new sundress went unnoticed? Did she dress up for lunch at a beachside hotel only for Richard to make her look humorless when he took them to the boardwalk for fish and chips wrapped in newspaper instead?

I wonder if she cut herself out of this picture because she didn’t like how she looked. Or if she cut herself out of this picture not thinking of herself at all, but so that her son could have a pure memory of his father. Or if she cut herself out of this picture because it’s hard to be the mother, the one who does all the mundane things that children need to have done—making sandwiches, packing raincoats, washing socks—but don’t notice because they’re infatuated with their father, his frivolity and laughter. Then Richard died young and everything about him was forever wonderful. But Rebecca had to keep doing the work that he never did, noticed even less now that his shadow was so much larger in death.

Johnny wakes up and as I go to put the album down, the cover comes loose, the bound pages falling to the floor. I dig some school glue out of Johnny’s pencil case and, as I squeeze it onto the binding, I realize that I’ve never seen Rebecca laugh. I’ve only ever seen her the way she looks in that picture—beautiful and distant. Wanting to be closer, but not knowing how.

6 special sauce A Wednesday in August 2016, 3:25 p.m. London, Grand Euro Star Lodge Hotel, Room 506

I wake up, surprised I fell asleep, surprised another few hours have passed. My phone vibrates. A text from Stacy. What time is it in New York? About 9 a.m.? 10? Melissa and Amber are on the TV, tan and glossy after the Florida trip, having cocktails and a heart-to-heart. They’re being filmed from behind the bar and I feel like I’m their bartender. I pour another glass of wine for myself as I listen in on their conversation, and when they get their bar food I look over at my pizza, congealed now on the little table, untouched. The phone vibrates again.

Stacy:

Jeej it’s the worst I’m so upset, I missed it, he took a step and I missed it

Do I answer her? How do I answer her? It’s a crisis and she needs an answer. She knows it’s the middle of the day here, that’s why she chose me, because Danielle and Sharon will be at work and won’t be able to talk. I need to answer her but it feels like she’s communicating from a parallel planet, one where I’m still normal and not flipping out. It’s hard to type with shaking fingers. I check to make sure the words seem casual, like this would be the right thing to say if I weren’t locked in this room, losing my mind.

Me:

What happened? Did day care call you?

Stacy:

Yes, right in the middle of a meeting. I thought it was an emergency because they’re calling and not just sending a text or whatever, and she just said he took a step just wanted to let you know because the last time when he rolled over I made such a big deal out of them not telling me. I went back to my meeting crying. I missed another thing

Me:

You didn’t miss it

Stacy:

Of course I missed it

Me:

No Stace you forgot the rule

Stacy:

What rule?

Me:

It’s only the first time when the mother’s seen it for the first time. Everything else