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

shut-up shops and cafés, my solitary reflection staring back at me. I pass the Indian restaurant, where a couple are holding hands across a white-clothed table, oblivious to everything around them. I wonder what it takes to create and maintain that kind of intimacy. I wonder if I’ll ever have it, whether I’m even capable of it. I think I might have been, once, but it feels like a lifetime ago.

I pull out my phone to text Josh and confirm I’ll be there at eleven, but I get distracted by the red flag on my email box. I click on it with some trepidation.

Dear Jay

I appreciate your concern for our son and understand that my email has come out of the blue. I know that I have not always done the right thing by him and that makes me regretful but there is no reason for things to always continue the same way and I am in a better place now with more of an ability to have a relationship with him. I think your right that we need to discuss this and I can meet with you first to talk about things if that’s best. Let me know what you want.

I understand that this is not an easy situation but I would appreciate your help.

Love Hellie xx

I stop dead in my tracks, staring in disbelief. The illuminated screen of my phone glows back at me in the darkness, gathering tiny specks of rain.

Help? She wants my help?!

Her email summons a sense of outrage in me. Why was she not there to help when I was up night after night with a child who missed his mum? Why was she not there to help when I was at the hospital with him? Why was she not there to help ever?! And why, after a lifetime of private education, is she incapable of using proper fucking punctuation?!

I put my phone back in my pocket, incredulous.

My help? Jesus effing Christ.

Chapter 16

Help

I remember Amber inviting me into their run-down little flat in the worst part of town.

“He’s in the lounge,” she sighed, picking up her jacket. “I’m going out. And, by the way, we’re over.”

“You’re what?” I asked, shocked.

“We’re over,” she sighed. “I can’t do this anymore, Jay. I love him, but I’ve had enough. I don’t know what to do. I think he needs help of some kind, but I can’t force him. And I just…” she sniffed, tears welling in her eyes. “It’s exhausting.”

I nodded, disappointed but sympathetic. I liked Amber, Timpton’s very own girl with the dragon tattoo. When she’d jumped up on that table behind Michael and snaked her hands under his T-shirt, I’d assumed she’d be just another of his one-night stands. But, almost two years later, here they still were, living together in the cheapest place their rent could afford, and through all his extreme ups and downs she’d stood by him. Until now.

Amber leaned down and ruffled Josh’s hair. “There’s a couple of biscuits in the tin if you want.”

“Yay!” cried Josh, running off to open the cupboard.

Amber and I exchanged sorry smiles. Then she left.

“Just stay here for a minute,” I said, sitting Josh down at the plastic picnic table in the kitchen.

The lounge was gloomy, the curtains still drawn even though it was the afternoon. Michael was lying on the saggy sofa, staring at the ceiling.

He was still wearing his suit trousers and a dishevelled shirt, even though his dinner with his father had been the night before last.

I perched quietly on the tatty armchair next to him. A wilting pot plant sat on the old coffee table they’d found outside someone’s house and carried back to the flat. They’d tried to turn this place into something of a home.

“You can’t keep doing this to yourself,” I said, quietly.

He didn’t respond.

“You have to stop seeing him,” I said.

“Would you stop seeing your dad?” he muttered.

“No, but my dad doesn’t leave me feeling like shit.”

“Yes, he does.”

“Because he’s sick. Not because he’s a total bastard. And he leaves me feeling worried not…” I gestured to Michael’s listless body, “…whatever this is.”

The place smelled of stale cigarette smoke. I wanted to draw the curtains and fling the window open wide, but at times like this Michael developed a vampiric intolerance to sunlight.

Michael’s shirtsleeves were pulled down to his wrists, cufflinks still in place, disguising the numerous tattoos his father wouldn’t approve of. His father had moved away from Timpton, but Michael was summoned, every six months like clockwork, to a different fancy restaurant in London to indulge his father’s love of fine dining. Michael struggled through each meal, spinning lies about his job, his income, his flat, his girlfriend… He said Amber was a restaurant manager instead of a waitress and showed off old photos of her at family weddings, pre-lip piercing and looking smart. She knew she was being misrepresented but was surprisingly understanding, having also come from a stuffy, hard-to-please family. She’d been understanding about everything – his drinking, drugs, mood swings, inability to hold down a job… but it seemed she had a limit.

I had no limit though. I owed him. I could never shake off the guilt of how I first treated him at school and what that bullying might have done to him. I could never repay him for getting my son to the hospital on time, for looking after Josh when I was studying or working, for being there for me at every twist and turn. I wasn’t ever giving up on him.

“Michael, I think you need help,” I said.

“I’m okay,” he mumbled, putting his hands over his face. “I’ve stopped drinking, haven’t I?”

“This isn’t about the drinking though, is it? It’s not even about your dad. This has been going on—”

“I’m fine,” he groaned. “Last week, I was in a great place, I couldn’t have been happier—”

“But that’s not normal.”

“Everyone has ups and downs.”

“Not like this, mate.”

He was silent for a moment.

“Amber’s leaving,” he muttered.

“I