Chapter 46
Chapter forty-six
Rosa made it through the door, dropped her bag in its usual spot, kicked off her shoes, and managed to get onto the couch and flick the TV on just as Imogen’s key turned in the lock.
“Mum, I’m home,” the teenager shouted. Rosa listened as the rucksack of books clunked to the floor.
“In the lounge,” she called out.
A moment later, Imogen’s head poked around the door. “Cup of tea?”
“I’d love one, thank you.” Rosa smiled up at her. “How were your lessons?”
“Oh, you know, the same. I’m really getting the hang of the strings and guitar.”
“That’s good. How about the keys and piano?” Rosa asked, letting herself relax a little.
“Honestly, I’m not sure. I enjoy it, but I don’t think I have the fingers for it,” Imogen said, raising her voice from the kitchen.
“Well, you don’t have to continue if you don’t want to,” Rosa called back, but then laughed as Imogen walked into the lounge with two mugs in her hands. She handed Rosa the ‘Best Mum in the World’ mug she’d bought her for last Mother’s Day. Rosa was pretty sure Billy had a similar one.
“I just don’t want to waste your money if it’s something I’m never going to get any better at,” Imogen said, sitting down at the end of the couch.
“I appreciate you taking our finances so seriously—that’s a very grown-up approach—but my question would be, do you enjoy it?”
Imogen smiled. “Yes, I guess I do.”
“Then you’ll continue until such time as you don’t, deal?”
“Sure.” Imogen nodded and sipped her tea. “So, what did you do with your free evening?”
“Oh, I kept myself busy,” Rosa managed to say. She used the mug to cover the blush blooming on her cheeks. “This is a very good cup of tea.”
Imogen’s eyes lit up. “You think so? I mean, that’s good, right?”
“Always good to have excellent tea-making skills.” Rosa grinned, relieved to have moved the subject away from her evening’s activities.
“So, Georgia said if I want to, I can do a few shifts at the café?”
“What about your exams?”
“I’m well ahead on all my coursework, and we can do homework and any revision in the quiet moments. Plus, Robbie would be working too, so we can revise together. And obviously, I’ll be earning my own money, and you won’t have to keep giving me pocket money—”
“Okay,” Rosa laughed, “take a breath. If you think you can manage, then I trust you. But if there’s any sense your studies are suffering, we revisit this and have another conversation.”
“Yes, thanks, Mum. I knew you’d be cool about it.” Imogen pulled her legs up and crossed them. “I feel like I’m in this weird in-between space where I’m still a kid, but I’m one foot into being an adult.”
Rosa smiled. “It’s weird for me too. You’ll forever be my baby girl, and yet every day I look at you and see the wonderful young woman you’re becoming, and I know that I have to let you find your way, and it’s so hard to let go of that little girl who used to sit in my lap and let me sing nursery rhymes to her. ”
“I’ll always need you, Mum. It’s not like I’m growing up and going away.”
“I know, but you will. One day, when you’ve worked it all out, that’s what you’ll do—because that’s the young woman I’ve raised you to be.” She nodded to herself. “Someone brave enough to step out on her own, to know herself and what she wants from life, and to reach for it.”
Imogen frowned. “What if I get it wrong…make all the wrong choices?”
“Then you’ll learn from it and try again. That’s life—it’s never perfect. Sometimes we need a second go of it to get it right.” She thought of Billy and how true that was.
As though reading her mind, Imogen said, “Bit like Billy then?”
Rosa stiffened. Did Imogen know?
“How do you mean?”
“Well, you know…things in her life weren’t easy for her, and she had to learn a lot about herself and life. Now she’s better and working it all out.”
Rosa smiled, relieved. She wasn’t ready to have that conversation yet. “Yes, I guess so.”
“I mean, she’s overcome a lot, right? And she’s much better now.”
“Yes, she is,” Rosa agreed. Imogen’s eyes narrowed, just like Billy’s did when she had a big question on her mind. “What do you want to ask?”
“I dunno… I guess I don’t really have many memories of Billy from when I was small, and I wonder what she was like back then.”
It was a question Rosa had expected a myriad of times over the years.
She softened, ready to answer—after all, she’d been thinking much the same herself recently.
“Billy has always been fun,” Rosa began.
“We’d go dancing for hours, sometimes not getting home until the sun had risen, and breakfast was a quick trip to the café before we’d get to bed. ”
Imogen’s jaw dropped.
“I know, shocking, right?” Rosa laughed. “Your mothers actually had a life.” She sat up straighter. “When I was pregnant with you, she’d sit for hours just reading you stories, rubbing my belly and telling you about all the things she planned for you to do together.”
“Like what things?”
“Lots of things—trips to the park, holidays we’d have.” Rosa was speaking softly, her own memory taking her on a trip backwards in time. “I think she wanted to do everything with you.”
“I feel sorry for her that she missed out on so much of that.” Imogen frowned. “Maybe that’s why she spoils me now.”
“Oh, you do know you’re spoiled?” Rosa quipped.
“Course I do.” Imogen chuckled. “I try not to take advantage too much.”
“Uh huh.” Rosa pointed to the new trainers. “I think maybe she feels a little guilty for not being there and she overcompensates at times.”
“Sometimes I feel…” Imogen stopped and looked away.
“What is it?” Rosa asked gently. “You can tell me anything, you know that.”
Imogen turned back to face Rosa. “I do, but sometimes I worry that if I say it, it will hurt you.”
Rosa inched along the couch until she could reach out and take Imogen’s hand. “That’s okay. Just say it.”
Imogen took a deep breath, looked down and then bit her bottom lip as she thought about it. When she looked up again, her eyes glistened with unshed tears.
“I just…sometimes I feel angry with you both for not working it out and staying together.”
“That’s understandable.” Rosa squeezed Imogen’s fingers. “I get angry about that too. It wasn’t the outcome either of us wanted—for us, or for you.”
“I know.” Imogen smiled sadly. “And I’m not really angry, or ungrateful.
I know you did the best you could, and I’ve never gone without or felt unloved, and yet…
there is a part of me that missed out. Sometimes Robbie talks about her mum and dad, and even though they’ve gone now, she has all these memories of them from when she was little, and I try not to be jealous because I’ve still got both of you, but there’s this little part of me that just wishes I had… ” She glanced away again.
Rosa waited, her body tensing a little.
“What do you wish you had?”
“A proper family,” Imogen finally said. “You, me, Billy. I know it’s silly to be sixteen and—”
“It’s not silly, Imogen.” Rosa stroked her cheek and wiped away the single tear slowly sliding down. “I’m sorry we couldn’t make it work and give you that.”