Chapter 24
24
March had arrived with a warm, sunny weekend filled with the promise of spring. I picked up Georgia on Sunday morning as planned. It felt a bit cheeky parking outside The Bothy or even elsewhere in the close, so we parked at a wide point on the approaching farm track.
‘Ready for this?’ Georgia asked as we exited the car.
‘I think so. I’m glad you’re with me.’
We wandered up the lane and paused at the opening of Whinlatter Close to take it in. The trees and shrubs had grown significantly since I left. In the front garden of The Stables ahead of us were flowerbeds where there’d previously just been lawn, and solar panels had been added to the roof of The Byre.
‘Going any further?’ Georgia asked.
I nodded and set off walking. The Bothy was at the top of the close and we paused by the green in front of it, gazing up at the enormous blossom tree which I’d planted when it was a sapling.
The new owners of The Bothy had painted the front door a petrol-blue colour. It was nice but I preferred the natural wood look we’d opted for.
‘How does it feel?’ Georgia asked, slipping her arm through mine.
‘Strange but not scary like I expected.’
I felt a bit silly, having got myself so worked up about being back here, but now I felt very detached from the place. Maybe time was a great healer after all.
There were lots of cards displayed across the window ledge in the lounge of The Bothy so the current owners clearly had something to celebrate. My stomach flipped as I had a vision of that same window ledge covered in sympathy cards. I averted my gaze and focused on The Byre. There was a for sale sign in the garden with a red sold sign angled across it. When I’d searched online to see if The Bothy had been sold, I’d spotted that The Stables – Jan and Colin’s house – had changed hands three years back but there’d been no indication of The Byre selling. Helen and Guy had presumably remained here and were in the process of moving now.
There was a car in their double drive and a ladder propped up against the front of the house, but no sign of anyone. Not that I wanted to bump into them. We never spoke again after the funeral. I had no idea whether Jessie had told them about me hounding her but, for the remaining months I’d lived here, we hadn’t even made eye contact if we passed in our cars.
‘We should probably go,’ I said. If Helen or Guy appeared, I couldn’t imagine they’d be pleased to see me.
At that moment, the front door of The Byre opened and a young man – probably in his mid-twenties – stepped out, holding a bucket of soapy water.
He looked across at Georgia and me. ‘Are you all right there?’ he asked. His voice was cheerful but the frown suggested concern at a couple of strangers staring at the houses.
‘We’re not casing the joint,’ I joked. ‘I used to live in The Bothy but I moved out of the area. I was just having a nostalgic moment.’
He put the bucket down. ‘How long ago was that?’
‘It’ll be seven years ago in June.’
‘In that case, you’ll know my wife. Wait a second.’
He went back inside and Georgia and I crossed the road, stopping at the end of the drive. Moments later, a heavily pregnant woman stepped out of the house and her face fell when she saw me.
I gasped, recognising the young girl in the woman before me. ‘Jessie?’
Watching her cradle her arms protectively over her stomach, I felt terrible. I’d treated her so badly after Noah died. I’d had no right to speak to her that way. What had I been thinking? Even though they hadn’t been together when he died, I knew that Noah had meant the world to Jessie. She’d been grieving and must have been terrified having some deranged woman banging on her door every time she was home alone.
‘I’m not here to cause any trouble,’ I reassured her. ‘I didn’t know you still lived here. I was just here to… Oh, it doesn’t matter. Jessie, I’m so sorry. I was in a horrendously dark place back then and you were one of several people who got the brunt of it. I should never have treated you like that. It was very wrong of me.’
She didn’t respond for a moment and I thought she was going to order me off her land – which I’d have absolutely deserved – but she broke into a smile.
‘I’ve just boiled the kettle. Would you both like a drink? I owe you an apology too.’
The man returned with a window wiper and Jessie did the introductions – Tom, married for nearly two years, first baby due at the end of the month.
‘This is Mel and her sister, Georgia,’ Jessie told Tom. ‘Mel’s Noah’s mum.’
I didn’t miss the raise of Tom’s eyebrows when she added that part so he was presumably aware of our history.
‘I’ll leave you to catch up,’ he said. ‘These windows won’t clean themselves.’
Jessie led us through to the lounge while she made the drinks. There were partly packed boxes strewn everywhere and I felt for her having a house move to contend with while heavily pregnant.
‘You couldn’t have timed it better,’ Jessie said, reappearing and handing us mugs of tea shortly after. ‘I was just about to take a break.’
‘Do your parents still live here?’ I asked tentatively, as I couldn’t imagine Helen and Guy being nearly as welcoming as Jessie.
‘No. They moved to the Dales – Grassington – three years ago and Tom and I bought this place from them. We thought it’d be the perfect family home but Tom’s parents aren’t local and, four months into my pregnancy, reality hit us as to how hard it would be without either set of parents close by. So we’re moving to the Dales too.’
‘And your brother?’ I asked.
‘Living and working in Blackpool. And Jan and Colin from The Stables moved to Devon a few years back, so it’s all change here when we move out.’
‘You said your baby’s due later this month?’ Georgia asked. ‘My grandson is due on the 24th.’
‘Aw, congratulations! Mine’s a girl, due on the 20th so just under three weeks to go, although I wish I was resting rather than packing. The house sold in three days so we should have been settled in our new place by now but the chain fell apart. We found a new buyer quickly but they can’t move until May, which is frustrating but these things happen. Anyway, enough about me. I heard you’d moved to Newcastle, Mel. Are you just visiting or are you back for good?’
‘Back for good. I’m working on a project at Willowdale Hall.’
I told her more about it and was touched that she remembered how much I’d loved the place, and she shared a little about her life since I’d left – her job as a nurse and that Tom was a radiologist she’d met at the hospital. I noticed the way her face lit up and her eyes shone as she spoke about her husband. I’d wondered whether, if Noah had lived, he and Jessie would still be together but it felt as though she’d found the life and the person she was always destined to be with. And I was okay with that.
‘We’d better leave you to get on with the packing,’ I said when we reached the end of our drinks.
She screwed up her face in the direction of the boxes. ‘I suppose they’re not going to pack themselves. Before you go, I wanted to apologise for what I said about you not giving enough attention to Noah. I was upset and I think I might have exaggerated. He did have moments where he felt like that but I did with my parents too. I think it’s a teenage thing – we want to be wanted but we also want to be let loose and I’m dreading trying to find that balance when this one’s a teen.’
I smiled at her as she cradled her bump. ‘I’m sure you’ll be a great mum. You always had a nurturing side.’
She smiled back at me. ‘I hope that what I said didn’t make things worse. You and Flynn…’ Her cheeks flushed. ‘When you split up, I wondered if?—’
‘It was nothing you said,’ I told her. ‘Flynn and I dealt with our grief very differently and we couldn’t find a way to do it together.’
There was no need for Jessie to take any blame. Granted, what she said had been the trigger for the start of the end, but I’d been so wound up about everything back then that, if it hadn’t been that, it would have been something else. The relief on Jessie’s face made me think she’d been carrying that guilt around for all these years and, for me, it was a relief to be able to say sorry for how I’d treated her too – something I reiterated strongly before we said goodbye.
‘Well, that was unexpected,’ Georgia said as we walked out of the close to return to the car. ‘How did it feel to see Jessie married and pregnant?’
‘Surprisingly okay. She looked happy, didn’t she?’
‘She did.’
‘You know when I came over for your birthday, do you remember me going outside with a coughing fit? That wasn’t the reason. I had a moment looking across at Keira and Johnnie, expecting their second baby, and it struck me that it could have been Noah and Jessie.’
‘Aw, Mel. Why didn’t you say anything?’
‘Because it was your birthday and I was being silly.’
She placed her hand firmly on my arm to stop me walking and stood facing me. ‘That wasn’t silly at all. That was grief knocking on your door. You’ll never forget Noah – none of us will – and moments like that are bound to creep up on you, often when you least expect them to. But do you know what you can do when they do?’
‘What?’
‘Talk to me.’
She drew me into a hug and we stood there in the lane for several minutes, holding each other tightly. Tears pricked my eyes but I blinked them back. I didn’t want to cry. If I did, I felt sure that the tears would never stop.
* * *
A little later, we parked in Whinlatter Forest and set off along one of the shorter walking trails.
‘Has visiting The Bothy helped lay some ghosts to rest?’ Georgia asked.
I pondered on that for a moment before shaking my head. ‘It’s brought a few things back. I was awful to Jessie. I’m so ashamed thinking about it now. I kept hounding her for information until she snapped and told me something I didn’t want to hear.’
‘Hounding? I thought you only saw her the once after you’d discovered it was drugs.’
Shame swept through me. ‘I wish. I only told you about that time, but there were others…’
As we continued along the path, I shared what I’d said and done and what it pushed Jessie to reveal.
‘The thought of Noah feeling invisible was like an arrow through my heart,’ I said. ‘If that was how he felt, then perhaps he’d turned to drugs to fill some void inside which I’d created.’
‘No, Mel. You can’t blame yourself.’
‘Can’t I? I’m a workaholic. I always have been. Flynn wasn’t a workaholic like me, but he was a grafter and he was ambitious so he was happy to put the hours in. The hard work reaped financial rewards and Noah got the benefit of those, but was having the latest iPhone really as important to him as having my time?’
‘You did give him time. I can’t believe you’d ever question that.’
‘I don’t think it was enough. Jessie said we didn’t involve him in the dream house and she was right. We shut him out. It wasn’t intentional but it happened. We never once asked him for his opinion. What sort of message did that send him?’
Georgia stopped walking, grabbed the tops of my arms and turned me to face her. ‘Stop right there! I refuse to let you do this to yourself. Noah was a confident kid who had a great relationship with you and with Flynn. If he’d wanted to be involved in the house, he could have shoved himself in there and demanded to be included.’
She released my arms, but she wasn’t finished. ‘And don’t forget the dream house was exactly that – a dream. You hadn’t found a plot of land for it and you knew that, when you did, the plan would need to change to fit the space and the environment. If Noah had still been living at home at that point, of course you’d have involved him but it wasn’t real and Noah would have known that.’
‘Fair point, but it wasn’t just the house. I think he might have tried to talk to me about other things and, you know me – if it’s subtle, I’m oblivious.’
‘I know that about you, but Noah knew it too. We all did. Family standing joke.’
‘I was his mum. I should have known he was feeling pushed out.’
We set off walking once more.
‘Do you know what the hardest job in the world is?’ Georgia asked. ‘Parenthood. I reckon that, because he was eighteen and because you were his mum, you’d probably have been the last to know what was going on with him. In the main, kids turn to their friends first. Maybe he did turn to Jessie and maybe he did share some stuff and maybe some of it was about feeling left out but you’ll never know for sure. You’re blaming yourself for something a scared, grieving teenager said – something she’s just admitted she over-exaggerated – but the only one who knows what really went on is Noah and he’s not here to explain. You drove yourself up the wall trying to find answers last time and did you get them?’
‘No.’
‘So don’t go down that road again because the answers weren’t available back then and they certainly aren’t going to be now. And please stop blaming yourself. Jessie’s admitted to exaggerating how things were. Maybe you can blame yourself for making her snap, but you can’t blame yourself for whatever Noah was or wasn’t feeling. Promise me.’
‘I promise.’ But I wasn’t confident it was a promise I could uphold. Jessie might have apologised and claimed she’d made a bigger thing of it than it was but I’d had seven years to think about her words and she’d been right. I hadn’t done it consciously and I certainly hadn’t done it when he was young and dependent on me but, when Noah hit his teens and became increasingly independent, spending more time in his room or with his friends, I’d prioritised work. I’d thought he enjoyed his freedom – no embarrassing mum always wanting to know what he was doing – but I hadn’t been there for him when he’d really needed me and that was hard to come to terms with.