Chapter 31
After Max leaves, I sit for ages on the bed, staring into space.
Did that really just happen? Did I really just end it with Max? The person I’ve been wishing I was in a relationship with for the last three years? And now, within a week, it’s over?
It can’t be over. Surely. I’ve been hoping for this for so long and now it’s just .
. . gone? Am I wrong? Am I overreacting or misreading the situation?
But no. I think this is the first time I’m seeing clearly.
Every time I run through the events in my head I can’t come up with a different interpretation.
I was kidding myself. The whole thing was a fantasy that collapsed like a house of cards.
I still don’t have a romantic relationship.
Or a place of my own to live. I didn’t get the dream job.
Ostensibly, all my efforts have failed spectacularly.
But maybe a couple of—albeit, pretty massive—setbacks don’t have to mean I’m a total failure.
Maybe the real failure is giving up. Repeating my patterns.
Continuing on in an unhealthy, but familiar and easy, dynamic with Max.
Begging my mum to take me back. Finding another job I don’t want and remaining there, complaining but never doing anything about it.
I start getting dressed on autopilot. I barely realize what I’m doing until I’m pulling on my jeans, and I’m halfway down the stairs before I register I’ve forgotten to put on a bra.
“Becky?” Dami calls from the kitchen. It’s still super early and she hasn’t left for work yet. “Are you OK?”
She steps into the hallway, takes one look at my face, and rushes toward me.
“Oh, Becky.” She puts her arms around me. “I heard Max leave.”
I hug her back for a moment, but there’s only one place I want to be. I clear my throat. My voice feels shaky. “I’m just popping out.” I just about manage to make it through the sentence without crying.
“OK.” Dami stands back and rubs my arm. “I’m in the office today, but call me if you want me.”
“Yeah.” I make a half-hearted attempt at a smile. “Thanks.”
I leave the house and start walking. I don’t feel like getting on public transport. My mind feels too crowded to be packed inside a narrow tube with hundreds of other minds, all sifting through their own problems.
I walk for nearly an hour, but I hardly notice it. My feet take me in the right direction and my brain gets some time to breathe.
Finally, I get there, and every single part of me starts relaxing into solace. I knock on the door. The familiar beeps and buzzes of the alarm system unlocking are sweet music to my ears.
Mum opens the door.
“Mum,” I start to say, but I barely make it through because I am blubbering. I am just a big incoherent mess of feelings disintegrating into a pool of tears on the doorstep.
I lunge at her. I cling to her in a giant hug, breathing in the comforting smell of my childhood home, and think how I will always want my mum when things fall apart, just a little bit, and that’s OK. She hugs me back and we stand there for a bit.
“Mum . . . how long would it take us to drive to B it’s too easy for me to stay stuck where I am. And, well . . . for you as well. How long have you been with Gavin now? Since I was at uni, right?”
God, has it really been that long? Gavin has become a steady background presence in my life over the years without me even noticing it.
The operative words being “background presence.” He’s there on birthdays, Christmas, Easter.
Occasionally we all go out for Sunday lunch together.
But mainly, he and Mum see each other alone outside of the house for a few hours—to go to the cinema, for a coffee, to the garden center.
They never evolved past “dating.” To some degree, that’s how Mum likes it—she’s very independent—but guiltily, I now wonder if it’s partly because she was keeping everything the same for me. And then I moved back in.
“Nearly ten years,” Mum answers. “It must be, yes.”
“So,” I say. “Maybe it’s time to move forward. You don’t have to. Maybe you like the setup as it is. But, I don’t know, maybe without me here you’ll have the freedom and the space to consider it.”
She takes a deep breath and looks around. “Well, if this was his study, he might stop complaining about his neck,” she remarks.
I laugh.
“I just . . . I never wanted you to feel like you don’t have a solid base here,” she goes on.
“You were so young when your father left, so with anyone I dated . . . I never wanted you to feel like I was abandoning you. I never wanted you to feel like your home was being intruded on. I wanted everything to be stable for you.”
I think back to my childhood—how Mum’s other relationships usually stopped at the doorstep—and realize I’ve never thought about it like that before.
About what a conscious decision that must have been.
Gavin is definitely the boyfriend I’ve had the most contact with, and it’s still fairly restrained even now I’m an adult.
My heart swells thinking of my mum making sacrifices so that I wouldn’t feel sidelined.
“Mum, I love you for that,” I say. “But I’m nearly thirty. I don’t need everything to be exactly the same anymore. You’re allowed to have a life and . . . well . . . I’m sorry I’ve made that difficult for you by continuing to be such a massive baby. I’m sorry I’ve been such a letdown.”
Mum reaches over and holds my hand. “You’re not a letdown, my love. I think I’ve let you down.”
“Of course you haven’t,” I protest. “That’s preposterous. You do so much for me. You’ve given me everything. And I took it all for granted and—”
“Yes, I’ve done so much for you,” Mum interrupts. “Too much.”
“What do you mean?! I’m sorry I made you feel that way, Mum. I’m sorry I’ve been ungrateful.” I squeeze her hand. I’m flooded with so much love for the woman sitting in front of me that I can barely breathe with the guilt of knowing I made her feel like she’s been a bad parent.
“Becky,” Mum goes on. “I’ve always wanted the best for you and to help you.
This began with the best of intentions. But, well, as time went on I could see it wasn’t helping, or making you happy.
I think for a long time I’ve been convincing myself that it was still the best thing for you, when it wasn’t, because . . . I wanted you here.”
I blink. “You wanted me here?”
In all my time living here, I’ve never thought of my mum as having taken any pleasure in my presence. I’m a nuisance. A parasite. A money-sucking, hot-water-draining, grocery-consuming leech.