Chapter 23
amy
Amy dropped her bag on the hall console and moved through the house, savouring the quiet. Mac was down at the marina, securing the boats before the storm; Nicky was over at Maggie’s, and her mother was at her club playing bridge. Amy had the house to herself.
It was rare she got the chance to be truly alone, and she felt guilty for enjoying it.
Nicky would be off to college in a few months, and she’d miss him: miss the tuneless music and wet towels on the floor and the empty carton of milk put back in the fridge.
And yet, whenever the other mothers of graduating seniors lamented the imminent separation from their offspring, their fear of the empty nest, Amy’s overwhelming feeling was one of relief.
She slid open the doors to the deck and went outside.
The first outer bands of the storm were coming in; twigs and leaves already covered the deck, and the wind was whipping the branches of nearby trees, smacking them against the side of the house.
They’d be lucky if they didn’t lose a few before the storm was done.
Mac had taken down most of those threatening the house years ago, but if it got really bad, there were a couple of silver birches Amy hadn’t been able to bear to lose that could cause some damage.
She pulled a rug from the storage bench and pulled it over her knees as she sat and watched the ominous mass of clouds darkening the horizon.
For all the time and effort she’d put into organising prom, she hadn’t really thought about what it meant until now.
As the parent of an only child, Nicky’s graduation marked the end of her active mothering.
He’d still need her for some years yet as he found his way in the world, and she hoped he’d always come to her for help and advice no matter how old he was.
But she’d no longer be required on a daily basis, ensuring food was on the table and clean laundry placed on the end of his bed. And she couldn’t wait.
In those gruelling first months when she’d effectively parented twins, when Nicky had suffered from colic and allergies and she’d been lucky to get two hours’ sleep a night, she’d loved being a mother.
Loved the simplicity, the mundanity; there was a simple need, for food or changing or sleep, and she simply met it.
But just at the point life became easier, when Iris had been well enough to take Finn back and Nicky had finally started sleeping through, Amy had discovered she wasn’t such a natural mother after all.
Iris had loved crawling across the floor pretending to be a lion, or reading the same bedtime story over and over, making car noises and doing all the voices.
She’d cut potatoes into halves and carve them into shapes to dip into paint, and happily lay outside on her back with Finn and Rose for hours, just staring up at the clouds.
Whereas Amy had hated all of that. The pointless, repetitive play.
The endless whys, the onslaught of demands, the pestering for something to do, to have, which bored her son after just five minutes.
Amy enjoyed working more than she enjoyed spending idle hours with Nicky, and she hated herself for it.
She’d taken care of her son’s needs, filling out medical forms and applying sunscreen and catering to allergies and fads, listening to him, engaging with him, making sure he felt loved and heard. But she’d never – as one of her students might say – vibed with Nicky. Not the way she did with Finn.
There was a frequency to her son that unsettled her, like a high-pitched whine that set her teeth on edge. When he was out of the house, the tension eased and the air felt lighter. She loved him; of course she loved him. But she wasn’t always the best for him. And he wasn’t always the best for her.
The first spots of rain splashed the deck.
Amy stood up and put the blanket back in the storage bench.
Her phone beeped with an incoming text, and she checked the screen, making a quick detour to the mailbox when she saw it was from FedEx.
She’d made a last-minute impulse-buy online: a new dress for prom, the first new outfit she’d bought – other than gym clothes – in years; not out of vanity, but so that Nicky would know she was making a fuss, a big deal, of the event.
She knew she was overcompensating again, going over and above, determined that this milestone in his life, like every milestone from his first word to his first wobbly tooth, should be met with the appropriate fanfare; that he should feel celebrated, beloved.
All the things she’d never felt with Helen.
She checked the mailbox for the parcel, then the front porch, and around the side of the garage, even her mother’s front steps, but there was no sign of it.
The rain was coming down harder now. She pulled up the FedEx information on her phone. It definitely said the item had been delivered: at 14.28 that afternoon.
She couldn’t imagine the package had been stolen by porch pirates; the house was too far off the beaten track for that.
But maybe it’d been delivered to the wrong address.
Before she contacted the store or rang round her neighbours, she should check the Ring doorbell camera to see if it had actually arrived.
She pulled up the app, and scrolled back through the last few recorded videos, set off when the camera detected motion, wanting to make absolutely sure of her facts.
And her world blew up in her face.