Where It All Began

Chapter 1

BEFORE

Dear Lexie,

For some reason, I was thinking back to when you and Ollie were little children. I know what you’ll say – that it’s no good living in the past! But lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about those days when you were young.

I’m not sure I’ve ever told you before, but it was probably the happiest time of my life.

There were days it might not have seemed like that.

Change is one of life’s certainties – our family’s seen more than its share.

And I don’t always find it easy to talk about it, which is why I’m writing to you.

You know me! I’ve always loved writing letters!

There’s something about putting your words on paper.

And more than anything, I want you to be able to understand…

The arrival of new life brought hope, I’d always thought. That’s how it was when you came into a world where hope gleamed like sunlight on mirror-flat water. Where the force of the maternal love I felt was no less a force of nature than the most powerful storm.

If our small, brief lives had meaning in some way, I could see no greater manifestation of that than in parenthood.

I watched your first days and weeks; as you took your first steps as summer folded into early autumn on grass bleached by weeks of blistering sun, tottering to smell the parched petals of a blowsy pink rose before sitting down hard, you turned to smile.

It was a smile of pure innocence, joy; touched my heart.

A milestone moment – one of many over the nine months since you’d come into our lives.

Ollie, your brother, went over to you, clumsily helping you up, holding on to your hands while you tried to get your balance, as love overwhelmed me for you both; and hope, that even if for any reason I wasn’t, he would always be there for you.

I was distracted as my phone rang, a call from Ryan. ‘Lexie just took her first steps,’ I said excitedly. ‘I wish you’d been here! She looked so pleased with herself.’

‘Cool.’ Ryan sounded distracted. ‘I was just calling to tell you I’m going to be late tonight.’

‘Oh.’ For no reason, I was taken aback. It seemed to happen more and more often that instead of coming home after work, Ryan would be somewhere else. ‘Anything in particular going on?’

‘Just some of the guys meeting after work,’ he said.

I took it to mean he was going to the pub; one of the other demands in his life that increasingly kept him away from us.

Before I could reply, I watched Ollie just about to kick a football towards you.

‘I have to go,’ I said to Ryan, switching off my phone before calling out to my son.

‘Hey, Olls.’ I watched him freeze. ‘I think she’s a bit little for that.

’ Seeing his face fall, I added, ‘How about you and I play?’

You sat there, your chubby fingers pulling at blades of grass, watching as three-year-old Ollie and I kicked his football around the garden.

After, we had a picnic tea in the shade of the apple tree.

I adored these late summer days, this little bubble of us; the faintest tinge of gold in the leaves, the short time your lives were untouched by the outside world.

And I knew it had to, but oh, how quickly it changed.

* * *

That weekend, after his usual few drinks, Ryan was funny Daddy, pulling faces, talking in silly voices, you and Ollie laughing your heads off.

‘Why aren’t you laughing, Mummy?’ Ollie asked. ‘Daddy’s so funny!’

‘I know he is.’ A smile crept across my face, if only for Ollie’s sake. And I wished I could have laughed with him. But something was stopping me.

Ryan had always liked a drink. When we met, we were all doing it.

He was funny, then, and everyone used to gravitate towards him.

I knew it was his way of winding down after work, but now that we were parents, I couldn’t help wishing he’d drink less.

And the two of you didn’t know that I inhabited two contrasting worlds; that these days, when you were both in bed, Ryan’s humour could turn to something darker.

I told myself to be thankful that neither you nor Ollie had seen that side of him – at least, so far you hadn’t. And na?ve though it was, I didn’t think about the future too much. This now was precious. In our own little world, you were safe. For as long as I could, I wanted to preserve that.

Those early years were blissful – mostly.

And I wouldn’t have changed a second of the time the three of us were together; the simplicity of your innocent days.

But it wasn’t just the three of us. Looking back, it was hard to define when what had niggled at the back of my mind suddenly blazed to the forefront.

But there was a line between what was normal and what wasn’t, I’d always told myself.

Especially when it came to bringing up our children.

Intent on preserving the image of a happy, united family, it rocked my world when Ryan crossed it.

It happened one Saturday afternoon, when Ollie was three. He came into the kitchen, distraught; tears streaming down his face.

‘What’s up, Olls?’ Reaching down, I tried to comfort him.

‘Dad… Dad… Dad…’ he stuttered, following it with something unintelligible, sobbing his heart out as though the world was ending.

‘It’s OK, Olls.’ A strange feeling took me over as I picked him up and went to find Ryan. In our sitting room, he was watching the football. ‘Ollie’s really upset,’ I said. ‘Do you know what happened?’

‘I told him off,’ Ryan said sharply. ‘He knocked my drink over.’

On the table, a can was lying on its side in a pool of beer. I stared at Ryan in disbelief. ‘He’s three years old. It was an accident.’

‘He needs to learn to be more careful,’ Ryan said.

‘You can’t tell him off for something like that.’ I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. ‘It’s OK, Ollie,’ I said gently to my son, tenderly wiping the tears from his face. ‘Daddy didn’t mean to be so cross with you.’

But it was as though Ollie wasn’t there. ‘For fuck’s sake, Edie,’ Ryan said irritably. ‘So I told him off – it happens to all of us. Kids need to learn.’

A wave of shock hit me. I put Ollie down.

‘Go and wait for Mummy in the kitchen, sweetie,’ I said to him gently.

‘I won’t be a minute.’ I waited until he was out of earshot.

‘Don’t you dare swear in front of the children, Ryan,’ I muttered furiously.

‘And don’t forget either, there are different ways of saying things.

’ I glared at my husband. ‘If you don’t want Ollie to grow up feeling scared of you, you need to think about that. ’

‘And of course, you never lose your temper,’ he said sarcastically, then cut me short. ‘If you don’t mind, I’m watching this.’

In that moment, I knew I did mind. This mattered.

But for the first time I acknowledged that I faced an impossible choice between challenging Ryan, knowing it would develop into a row I didn’t want you and Ollie to hear, or letting it go.

Going to the kitchen, I got a cloth, then going back, I threw it at Ryan.

‘The least you can do is clear the beer up.’

Turning my back on him, I pacified Ollie, persuading him that grown-ups, even funny Daddy, were allowed the occasional off day, while across the kitchen, I noticed you watching your brother, your pale blue eyes unblinking, an intensity in them as you turned to me.

It was a moment that, when I later looked back, signified the end of an innocence; an image of you seared into my mind forever.

Then, the episode left me with a sick feeling, an underlying sense that there was no spin to put on this; that in the simplest terms, it was wrong.

It left me with guilt, too. From the start, all I’d ever wanted was to keep you both safe.

In the context of Ryan’s alcohol consumption, I should have foreseen this day coming, should have had steps in place to prevent it.

Moments like this: they weren’t what I wanted for you.

But it passed; by the following day, funny Daddy was back.

He scooped up Ollie; I watched the wariness change to unbridled joy on my son’s face as Ryan told him a dad-joke.

You, even though you didn’t understand the words, could sense the change; your eyes intently taking everything in, clapping your hands in glee.

To anyone looking on, it was a snapshot of a normal happy family. But we were anything but. It felt as though we had stepped onto a rollercoaster; that this was the upside. My feeling was confirmed when Ryan put his carrier bag down and I saw the bottles inside.

Life is all kinds of things, the depth and breadth of our human experience what makes us who we are, defining how we go out into the world, who we are as parents, in turn shaping who our children become.

You and Ollie were so young, but it had already started, this subliminal, unintentional programming of you.

And I tried so hard to be conscious that what reached your ears was loving, harmless; nurturing.

But too many times it didn’t go like that.

Yes, I tried to keep love in my voice, but I was all too aware that now and then, Ryan was argumentative and irrational, while you couldn’t help but hear exchanges that were never meant for you.

I could never pinpoint when Ryan’s drinking became more noticeable – or maybe I simply wasn’t looking before. But suddenly, I was aware. I became the parent who denied, distracted, compensated when it happened. When it came to protecting you and Ollie, there was nothing I wouldn’t do for you.

And of course, it wasn’t like that all the time.

There were happy interludes, days when Ryan drank less and engaged more, when he found respite from the invisible demons that haunted him.

But as I was starting to learn, they were short-lived as this rollercoaster of our lives became unpredictable, each upslope bathed in sunlight before another descent into darkness.

We weathered the fallout as another friendship was sabotaged – never Ryan’s fault, he was always at pains to tell me.

Two more years passed, Ollie becoming a sunny five-year-old starting his first year of primary school; you started preschool. I worked mornings in a café in town, collecting you at lunchtime, so that you and I had afternoons together before we picked Ollie up.

‘I haven’t stopped.’ I’d taken you over to see my friend Lucy, who lived a few miles away and whose life seemed even crazier than mine was.

‘Tell me about it.’ She cut a piece of cake and passed it to you. ‘We’re not designed to be mothers and wives and have jobs all at the same time.’

‘It’s different for you,’ I said. Lucy and her husband had split up when their daughter Mia was two. ‘You have to do everything. At least I have Ryan.’

‘You what?’ Lucy stared at me disbelievingly. ‘You’re not telling me that’s a help?’

I didn’t answer. Of course, she was right – Ryan did little at home. But as far as parenting went, I was better at it than he was.

‘Have you ever thought…’ she started. Then she broke off. ‘It’s flipping raining. I need to get the washing in.’

She darted outside, grabbing things off the line, a flurry of colour as she came back inside. I was helping her fold it all as you stopped us in our tracks. Going to Lucy’s fridge, you got out a beer and tried to open it.

Lucy and I laughed it off. It was an innocent mistake. But another part of me couldn’t help thinking, was it a warning?

Life was hectic. But family life always was. And we could survive, I kept telling myself. I could shield you and Ollie from Ryan’s drinking – it could be so much worse. And I tried – so hard, for so long, determined to get this right; to give you and Ollie everything I wanted for you.

Of course, it would have been easier if Ryan was sober. But more often than not, he wasn’t. Even so, I denied the impact it was having, made the most of the good days, over time, watching my baseline get redrawn. The bar was lowering – there were so many ways I pictured it.

But still I was determined that we were better together; did everything I could to keep us that way. I couldn’t bring myself to acknowledge what my heart sensed to be true: that I couldn’t carry all of this alone; that our home was a house of cards that was slowly collapsing around us.