Chapter 15
BEFORE
Dear Lexie,
I wonder what you would think about me leaving this house. But your words are in my head.
It’s bricks and mortar, Mum. Anyway, you know I never loved that place.
You’re right – it’s just a house. But to me, it’s where I created the home that you grew up in. The house I’d dreamed of. It represented everything I wanted for us.
I was possessive about our family – about being your mother. Had clear ideas that went unchallenged.
This is what a mother does… This is how family looks…
I knew what children needed, and it was parents, a safe home, family – everything I never had.
There was education. Opportunities. And yes, these are all good things.
Back then, it didn’t occur to me that there were a million ways to grow up in the world.
Before you were fifteen, you’d found a Saturday job at an animal shelter.
It was as though you’d found your calling; before long, it was taking over your life.
You regaled us with stories of goats in deep straw beds, ex-riding-school ponies that had come to retire and chickens that roamed grassy fields, cats that slept in the hay barns.
In between, you dedicated yourself to raising funds to support them. It fired your heart to see such kindness from people. But there was another side to what you did.
One late Saturday afternoon, you came home devastated. A rescue had come in, an old pony who was sick. Too sick – they couldn’t save it.
‘I know it was right…’ you sobbed. ‘I didn’t want him to suffer. It was just… It was so sad…’
Eventually I got it out of you that it broke your heart because the pony had never known how love felt. That was what you couldn’t bear – that every creature, however young or old, should feel safe, know love.
Ryan ran out of patience with you. ‘For Christ’s sake. I’m going to call them and tell them you won’t be going back.’
‘No way, Dad.’ You were horrified. ‘It isn’t up to you what I do.’
Ryan started getting bolshy. ‘I think you’ll find I have a say in the matter.’
You rounded on him. ‘Why is it wrong that I’m upset about this? It’s normal. It was a really sad day.’ Your voice wobbled. ‘I care about the animals. It doesn’t mean I shouldn’t go back.’
‘I agree.’ I hated seeing you upset, but I was with you all the way. ‘It’s Lexie’s choice.’
I watched the wall grow between you and your father. He refused to drive you to work after that.
‘You know why, don’t you, Mum? It’s so he can sit and drink at home without us watching him.’
‘I’m sure it isn’t.’ I knew he had a problem but the violence had stopped. And if I divorced him, I’d have to prove his unreasonable behaviour. But in defending Ryan, I knew I was betraying you.
* * *
Against a backdrop of conflict at home, I found solace as I always did in nature, searching for the first signs that spring was coming – the fading of winter, the gradually lengthening days.
The earliest daffodils that were followed by tulips; the softness of cherry blossom you used to scoop up in handfuls, then scatter onto the grass around you.
‘Smell this.’ Lucy passed me a bunch of scented paperwhite narcissus. ‘Heavenly, aren’t they?’
The scent momentarily distracted me. ‘Beautiful.’ I passed them back to her. ‘In another life, I’d grow all the flowers and leave you to deal with the wedding side of things.’
Lucy looked at me thoughtfully. ‘You know, that really isn’t such a bad idea.’
‘We should put it on the back burner as a plan B,’ I suggested. Firstly, we had no land for growing flowers. But none of us knew what the future held.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ Lucy said. ‘We’re getting a lot of enquiries coming in for weddings this year. Do you think it’s time we started looking for somewhere bigger? I’ve been doing the sums and I’ve worked out what we can afford. I’m not sure what, though. It isn’t enough for a high street shop.’
‘But we never wanted to open a shop,’ I reminded her. ‘We need space, that’s the main thing. If it’s in town, that would be great. But it doesn’t have to be.’
‘We should start looking,’ Lucy said. Then she added in a different voice, ‘Edie? Have you thought about talking to someone?’
I looked at her, baffled. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean about Ryan. I’m not just talking about his latest thing with Lexie. It’s what his behaviour is doing to you – to all of you,’ she said quietly. ‘I see it in your face. Every day. How much longer can you go on like this?’
I remembered Ryan suggesting the same, but only because he didn’t like something I’d said to him.
‘It isn’t that bad,’ I said too brightly.
But I’d been trying so hard, for so long, to hold it together.
To stop now… But then my facade dropped.
‘Sometimes it’s like I’m going mad, Luce.
’ My voice wavered. ‘I keep having these dreams. Something happens to my children. I know they’re only dreams. But it’s like a warning, telling me I have to do something. ’
‘Fuck, Edie.’ Lucy looked worried.
‘I know. I’ve been keeping it to myself.’ I wiped away the tear that rolled down my face. ‘I can’t talk to Ryan about anything.’
‘It isn’t how it should be,’ Lucy said gently. ‘If things are this bad, maybe you should think about what the best thing to do is, going forward.’
‘You mean leave him?’ I stared at her. ‘This isn’t just about me,’ I said. ‘This is about all of us.’
‘Which means it’s also about you,’ Lucy reminded me.
I sighed, a heavy sound that came from deep inside me. ‘Maybe you’re right. Maybe I should try to find someone to talk to. But even that isn’t straightforward. How will I know if they’re any good?’
‘Read their reviews,’ she advised. ‘In fact, let’s take half an hour right now. I’ll help you.’
I shook my head. ‘We have stuff to do.’
‘It can wait,’ she said persuasively. ‘This is important.’
* * *
So it was that Lucy discovered Caitlin on a website of therapists. She lived a few miles away and the following week, I went to meet her. Her house was set up a quiet lane and when I got out of my car, instantly I was struck by a peacefulness I knew was missing in my world.
The front of her house was overgrown with honeysuckle. When she opened the door, Caitlin had wavy dark hair and kind eyes.
‘Edie? Nice to meet you. Come in,’ she said. ‘This is my room, in here.’
She showed me into a calm room with two armchairs angled next to a window that looked out over a long back garden. After taking some notes about me, she asked what had brought me there.
I looked at her. ‘My family. My children – Ollie and Lexie. I’m worried about them.’ Then it came out in a rush. ‘Ryan, my husband, is an alcoholic.’
Over the next forty minutes, I gave voice to my fears, my helplessness, the deep sense of sadness I felt. The guilt I carried, that I couldn’t help my husband. All without blame, without judgement.
Towards the end, Caitlin intervened. ‘There’s one thing I want to say to you today.’ She paused. ‘You’ve talked about Ryan, and about his behaviour towards Ollie and Lexie. But not once have you mentioned how this affects you.’
There was a lump in my throat. ‘It’s them I want to help,’ I said.
‘And you?’ she asked.
‘I want things to go back to how they used to be.’ My voice trembled.
‘Can you describe how that was?’ she asked.
And the thing was, as I sat there, I didn’t have the words.
I was aware almost from the day I met Ryan that he had a dependence on alcohol.
I just hadn’t realised how significant it was.
‘I suppose what I miss is a kind of innocence,’ I said at last. ‘The days when I sailed through life – without a care in the world. When nothing seemed impossible.’
‘When did you realise Ryan had a problem?’ she asked.
I sighed. ‘I’m ashamed to say, before I was pregnant. And I still had children with him.’
‘You’ve no reason to feel ashamed,’ she said.
‘Love can make us blind. And we’ll do anything for those we love.
But also, back then, you couldn’t have known how your life was going to turn out.
None of us do. For all you knew, Ryan might have decided his drinking days were over.
People do – for all kinds of reasons. You simply made a decision based on what you knew at the time. ’
I feel a sense of relief as she puts it like that.
But it isn’t the whole story. ‘You know you asked how this affects me?’ I said.
‘I’m on edge, all the time Ryan’s around.
I’m waiting for him to lose his temper. To say something inappropriate to our children.
To upset them, upset me. Get drunk and angry. ’
She listened. ‘Is it always like this?’
‘Yes.’ I had a heavy, dark feeling I couldn’t shake. ‘Even when he’s out, I know what’ll happen when he’s back.’
Caitlin looked at me. ‘So why do you stay?’
* * *
As I drove home from my first session with her, I was thinking about you.
At some point in your last few years, there had been an inexorable shift in you.
Even now, I couldn’t put my finger on when it happened, or why.
I just noticed as you became more withdrawn; at the same time, more focused on everything that seemed so important to you.
Not all my memories were happy, Lexie. Nor were yours, including one standout day, when I remembered you and Ollie talking, him needling you – gently. It wasn’t in his nature to be anything else:
‘You can’t change the world, Lex. Leave it to the big shots!’
‘I’m not talking about them. Anyway, they’re fucking things up. I mean us, Oll. And it isn’t the small things. It’s the vast, global problems we all have a part in.’
On this occasion, you were talking about wars.
‘Imagine if your country was invaded, how you’d do whatever it took to save your family.’
The devastation of the rainforest was another subject you wouldn’t stay silenced on. I always felt you were too young to take these worries on. But maybe it was needed. Maybe you were part of a generation who’d inspire change.