D. E. White - Remember Me

‘Hallo, mate, evening, Penny darling, you look gorgeous. Why are you all dressed up? Look who I found down the pub! I know you mentioned Ava was coming tonight, so I’d thought we’d all pop back and say hallo.’ Leo was grinning at his friend. ‘Ava. Nice to see you again.’

But Ava wasn’t looking at either her ex-husband or her ex-boyfriend. She was staring at her son.

He was scowling, the blue eyes very like her own, but his features, and the dark messy hair were all his father’s. Of course she knew what he looked like, but to have him in front of her after all these years in the flesh… she could hardly keep herself from crying out. All the emotions she had locked away were bubbling and boiling in her chest, and despite her good intentions she felt a tear trickle down one cheek.

‘You look… well,’ she managed, made stupid by the occasion. She cleared her throat, forcing herself to meet that scornful gaze.

‘No thanks to you.’ His voice was flat and sullen.

‘You’re actually his mum?’

Ava had hardly registered that Stephen had a girl with him, but now she turned to face her. Thin, black-haired, with unusual grey-green eyes and high cheekbones, she was also staring at Ava.

‘She’s not my mum, Bethan, I told you.’

The girl frowned at him, pursing her rosebud lips. She really was very pretty. Next to them both, Leo smiled, his face alight with mischief. The bastard.

Penny came back in with a tray of tea and a couple of bottles of beer. ‘Help yourselves to drinks. Stephen, do you want to talk to Ava in the kitchen where it’s a bit quieter?’

‘I suppose.’

‘Paul and I will have a catch-up in here. See you in a bit, Ava,’ Leo said, winking at his friend.

Ava noted Paul’s sudden malicious grin, and even in her confusion, equated it to the kind of look the boys used to exchange before they got up to some mischief at school. She pushed it aside and concentrated on her son, following him across the hall, noting his slender height, the square set of his shoulders. No longer a child, but a teenager who had finished school. He was taller than she was.

The kitchen was a warm cavern, with the same stone flags as the rest of the house, and arching oak beams meeting high in the roof. Ava stood, one hand braced on the table, waiting until Stephen stood facing her. His girlfriend (Bethan, was it?) sat carefully on a chair, her feet tucked up under her, long dark hair grazing the table top. She looked vaguely familiar, but Ava couldn’t think why. It was the unusual eyes, and the mannerisms…

‘All I ever wanted to ask you, was how you could just fuck off and leave me?’ Stephen spat at her suddenly, his eyes blazing. ‘I mean, I know it seems a bit sad, but it’s all I want to know. When you’ve told me, you can piss off back to Los bloody Angeles.’

‘Stephen!’ Bethan said, reaching slender white fingers to touch his arm, but he waved her quiet protest away with a shaking hand.

Ava found she had to take a long breath before she could speak. ‘I can’t explain how it was, and I’m not making excuses, but I wasn’t much older than you are now. Suddenly I had a baby, and I was married, and all I could think of was that I couldn’t do any of it. I was failing at the most basic level. It became obvious that I needed to get out or I was going to have some kind of breakdown. I thought… I thought if that happened they would take you away and say I wasn’t fit to have a child. That’s how confused I was.’

‘Your best friend ran away, didn’t she?’ Bethan put in, chewing a thumbnail thoughtfully. ‘My dad told me about it. That must have been horrible. I said to Stephen it was no wonder you lost it a bit later. Anyone would, if something like that happened, and then they had a baby to look after as well.’

Ouch. Ava met her wide, innocent gaze, blocking any attempts to go down that beaten track. ‘She did go, yes. I missed her terribly, and still do. But that was before I was married, and I’m not giving you any excuses for what I did. I’m not saying anything I did was right, and I do know it is useless to say sorry now. I’m just trying to explain why I did it.’

Stephen’s expression was still stony, and his hands were now clenched on the edge of the table, knuckles whitening. ‘You never got back in touch. All these years. You know, I used to pretend Penny was my mum, until some bloody kid at school told everyone I’d been left by my real mum. How do you think that felt?’

Struggling to control her hammering heart, taking comfort in the fact that at least he was listening to her, Ava chose her words carefully. ‘When I reached the States, I went back to my parents and at that point I did have a breakdown. Bethan is right, but I’ll say again, I’m not here to make excuses, just give you facts. The breakdown was attributed in part to the trauma of Ellen’s running away, but also to having PND. That’s—’

‘I know what that fucking is. Dad told me that was what was wrong with you. He’s been good to you. He never slagged you off in front of me. Penny didn’t either. The way they went on about you, it’s like you never did anything wrong. Even Uncle Leo went on about you being this detective in Los Angeles and working on big cases.’

Uncle Leo. ‘Stephen, your dad and I decided it was best that you made your own choice whether to see me, when you reached adulthood. I understand that you haven’t wanted to get in contact, I really do, but please believe me when I say that I always wanted to be part of your life when I recovered.’ She wanted to scream that Paul had given her no choice, but she forced the pain away. It would do no good to tell him the whole truth now, not when his eyes were dark with anger, and Paul was sitting in the next room.

‘You left me as a baby. What sort of mum does that to her kid?’

Ava met his gaze, willing herself to keep her voice calm and steady. Now was probably not the best time to tell him about the money she had saved for him. Everything she had earned, since she worked the bar at college, she had taken a piece out for her son. Over the years it had built into a very nice sum of money, that could be used for university, for travel, for setting up his own business… but now the time had come, and she was suddenly terribly afraid he would see it as blood money, a substitute for love and all that she was capable of.

‘My dad always said you tried your best, you know, being pregnant so young.’ Bethan broke the silence, sliding her hand across and stroking Stephen’s arm again. She had very long, slender fingers, and dark red glossy nails.

With an effort, Ava dragged her gaze away from her son, and back to the girl. ‘Sorry, Bethan, but do I know your dad?’

Stephen rolled his eyes, dragged a packet of cigarettes from his pocket, lit one and passed another to his girlfriend.

Bethan smiled. ‘You were at school with my dad. His name is Huw Davis. We live down the road. Do you remember him?’

Huw’s girlfriend had been pregnant the same time as Ava, but she had lived in Cadrington with her family, so they had limited contact. She remembered Huw boasting about his daughter, showing pictures on his phone of a tiny scrap, topped with a mop of black hair. Ava’s mouth was dry, and a headache throbbing behind her eyes. ‘I do… yes. Does he still live in Aberdyth then? I thought he went to live in Cadrington with your mother. I assumed everyone else had left too.’ Christ, this was getting worse by the minute. Nobody stayed in the valleys if they could help it, but it seemed that everyone she really didn’t want to ever see again was back here, waiting for her return. Ava remembered Paul comparing her with Catrin, Bethan’s mother, asking why Ava couldn’t cope as well as Huw’s girlfriend…