Page 38 of One Last Gift

“I’m not alone,” he said reassuringly. “I’m staying with friends.” He’d slightly amended the truth when he’d told her who he was staying with, had said Toby was a friend from university, rather than a random guy he’d met at Tom’s funeral, because he knew the latter would only make her worry.

“Right, I know. But, well. You know what I mean.”

“Yeah,” he said, because it was easier than arguing. He ran a hand over his head, the pounding still there.

“And have you spoken to…anyone…back home?” She meant Jessica, but she didn’t want to ask directly, he knew, didn’t want to upset him by saying it out loud.

“Not yet. I just need some space, to figure stuff out.” A feeble excuse, but there it was. He thought back to the last message exchange with Jessica. He’d gotten the message from her on the way to the airport, after haphazardly grabbing some things from their flat. Just one word. Why?

He’d not known what to say other than I’m sorry, the reasons why feeling too big, too messy, to write over text. She hadn’t said anything more. He’d imagined her raging, crying, and knew there was nothing he could say to make any of it better.

His mum hesitated for a beat, and Sam could dimly hear the noise of the TV in the background. “Your dad’s been trying to get hold of you, you know.”

Sam felt his spine stiffen but forced his voice to remain calm. “I do know.” He had the missed calls to show for it, didn’t he? And now, apparently, his dad was going to his mum, roping her in. “I don’t want to talk to him.” It felt unnecessary to say it out loud, really.

His mum sighed. “Holding on to this resentment isn’t good for you, Sam. It will only eat you up, make you bitter.” He said nothing. But in his mind, the alternative wasn’t much better. Because the alternative was to let it all go, like her, and open himself up to constant let-down. He didn’t know how she did it, how she maintained the positivity she carried around like a light. He realized, though, that he was grateful for it—she was always positive, had managed to be so his entire life, and in that moment he felt overwhelmed by the thought of it. Because look what she’d gotten for it. A husband who’d abandoned her, and a son who was turning out to be just as much of a fuck-up. She deserved better than the two of them. And it was turning into a self-fulfilling prophecy, wasn’t it? By not wanting to be like his dad, to let people down in that way, he was becoming exactly like him—always underpromising, making sure people knew they couldn’t depend on him, then letting them down in the end anyway. Like Jessica. And like Cassie.

“You should try not to be too hard on him,” his mum continued softly. “He’s not a bad person, he’s just made some bad choices that led him to where he is now. But he loves you.”

“Yeah, well, he has a funny way of showing it,” Sam muttered.

“I think your dad—he never really found the right path in life, or, I should say, he never really found his path, and so he kept messing up a little, going off the beaten track.” Sam frowned, trying to follow the analogy. “I wasn’t for him,” she continued. “I wasn’t where he was supposed to be.” And so, Sam thought, by virtue of that, he wasn’t either. “I’ve come to accept that. But your dad, he’s been searching ever since for something to hold on to, and I don’t think he’s ever found it.”

“Maybe he hasn’t been trying hard enough.” Sam tried—and failed—to keep the bite out of his voice.

“Yes, well, maybe.”

“And maybe,” Sam said, through slightly gritted teeth, “he should’ve figured out that he didn’t want a family before he got married, had a kid.”

“Maybe,” his mum agreed on a sigh. “But life’s full of maybes, and if you focus too much on those then you forget to just be. And really, love, you’ve seen what happens if you force yourself down one path, when your heart is taking you somewhere else.” Sam felt an uncomfortable lurch in his stomach. It was the closest she’d come to pointing out that what he’d done to Jessica was not so different from what his dad did to her. He hated that. But she wasn’t judging him for it—and that infuriating refusal to judge or condemn his dad was perhaps the same quality of hers that made it easy to talk to her, that meant he hadn’t felt the need to cut her out of his life like he’d done with other people, because he knew that she could understand, or at least accept, less than ideal choices.

“I’m sorry, Mum,” he said, his throat tight. “With Dad…I just can’t go there. And I’m sorry for everything else too.”

“You don’t need to apologize to me, love.”

He’d do something for her, he decided. Send her to a spa or something, let her know how much he appreciated her, even if he was a rotten son. For now though, he let it move along. “How are things with you?” he asked.

“Oh, much the same, you know. Did you hear about Linda’s pub?”

“No, what about it?”

“She’s having to sell it. There was some flooding and she can’t afford to keep it.” She sighed. “The village just won’t be the same without it. It’s all very sad, really.”

“That’s…” Sam ran a hand across the back of his neck. “Yeah. Yeah, that is sad.” He thought of how much he and Tom used to hang out there, as kids, doing homework or mucking around, then as teenagers, when Sam would wait for Tom to finish his shift. Linda had been like a mum to Tom and Cassie, Sam knew, what with Claire being so absent, and they’d adopted the pub as a second home. He had a distinct memory of sitting there, playing cards with Tom when they were bored and it was raining. Cassie had been working—she’d have been, what, sixteen? She’d only just started there, and it had been impossible not to notice how proud she was of it. Tom had just beaten him at another round of trumps, and was teasing him about his terrible card skills, when Cassie had come out of the lunchtime shift. She’d come over, face flushed, hair in a bun on the top of her head, wearing the all-black outfit that the waitresses wore. She’d been pulsing with energy. Sam knew Cassie thought that Tom was the one with all that energy, that life—but she was wrong. She had it too, just about different things.

“What are you two doing?”

Tom rolled his eyes. “What does it look like, Chipmunk?”

“Can I play?”

Tom hesitated, looking at Sam questioningly, though Sam knew he was only doing it to wind her up.

“Hmmm, don’t know about that,” Sam said, “trumps is more of a two-person game, don’t you think?” He directed the question at Tom, who nodded seriously.

“Yeah, I reckon so.”

“Fine,” Cassie said. “Be like that.” And she spun away.