“Well, well, well Nell,” Mum said, “you really have changed haven’t you?”
I settled down on the couch and tried to ignore the ice in my Mum’s tone, she stared at me as I stayed silent, fiddling with the frayed sleeve of my jumper.
“Are you not going to say anything?” she asked eventually.
“I’m waiting for you to say something,” I replied.
“Say what though, Nell? Have you thought about that?” she said.
“I’m waiting for an explanation.”
“For what?”
“For what?” I exclaimed, and I could feel the volume of my voice steadily rising, “for leaving, for walking out of the door without a second thought about me and Kyle, for not being there for me when I needed you, for leaving without saying a word, without a warning, without a care.”
Mum remained scarily calm. She reminded me of an ice queen, separated from my anger, from my rage. As if nothing I did would make her feel anything. I sank back into the couch in defeat.
“You just don’t care do you?” I said.
“Of course I care,” she told me.
“Well it doesn’t seem like it, you haven’t even said sorry.”
“I have nothing to say sorry for.”
“You have so much to say sorry for,” I challenged, “you’re the reason Kyle cried himself to sleep at night for a month, the reason Dad looked around clueless at Christmas when he realised he had no idea how to cook Christmas dinner, the reason everything in my life feels like it is steadily falling apart. We needed you Mum, and you just left.”
“I had to,” she said.
“Why?”
“I just did Nellie.”
“But why?”
“You wouldn’t understand Nellie.”
“Don’t call me Nellie,” I shouted, “and why wouldn’t I understand? Do you think I’m too young or something? Because apparently I’m not too young to have to pick up the pieces of the family you left behind, to have to help raise Kyle. You didn’t think I was too young for that did you?”
“This isn’t the same Ne-Eleanor,” Mum protested, “this is something you can’t help with. You three are better off without me.”
“So why did you come back?” I asked scathingly, “we were starting to get on fine without you.”
Mum recoiled from my words and looked as if I had physically hurt her. But I couldn’t take the words back, I didn’t want to take the words back and so they hung in the silence, Mum sat not quite sure how to reply.
She stared at me for a few moments before speaking.
“Eleanor you have to understand,” she said.
“You just told me I wouldn’t be able to,” I pointed out.
“Please Eleanor.”
She reached out to me, a single hand edging towards me looking for some form of acceptance, something to tell her I still loved her. I didn’t reach out to her.
“No,” I told her simply.
“Why? After everything I’ve done for you, you’re choosing to focus on the one mistake I made?” she asked confused.
“It was a pretty big mistake.”
“I know that now.”
“So what? In a few months time you might make another mistake, but I should take you back then because you didn’t realise that.”
“Forgiveness is important to remember,” Mum told me.
“Mum, why don’t we talk to Uncle Oliver?” I asked.
I thought back to the man who used to give me piggy-backs when I was younger, who used to read me fairytales. I knew the exact reason Mum had stopped us from talking to him, I just wanted her to remember.
“What he did was wrong,” she said.
“And he said it was a mistake, that he knew that.”
“Are you saying what we did was the same thing?” she asked defensively.
“I’m saying it might as well be.”
“You nearly broke your arm because of him,” Mum reminded me.
“I accidentally fell of my bike when he was there,” I corrected her.
“He wasn’t holding onto you right,” she pointed out.
“My point is you both hurt me, he just left more physical proof.”
“So what?” she asked, “you’re just not going to let my son talk to me anymore, I’m pretty sure it’s not you who gets to make that decision, that’s down to your father.”
“It is,” I replied calmly, “and I’ll let him make the decision but I’m sure he’ll make the right one.”
“How come you have so much faith in your father and so little faith in me?” she asked.
“Because he wasn’t the one that left,” I reminded her.
“But he was never there for you before I left,” she shouted.
“He was there, he may not have been there all the time but he was there. You haven’t been there at all.”
“So what, the past few months of his supporting you makes up for all those years he chose work over you and yet I make one mistake, go away so I can figure some things out and that’s it.”
“That’s not what I’m saying,” I said frustrated, “I’m just saying that I can’t forgive you for this easily. You can’t just waltz in here and expect everything to go back to how it was.”
“That’s not what I’m expecting,” she replied.
“It sure as hell seems like it.”
“I’m expecting you to forgive me Eleanor,” she told me.
“Really mum,” I said, “because it seems like you want me to forget this little... blip and just carry on as if nothing happened.”
“Well...” she began.
“Exactly,” I said angrily, “and I can’t do that Mum. I can’t just let this go, it’s not fair on me or dad or Kyle.”
Just as I finished my sentence the door opened to reveal Dad looking confused.
“What’s going on here?” he asked.
His gaze flickered over towards where my mother stood and I watched as his expression became surprised before being replaced by one of distance, a cold shield falling into place.
“Catherine,” he said simply.
“Andrew,” my Mum replied icily.
The tension in the room was thick, and the air felt like soup. It wasn’t helped by the silence of the house or the fact that I was aware that Kyle was up in his room, probably listening to Mum and I shout at each other and unsure of what was going to happen.
“Nell maybe you should leave,” Dad told me.
It was not a request but rather an order and I did as he said, glancing at Mum one time before I left. Her expression was victorious, as if she was certain that she was already welcomed back. She presumed she knew Dad well enough to think that but I wasn’t so sure. I really hoped he knew better than that.
I really wanted to wait outside the door and listen into their conversation but I was aware of the fact that one of them would probably notice and so I traipsed up the stairs slowly. I decided to head to my bed; even if there was no way that I was going to get any sleep.
“Nell,” Kyle’s voice was soft as he called my name.
Pushing open his door I let a sliver of light into his bedroom and noticed that he was already in his pyjamas, his bed sheet was pulled up to his chin and he looked younger than he had done in a while.
“Is she still here?” he asked me.
“Yeah,” I said, “I’m sorry for sending you away but I had to find out why she was here.”
“It’s okay,” Kyle told me, “I don’t want to talk to her anyway.”
A part of me was proud of Kyle for saying that but another part of me knew there was a possibility that Dad might let Mum back into our life, and that Kyle’s attitude towards her was not going to help us move past everything.
“Maybe it’s best we talk to her,” I suggested.
“But she left us.”
“Maybe she had her reasons.”
“That sounds like a lot of maybes,” Kyle pointed out.
Kyle – despite looking like the little brother I remember before Mum left – sounded like he had aged twenty years as he looked up at me with sad eyes.
“Life is full of lots of maybes,” I told him.
“Will you stay with me?” Kyle asked, “Will you sleep in here with me? I don’t want to be alone. Stay here like you used to.”
He was referring to just after Mum left. When I used to camp in his room with him at his insistence. Kyle always used to be scared that we would leave him to and so I used to sleep on his floor to prove the opposite, it was the only way he would sleep.
“Sure,” I said, “let me just get changed.”
I headed back to my room and pulled on a pair of pyjama shorts and baggy top as well as a sleeping bag. After a few moments of deliberation I grab Fletcher’s envelope as well – just in case.
Kyle moved restlessly in his bed, I could hear him toss and turn every few seconds and I was honestly a few seconds away from telling him to shut up. I was trying desperately to listen to what was going on downstairs but Kyle was making that near possible thanks to the rustling of his sheets.
“Have you opened it yet?” he eventually asked me as we lay there.
I stared up at the ceiling, at the small glow in the dark stickers I had applied to it just before we left to go on holiday. They had been a present from some distant relative a few Christmases back and they had sat in a downstairs cupboard for years when I stumbled across them one day and decided to decorate Kyle’s room with them whilst he was at school. Luckily he hadn’t minded and right now I could see why, the stars were faint but they were there and it made for something interesting to look at as I thought.
“No,” I replied eventually.
“Why not?”
“I haven’t wanted to,” I said honestly.
“Are you scared?” he asked.
And there Kyle was again, it scared me slightly how he could be so understanding, how he didn’t even need me to speak, or to see my face for him to understand.
“Kind of,” I admitted.
“I would be too.”
“Why?”
“Fletcher said you had a fight,” Kyle explained, “but if it makes things any better he said he was a – am I allowed to say a bad word Nell?”
“Sure Kyle.”
“He said he was a prick about it.”
“Did he actually use that word?” I asked.
“Of course, I know I’m not allowed to say it,” Kyle replied indignantly, “it’s not my fault Fletcher used that word.”
“I know Kyle,” I said reassuringly, knowing he would beat himself up about it otherwise, he had always been a stickler for the rules.
Instead though he sighed deeply before rolling over to face the wall and I tugged the envelope closer so I could study it.
It did not look like anything special, in fact it was a boring brown envelope, the kind you see piles of in offices, the kind that taste horrible when you have to lick them closed, but I studied it carefully none the less, just in case Fletcher had somehow left a message on it, something that would give me some clue as to what was inside.
Eventually I could not resist the temptation and I slid my finger under the flap to open the damn thing. At first glance I thought there was nothing inside, that he had just handed Kyle an empty envelope but eventually I noticed a small scrap of paper stuck to the side and I pulled it out.
Whether I was expecting a long love letter, or a note proclaiming how much he now hated me, what I pulled out was not what I was expecting.
On the note was no words, just a string of numbers which I presumed could only be Fletcher’s number. It seemed like a strange thing for him to give me, I had been expecting some way to resolve our fight, for good or bad, not just an offer of contact.
Sighing I stared at the sheet for a few minutes, running my finger over the paper.
“What is it?” Kyle asked quietly.
“I thought you were meant to be sleeping,” I teased.
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
“What is it though?”
I handed Kyle the piece of paper and let him look at it, so he could give me his opinion on it.
“You need to call him,” he said.
“Nah, he’ll probably be asleep,” I told Kyle.
“No he won’t his flight is leaving early in the morning, I bet he’ll be up by now.”
“I don’t want to wake him up if he’s not,” I said.
“What you mean is that you don’t want to have to talk to him,” Kyle corrected with raised eyebrows.
“Go away.”
“Just call him, Nell.”
I shook my head at him but went to retrieve my phone from my room none the less, spinning the device in my hands nervously.
Somehow, a part of me decided to put in the numbers that were written down and before I knew it the phone was ringing in my hands.
I stared at it in shock for a few minutes, my brain could not piece together how that was happening.
And then I realised that if Fletcher even picked up the phone then he would expect me to talk and so rather than hang up I decided to press the phone to my ear and prepare something to say.
It would seem that my panic was pointless though as Fletcher did not pick up, instead I received his voicemail and I hung up rather than leave a desperate sounding message.
I returned to Kyle’s room and lay down in the bed feeling strangely disappointed considering the fact that I had been the one set on never talking to Fletcher again. However he had been the one to reach out to me and therefore I thought it was only right for him to pick up the phone when I called, but he didn’t and I was left lying in bed wondering why he wanted me to call in the first place.
And then I felt my mattress begin to vibrate and my phone lit up the entire room. Kyle groaned and covered his eyes, ready to complain but then he realised it was my phone’s fault and he stopped, gestured for me to pick up the phone and answer it.
I did so cautiously, pressing the phone to my ear with bated breaths. Both hoping that it would be Fletcher and that it also wouldn’t be.
“Hello?” I said.
I had to wait a few minutes for there to be a reply and in that time there was nothing but silence.
“Nell?” Fletcher asked sleepily.