Before the Dawn (3 page)

I'm not sure when it all started to change, to shift imperceptibly. Perhaps it had started the first day I asked him in; perhaps later, when I told Alix I'd mind him in the afternoons; perhaps even later than that.

I remember one afternoon when he complained that his mum didn't let him surf the internet on his own. "She's so unfair," he said, kicking at his chair legs, and I opened my mouth to defend her and then quite suddenly, didn't.

I remained silent, smiling slightly as I pointed to the next homework problem, and I felt his curiosity like a physical thing. I hadn't acted as he'd expected me to.

It happened again, of course. He told me of a program on telly he wasn't allowed to watch. I could tell he was testing me, and I failed--or passed, depending on how you looked at it--spectacularly.

"Then we just won't say anything, shall we?" I said with a finger pressed to my lips.

Confusion and delight passed over his face like sunshine half-covered by cloud.

The comments came more regularly then, and I would only smile or laugh a little when he said them. "I like it here," he might announce, stuffing his third biscuit into his mouth, or, "Your house is nicer than mine."

Innocent, childish comments, but I treasured them.

It was all made easier when Alix started to date someone at work... Darren? Derek? I'm not sure.

Two evenings a week Jamie had dinner with us, and soon it made sense for Brian to take an interest. He invited Jamie to come to the rugby on Saturday, and of course Alix was grateful, so grateful for our kindly, neighborly concern.

"You're both so wonderful," she said. "And he loves the rugby... things are quite... busy... at the moment."

"I'm sure they are," I soothed. "Really, it's no problem."

We fell into a comfortable routine; Jamie with me every weekday afternoon, and with Brian on Saturday for the rugby. One evening Alix tentatively asked if Jamie could spend the night.

"I'm... taking a little break," she confessed with a blush, and I smiled understandingly.

"Of course, we'd love to have him."

As she walked away I felt a sudden, scalding rage quite at odds with anything I'd felt before, and certainly something different than the preening satisfaction I'd felt at her suggestion. I watched her return to her dingy, darkened house, and felt a fury rush through me, a fury fueled by vindication.

I wasn't taking him, I thought then, she was giving him to me.

In a flurry I redid our spare bedroom, which had always been rather colorless. When he arrived, looking a bit forlorn and uncertain, I beamed at his delighted grin. The room was decorated in shades of blue and grey, and I'd urged Brian to put in the second telly. A boy needed some comforts, after all.

That evening stands out like a beacon in my mind. We were so happy, the three of us. It was almost as if Alix didn't exist at all. Certainly no one mentioned her.

Perhaps it was that night, its simple perfection, that caused everything to unravel. It tipped the scales in my favor, and I should have known better. I should have been happy with what I had, instead of wanting more. Believing I could have it.

A few weeks later Jamie and Alix had a blazing row, and of course Jamie came to us. It was a filthy night out, and he was soaked simply from walking from his door to ours.

"I hate my my mum," he said savagely. "She likes him more than me!"

I patted his shoulder and clucked sympathetically.

He looked up at me, eyes shimmering with tears he refused to cry. "Is it all right if I kip here for the night?"

And of course it was.

I showed him up to the spare room--his room--just as Alix pounded on the front door.

"Mrs. D... I can't... I don't want to talk to her!" He looked panicked, and I smiled.

"You don't have to, Jamie. Just leave it me."

Downstairs Alix was pale-faced and strained. "Is he here?" she asked. "Did he come here?"

My lip curled for a moment at such a stupid question. Of course he'd come here. "Yes, he's upstairs," I said calmly.

Alix made a move to start up the stairs. Instinctively I blocked her.

"Alix, this might not be the best time."

She turned to me, her voice and face both quite wild. "He's my son!"

I felt it again that--piercing, blinding rage. I had to hide my hands behind my back so she wouldn't see how they trembled.

My son.

"I'm afraid," I said quietly, although I think my voice shook a bit, "your son doesn't want to see you right now."

Alix's eyes widened, and for a moment I saw suspicion leap to life within them. For a moment I did not sound like the kindly, concerned neighbor I'd been all along.

I smiled. "Alix, why don't you give him an evening? He'll calm down and I can talk to him--talk him round. He'll come back in the morning and everything will seem better."

"I don't..." she licked her lips. She was uncertain; she looked to me for help. I smiled again.

"In the morning," I repeated, and put my hand on the door knob. Alix waited for what seemed like an endless moment--why couldn't the silly cow just go? And then finally she shuffled off. No thanks this time, though. No gratitude for being such a helpful neighbor. I didn't care.

Of course, Jamie didn't go back in the morning. He had a magnificent fry-up for breakfast and since it was Saturday Brian took him to the rugby.

By the time they returned, it was late and I'd made dinner, so I simply rang Alix and told her Jamie would be back by Sunday evening. She didn't protest, and I thought to myself, so now you see how things are.

Jamie went back reluctantly. "I want to stay here," he told me as I smoothed his bed cover. And then impulsively, with the helpless appeal of a little boy, "I wish you were my mum."

My hand stilled on the cover and my heart leapt within me. "Oh, Jamie," I said sadly, "so do I."

He blinked; it wasn't the right answer. I knew that. I'd made a mistake. So I smiled and put my arm round his shoulders and said, "come on. Time to go back to your mum's house." House, not home.

This was home.

Yet his words ate at me like a fever, a canker of unfulfilled longing. I fantasized about Alix running off with her man and asking if Jamie could live with us. I pictured my calm, smiling response, and then the best part of all, Jamie. Jamie with us every day, every night, like a son.

I knew I couldn't have that. I did understand it, even if I didn't like it, and I accepted the reality. At least I thought I did. But there were other ways, other ideas which bubbled to a ferment inside of me, and I put one of them to Alix.

"I was thinking," I said airily one bright Saturday morning in April, when I'd caught her going out for the newspaper, "about Brian's and my holiday to Spain."

"Oh?" Alix eyed me warily. She knew we went to Malaga every summer for a fortnight and I could tell she was wondering why I was telling her now. There was a new hardness to her expression, a chill to her voice. She was, I knew, starting to suspect.

"I thought we could bring Jamie," I ploughed on with cheery determination. "You'd probably like the break, wouldn't you, and it would be such an opportunity for Jamie. After all," I added, "you don't get many holidays, do you?"

Alix's eyes narrowed. I smiled, but inside I was seething. I'd said too much; I could see it in the way she looked at me, the way she clutched the newspaper to her chest like a shield.

"You'd take Jamie?" she said slowly. "Just Jamie?"

"Well, yes." I waited.

Alix stared at me for what felt like a full minute, and I was surprised and a bit unnerved by the strength of emotion in her tired eyes. "No, Elizabeth," she finally said. She shook her head. "Thanks, but no thanks."

"But, Alix, think of Jamie--" I reached out to grab her shoulder, and she shook me off in one violent shrug.

"I think," she said in a quiet voice, "you've done enough for Jamie."

I watched her walk into the house before I returned to the kitchen and the breakfast dishes I'd left in the sink.

I stood at the sink and stared out at the sun shining on the neatly trimmed hedges boxing our garden and felt an unfamiliar despair settle over me like a fog.

I'd thought Alix would agree. I'd thought she would be delighted. Instead she'd refused, pulled back, and I knew what it meant. It meant slowly, inexorably, Jamie would be lost to me. I realized then the true power Alix had over me, and it made me sick.

I began to fill the sink with water, squirting the soap in with far too much force. I threw the bottle of soap down and put my hands up to my face.

And then I did something I hadn't done in a long while: I cried. Large, tearing, noisy gasps, such unpleasant, ugly sounds. I don't think Brian heard me. I was appalled that those horrible sounds were actually coming from me.

It lasted for a few minutes, that little, private display. Then I stopped and stared stony-faced and dry-eyed, out at the sunlit morning.

Things between Jamie and Alix continued to worsen. I watched it from a distance, listened to their arguments that carried on the breeze as I pruned my roses. Jamie still came over every afternoon, but now Alix found reasons to pick him up early, so he couldn't share our evening meal. She arranged for him to go to friends', or have extra tutoring at school, so within a few weeks he was only coming over once or twice a week. Perhaps the worst betrayal of all was that Jamie didn't seem to mind. To him, it was simply the natural ebb and flow of school life.

I wondered how important I'd ever really been.

Then, the end. When it comes, it's a relief and a punishment. Brian and I were in the lounge, watching the telly--at least he was--when we heard a furious pounding on the front door.

"Jamie!" I opened the door in surprise. Jamie stood there, chest heaving, tears running in grimy streaks down his face.

"I'm not going," he said, and I wasn't quite sure what he meant.

"Come in, Jamie." Even in his state, I was delighted to see him, to realize that when in trouble he came to me. To me. "Of course you don't have to go anywhere you don't want to."

He came in, wiping his nose with a fist in a rather repellent manner. He collapsed onto a chair in the kitchen, and I lightly--ever so lightly--touched his hair. It was so soft.

"Jamie, what is it?"

"She's moving in. With him." A loud sniff. "And she wants me to come. Live with them. They're not even getting married!"

I smiled faintly at this rather archaic bit of morality from an eleven year old, even though I shared it myself.

"I won't go," he said.

I found at times like this it was better to simply wait than to offer some meaningless pleasantry.

Jamie looked up at me. He looked like such a child, then. An infant. Tears shimmered in his eyes; his cheeks were like two soft peaches. I had to struggle not to draw him into my arms and kiss his head.

"I thought," he said, gulping with uncertainty, "I could stay here and live with you."

My heart filled, overflowed. I felt the seams stretch and burst, and all the love I'd never been able to show run out in blood-red rivulets and trickles.

For one glorious second I pictured it. I believed it. How I wanted it! And I thought it could happen.

Then reality rushed in, hopeless truth.

"Oh, Jamie..."

"I can, can't I?" He looked so trusting, so hopeful. "You'll let me," he added firmly, and at that moment I knew what I'd done. The points of this triangle had wounded one person. Jamie.

"I... I can't, Jamie."

"What?" He looked confused.

I wanted to say, because your mother wouldn't let me. I wanted to blame someone else. Yet I knew that such action would hurt only Jamie. Alix was the one he had to live with, the mother he should love. Not me. Never me.

"It wouldn't be right," I said, each word like a laceration to my soul. "I'm..." My breath hitched, grew ragged. "I'm not your mother."

"So? That doesn't matter. I don't like her. I like you. I want you!"

"Jamie..." I stretched one hand out to touch him, but he jerked away. "Your mother would never agree..."

"Yes, she would! She wants to be rid of me! Ask her."

I shook my head. I knew, knew in my bones, in my breaking heart, that I couldn't let him live with us. As much as I wanted him to, even as my mind raced to find possibilities, options...

"No. I'm sorry."

There was a long, wretched moment of silence and then Jamie stood up. He was shaking.

"I hate you!" he shouted. "I hate you! You said--you promised--" He broke off, because I hadn't promised anything. Not in words, anyway.

He backed away, shaking his head. "I thought you'd... you'd... care!" It came out as a cry, and then he turned and ran.

"Jamie!" The word was torn from me, but it didn't matter. The door slammed and he was gone.

The triangle had split apart into three separate segments, lonely, lifeless lines. No matter how pointed, how barbed, a triangle at least encloses a space. It is a shape.