The Stepmother (40 page)

I waited for him to put me back in the past. But he didn't. He just stood there, his hand on his heart, searching my face. My throat tightened. I could feel the tears coming again. Were there still more? “I'm so sorry I left you, Jimmy. I'm so sorry I took the kids away from you.”

“Don't cry, Bea, please.” He came and knelt at my feet. “In a weird way it might have been for the best.”

I wiped away the tears with my palms.

“Our divorce gave me our children back. Because you weren't there doing everything, I had to focus on them. I do know them now and, I tell you, every other weekend isn't fucking close to being enough. I hate having to get to know them all over again every two weeks. Tessa may think I do the bare minimum with the little ones, but we have fun together. We make each other laugh. But, God, their lives move quickly. I spend a weekend talking to Maddy about one girl, and two weeks later it's a completely different name. I think Tessa might be right about Lulu. She might need to see a specialist about her letters and numbers.”

I wiped my nose on my sleeve. “Actually, I think I might have worked that out. It was something she said to Liz. Lulu is a lot slower than the other two. Particularly Amber. Because I'm always on my own with them, she has to hurry up all the time. It's not like you can make supper while I do reading. She makes mistakes because she's trying to work at my pace rather than me letting her work at hers. And it's not just work. It's walking, biking, playing…She moves in a slower orbit, with her head in the clouds. I need to find more time for her or at least let her continue at her own pace.”

“No more ‘I,' please. We're in this together. They are our children, our responsibility, whether we live with one another or not.”

Live with one another. Or not.

Jimmy took my hands again. “I forced myself to get over you. I told myself my wife had died. I learned to live with the woman who looked and sounded like her but wasn't her, because she didn't love me anymore.”

I wanted to tell him I'd never stopped loving him. But that wasn't true. I hadn't loved him. For a long time, I hadn't even liked him. I had fallen out of love with him. Then fallen back. Harder. But the damage
had been done by then. I bit my lip. I wanted to hurt myself as much as I'd hurt him. I tasted blood. But it didn't come close.

“So, I suppose what I'm asking is, are you really back from the dead, Bea?”

I stared at his hands, then looked into his eyes. “If I were, would you come home?”

Jimmy chewed the inside of his cheek.

I heard the key in the lock and withdrew my hand. “Amber!” I exclaimed. Jimmy stood up. Shit. I peered down the hall and saw our daughter dump her coat on the floor at the bottom of the stairs.

“Hi, Mum!”

“Someone's here to see you,” I said, feeling as if I'd been caught doing something naughty.

She frowned.

“Daddy.”

“Daddy!” she yelled, and ran down the hallway. She flew into his arms and was immediately firing questions at him, ten to the dozen. “When did you get back? Did you find that Juicy Fruit lip gloss? Have you seen Tessa? Is Liz okay?” Without waiting for him to answer, she kissed his cheek. “I've got so much to tell you. First”—she blushed—“I've got a boyfriend.”

Jimmy pretended to be surprised.

“You knew?”

“Well, a little bird told me.”

Amber smiled, then glanced at me and rolled her eyes. “Tessa. She's such a gossip.” She cackled happily. Suddenly, she stopped and looked seriously at her father. “We're going to have to look after her and Liz now. Tessa likes to pretend she's brave all the time, but she isn't. No one is. Isn't that right, Mum?”

Jimmy and I caught each other's eye. The divorce had given Jimmy his children back, but I owed that most precious gift to Tessa. Like Jimmy, I didn't want to get this wrong. Can you really come back from the dead? Or was a little exorcism required? Was reentry as dangerous as the flight out had been? How many times could you ask children to adapt? Was I prepared to make someone else pay for my mistakes? Could we live with that? But if we could, I knew we'd be happier than
we'd ever been. Well, I would. Amber yawned. “Mummy, can you put me to bed?”

I was taken aback. Amber, so keen to be a grown-up, was asking to be put to bed, like a child. Perhaps she'd seen a little too much of the adult world recently and had decided she liked it where she was, for the time being.

“Of course, darling,” I said, and took her hand. She kissed her father good night and pulled me out of the room.

“I've got something to tell you,” she whispered, then grinned.

I smiled back. She didn't have to tell me anything. My daughter had been kissed. Properly. That was why she wanted me to put her to bed: so she could tell me. Not Jimmy. Not Tessa. Tonight she wanted me. Her mum. These occasions would become more rare. She was growing up fast. I wrapped my arm around her and squeezed. She giggled. I had to pay attention. I had to know when it was my turn and not miss it, because childhood doesn't come twice. I turned back to Jimmy. He was watching us. Then again, neither does life. But love? Husbands? Chances? We had a lot still to talk about.

“Will you stay?” I mouthed.

“I'd like that.”

“Y
OU DID THE RIGHT THING
,”
SAID MY MOTHER, STROKING MY HAIR AS
she had been doing for the last twenty minutes.

“Then why do I feel so terrible?”

“You get the payoff later.”

“When?”

“When Saint Peter lets you into heaven,” said my mother.

I opened my eyes, checked she was smiling, and closed them again. “You have a warped sense of humor.”

“Your father is still upstairs in our bed. I must have.”

“So when do I get this payoff? I'm nearly forty…You know the statistics. More likely to be killed by a terrorist and all that jazz.”

“It's rubbish, a male conspiracy to make sure we conform and remain ever-grateful. You don't want to keep a man from his children just to overturn statistics. And ill-gotten goods are light in the hand. You'd find a way to ruin it even if you didn't realize you were.”

“What do you think he'll do?” I asked my wise witch of a mother.

“The right thing.”

“Which is?”

“I don't know.”

I finally sat up. “
Now
your third eye lets you down?”

My mother didn't say anything for a while. “Do you know what's possible?”

“Go on.”

“It's possible that all you're doing is deflecting your grief over your father's death onto James. It's easier to be sad about a man who might come back than a man who never will. I think you did the right thing, because knowing about the abortion when James didn't was too much baggage to carry. Still, telling him is one thing, pushing him away is another. You're allowed to love him too, you know. It's not like you broke them up. They did that to one another and when you met him he was single. You're allowed to stake your claim.”

“But we don't have children, and children need their parents. Isn't that what we're told every day on the news?”

“In a perfect world, maybe, yes, children need two parents, but not necessarily at the same time. Amber, Lulu, and Maddy might get lucky. If Bea sorts herself out, they might get more than two parents. They might get two families, each one providing something that the other doesn't. One with a little more space, one with the safety of boundaries, one with a little more independence, one with a little more unity. Best of both worlds. As long as no one falls between the two stools, as it were, I think it's a pretty good model. Divorce can be the best thing for a child. And I, for one, am very proud of how you've dealt with your part in this. Just think, you might get to be that very rare thing.” My mother paused. “A good stepmother.”

Right then, I didn't think I'd get that chance. “I don't think he's coming back, Mum,” I said. If I was brutally honest with myself, I'd have to admit I was still a little shocked that he'd left. I'd thought he would stick to his long-held watertight argument that the past was the past and the future was ours. But it seemed that the bucket had been leaking all along, and now, when I held it up to the light, I could see the hairline cracks I'd allowed myself to believe weren't there.

It was when I'd sneaked downstairs in the middle of the night at James's flat and made myself watch their wedding video that I'd first
noticed I was standing in a puddle. There are weddings and then there are weddings. In some you know that the couple have the secret ingredient that gives them the chance of making it, and others feel empty from the start. I would have liked to be at Jimmy and Bea's wedding. I could tell it had been a good one. I would have got very pissed and danced with gusto to “Come On, Eileen” and ended up snogging one of the ushers. The only strange thing about the video was how few people I recognized in it. Apart from family, I hadn't met any of their friends.

“Whatever happens, Tessa, you've already proved that you'd be a good stepmother and they'd be lucky to have you, all of them, Bea almost more so than the children.”

A mother talking. I thanked her silently for her unrelenting support but was fairly sure that if anyone was going to fight my corner in my absence, it wasn't going to be Bea. Bea wanted Jimmy back, not only for herself but for her children, and wasn't it plain to me how forceful a mother's love was? Hadn't I benefited from it all my life? I think Bea had come grudgingly to like me, but that didn't mean she was going to throw the game.

I sighed and got off the sofa. “How are you feeling?” I asked.

“Pretty good, considering.”

I understood that.

“But, then, I'm not quite sure he's left us yet,” said my mother.

I understood that, too.

 

I
WAS MAKING COFFEE THE
following morning in a bid to wake up after another sleepless night when I heard a car horn honk outside. My heart leaped into my throat. But it wasn't James. It was my old friend Ben and his wife, Sasha. I put down the tools and went outside.

Ben wrapped his arms around me. “Thought you might like some decent pastries,” he said. Sasha held up a bag from Paul, the French patisserie.

“City snob,” I said.

He mock-shuddered at the rural air polluting his lungs. Sasha came up and took my arm. “How are you?”

“Much, much better for seeing you two.”

“And your mum?”

“Come and see her. She's being amazing. As ever.”

“How's her eyesight?” asked Ben.

“Hard to tell, but perhaps improving slowly. The eyeballs roam slightly—don't be put off. She's still in bed but she'd love to see you. Dad's there too.”

“Huh?”

“Mum said she wasn't ready for a night alone.”

Sasha and Ben glanced at each other. “He obviously didn't snore,” said Sasha, who clearly loved nothing better than a night without her husband farting and snoring next to her. I had shared many a bed, though not in that way, with Ben, and I was aware that he could elevate duvets. Heavy-togged ones at that.

“Well, not now, certainly.” Graveyard humor, I know, but we laughed. “Don't worry about Dad. You get used to it pretty quickly.”

“How long's she keeping him here?”

“The undertakers are coming any minute. It's okay, my strongest sense of him isn't up there anyway. It's in the sitting room, just in front of the fire.”

“He was always prodding that thing,” said Ben, who knew my parents better than his own. “Do you think she'll mind if I go up?”

“I don't think she'd mind if you went and talked to her in the bath.” I squeezed his arm. “I'll bring up some coffee.”

“Let me help you,” said Sasha.

Ben went upstairs, knocked gently on the door, and opened it.

“Hi, Lizzie,” I heard him say.

“Ben!” my mother exclaimed. “You absolute angel! Thank you for coming.”

I smiled at Sasha. Mum didn't have to see Ben: she would have known his voice anywhere. Our “family” were coming to her side, and I knew then that we would be all right. There was safety in numbers, whether it was blood or water or something in between.

 

B
EN AND
S
ASHA STAYED THE
night. It was a godsend for me to have them there, because it kept my mother and me from slipping into long, gloomy discussions about the future. Instead we buried ourselves in memories of the past, which Sasha, bless her, pretended to be inter
ested in. The time when Dad had decided to build a chicken house…The time when Dad and I had gone backpacking…The time when Dad had taken me to school in his scout's outfit…etc., etc. I even forgot to listen for the phone. Briefly, anyway.

Leaving Mum to have an afternoon nap, we went out for a walk along the bridle path. I took the high road; I didn't want to see the light dancing on the water. I left it alone along with the memory of what had happened between James and me. I must love him, I thought, if I had it in me to risk losing him. Of course I told Ben and Sasha everything that had happened. For the large part they remained silent while I spoke about the breakdown of James's first marriage, Bea's collapse after the abortion, and the false pretenses under which they had divorced.

“No one tells you how hard it's going to be,” said Sasha.

“My dad did, before he died. He wanted me to know exactly how hard it is.”

“But if everyone knew, no one would ever get married,” said Ben. “Maybe he scared you too much.”

“I was always scared,” I said. I had been given a generous insight into life on the other side of the fence by my friends, and I knew that to reach a rose you had to bypass thorns.

“It's a bit like democracy,” said Ben. “It's not perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, but it's better than the alternatives. And until someone comes up with something else—”

“I could happily live in a women's commune,” said Sasha.

“I've always rather fancied the idea of you in a habit,” said Ben.

“I didn't mean abstinence. Men would have visiting rights,” said Sasha, “but when their work was done, they'd be sent away again and we could all get a good night's sleep.”

Ben didn't seem remotely put out by the idea of being sent away. In fact, he started whistling “Climb Ev'ry Mountain.” Sasha pushed him. He grabbed her hand and kissed it. It was nice to see. Made me feel happy and sad at the same time. I had come so close, but it had somehow slipped away from me. Well, I thought stoically, it would make it that much easier to take care of my mother if I didn't have to justify it to another half, who would, despite his best intentions, come to resent the burden.

And if three's a crowd, what does that make six? Seven, including the ex. I thought about Amber, Lulu, and Maddy, and realized I missed them. It was an awful lot of baggage, but now that I risked losing it, I felt empty without it. I wondered how Bea was bearing up and was sorry I couldn't call to see how she was. I missed James with an ache I couldn't describe. There was a hole—more than a hole, because it spread beyond the boundaries of me and seemed to swallow everything else. I missed Dad, too, but it wasn't the same. Mum was wrong about that, because, no matter what, I knew my father was mine. Alive or otherwise, he loved me. I couldn't say the same for James. I knew what he had thought he'd felt, but the landscape had changed. I'd changed it.

 

A
T SOME TIME IN THE
middle of the night—I didn't look at my watch, because I didn't want to know how little sleep I was getting again—I went down to the kitchen and made myself a drink. As I sipped the scalding chamomile tea, I heard footsteps on the stairs. The door opened, and Ben stood on the threshold. He looked ruffled, sleepy, and about nine years old. “Thought you might be awake,” he said.

“I feel numb in the daytime, then my brain goes into overdrive the moment I lie down. I'd resort to whisky, but we poured it all down the bloody sink when Bea was here, and I haven't had a chance to restock. I found some Night Nurse, but it's seven years out of date.”

Ben poured milk into a glass and sat down opposite me. He drank it, leaving a white mustache on his upper lip. Now he looked six.

“You and Sasha seem well,” I said.

“We are,” he said. “At the moment.”

“The path of true love and all that,” I said.

“The path of any love.” I thought he was going to elaborate, and eventually he did. “Sasha wants to adopt a child. Two, actually. They're brother and sister.”

“Wow,” I said. Sasha and Ben had always seemed committed to life as a child-free couple.

“She'd been looking into it for a while, then found a little girl who made an impact. She comes with a baby brother, so it looks like a job lot.”

“You don't sound convinced,” I said.

“I'm terrified, for all the reasons I didn't want to have my own. What do I know about parenting?”

“What does anyone know?”

“At least you had a good model.”

I couldn't deny it.

“That might be why you told James about Bea. You have an image of the perfect family unit locked in your head and think that anything less is a compromise.”

“That's exactly what my father said. I'm seeking perfection, but perfection doesn't exist.”

“No, it doesn't. And, for the record, you would have been a great stepmother.”

“Thanks.” We sat in silence for a while. “Fancy a midnight feast?” I asked.

“Always.”

I got up and rummaged in the fridge. I found ham and cheese, a jar of cornichons, and white pickled onions. I took a packet of crackers out of the pantry, briefly recalling Bea on the stone floor with the sherry bottle in her hand, and placed them in front of Ben. I heard footsteps on the stairs.

“Sasha?” I said.

“She usually sleeps like the dead,” said Ben. “Sorry.”

I held up my hand. The kitchen door opened and I was surprised to see my mother. “Mum, you okay?”

“Hungry,” she said.

“Well, you're just in time for a midnight feast.” I pulled out a chair and quickly found myself cutting up bite-sized pieces of cheese and ham to make little cracker sandwiches so she could feed herself.

“What are you two plotting down here?” she asked.

“I was telling Tess we're thinking of adopting two children.”

“Excellent idea,” said Mum.

“What about Sasha's work?” I asked, maintaining caution.

“She'll stretch herself like any other working mother, and I'll be forced to stop thinking about myself, which, frankly, is beginning to tire even me.”

“Not possible,” said a voice from the doorway. Sasha stood there in
one of Ben's T-shirts and a pair of his socks. She looked bloody sexy. Ben pulled her onto his knee and fed her a cracker.

“Exciting times,” I said to Sasha.

“You're a terrible keeper of secrets,” she said, elbowing him.

“Come on, Sasha, this is Liz and Tess we're talking about. They're family. And, anyway, it concerns them.”