Spiralling Skywards: Fading (Contradictions, #2)(58)

“Let’s hope it works. What smells good, did you bring food in?”

“No. While you were sleeping, I cooked the chops that were in the fridge along with some green beans and mash.

“Shit, I must’ve been out cold.”

“You were.” I let out a long breath and made sure she was looking at me when I continued. “You do know that there’s absolutely nothing, and I do mean nothing, going on with me and Cassie, don’t you?”

She let out an equally long breath.

“No. I don’t know, Liam. You spend more time with the people you work with than you do with us. How could I know for sure that nothing is going on?”

“Because I’m fucking telling you, that’s how. I’m pissed off that you would even think that of me.”

“How would you have felt if the tables were turned?”

“What?”

“If you’d turned up to my place of work, and I walked out of an office with one of my colleague’s arms draped over my shoulder like that, how would it have made you feel?”

Fuck

I let out another long breath and shook my head.

“I never thought of it like that. I’m sorry, but I swear to you that I would never.”

“It hurt.”

Fuck, I felt like a dick.

“I’m so fucking sorry. Luke told me what Mel said. I just added to your shitty day didn’t I?”

“Well, you didn’t make it any better.”

I kissed the side of her head.

“I love only you. I see only you. I want only you. There is only you.”

She didn’t respond.

“Please never forget that.”

She nodded, but I wasn’t entirely sure that I convinced her.





2014


I was lonely. I was sitting in a room full of women at the local mothers’ group. Surrounded by people that supposedly had the same issues, the same day-to-day problems as I did, but I didn’t feel a single connection to one of them. They were nothing more than white noise to me.

I came so that the boys got the chance to mix with other kids. The twins would be starting at playgroup after the next holiday, and then it would be just Lucas and me for three mornings a week. Next year, he would join them, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

What would I do with my days then? What would be my purpose?

The twins were off playing with sand, and Lucas was in front of me with a car and a dinosaur. He was a funny kid, very happy and content. When the twins were rolling around fighting, he took himself away and just watched their antics.

“Is Carter going?” Mandy, one of the mums who also had a child at Carter’s school asked me.

“Sorry, going where?”

“Jenna was just saying that all the kids from class have been invited for high tea at White Croft Manor Hotel for Isabella Collins sixth birthday.”

“Oh, I didn’t say all the kids,” Jenna jumped in.

“Oh, sorry, I thought you said the whole class has been . . .” Mandy trailed off as Jenna gave her a look.

I felt sick.

“I think what Jenna meant is that every kid in the class except for Carter has been invited to this party.”

It had happened before. Carter’s behaviour was a whole lot better than it had been, but it still wasn’t great. He wasn’t a bully, but he didn’t take shit either. Part of the problem was that I kept myself to myself and didn’t really involve myself with the playground clique, so Carter was almost always the first kid the parents blamed when anything kicked off. It didn’t matter who said or did what or who started it—if Carter’s name was mentioned then he was always the one to blame, even if he wasn’t there.

I wasn’t the type of parent that thought my kids were angels and could do no wrong, far from it. I had four boys and had seen what they could get up to, but I also knew my own son, and he wasn’t a bully.

“No, I didn’t say that . . .”

“Come on, Jenn, we both know how it is. I expected more from you though. I thought we were friends.”

I didn’t give her a chance to answer. I scooped Lucas up, collected the twins, and left.

My grandad told me once that if I felt lonely in a room full of friends, then I wasn’t really amongst friends.

The mothers’ group was a prime example of that. Those women pretended to be nice, but I knew that they were all whispering behind my back. I had seen all the posts on Facebook when they met up at each other’s houses for coffee mornings or at the park for play dates, none of which I got invited to. It was exactly the same with the Mums from school.

I didn’t know what I did to them, and they never said anything straight out. They all smiled to my face or stopped to chat, but I never got any invites. I wondered if maybe because of Carters behaviour, they considered me a failure as a mother and were just worried that it might rub off.

I cried in the car on the way home. I turned up the radio and sang along to OneRepublic’s “Counting Stars” through my tears. They weren’t for me though. I cried for my son. I cried because I knew how hurt he was gonna be when he found out all the other kids were going to a party except him. It was the guilt that caused my tears. This was my fault. It was my fault for being such a shitty parent, and it made me worry about whether my other children would go through the same thing Carter was. Would my bad parenting impact their little lives too?