To Love and Be Loved(77)

He opened up his leather folder and placed it open on the desktop before taking the fountain pen from its natty little holder against the central spine of the file and twisting off the lid. Next he turned the pad to an angle and stared at the blank white sheet of paper. It was hard to start, but strangely, once he did, his hand danced across the page with speed and a rare fluidity of communication.

Dear Mother,

I can’t remember the last time I wrote to you – from school, possibly, when we had to pen the obligatory monthly note home to reassure you that we were being well fed and that your fees were being wisely spent. Matron used to check every letter before it was sealed and so even if we had been living off gruel, among cold punishments and misery, it would have been hard to tell you. We weren’t, by the way; I was very happy at school. I liked almost every aspect of it.

I guess it feels easier to write to you rather than try and have this long-overdue conversation face to face, and so here we are. What was it Dad always said? A straightforward question deserves a straightforward answer? And so here goes.

I’ve asked myself what I want from this communiqué. What outcome? And the rather inadequate answer is: I’m not sure. Do I want a different life? No, not at all. So, what then? Maybe a little understanding? An acknowledgement that the decisions you have made on my behalf have not been without consequence? Recognition that every stone you have cast out in order to achieve your aims or to satisfy your drive has always caused ripples that I suspect you are quite unaware of?

This is also probably a good place to tell you that I love you. I do and I always will, but love and like are two very different things, Mother. And so, do I like you? Again, the rather inadequate answer is: most of the time.

I want to talk to you about Merrin. That name that has not passed our lips in conversation from that day to this. Merrin Kellow.

I think back to that summer, less than three years ago, but a lifetime too. I was a na?ve kid, but who isn’t at twenty-two? I did, however, feel old enough to make good choices. That was another thing Dad always told me: make good choices – and I did. I chose Merrin. She was sweet and made me laugh and she made me happy. She made me really happy. And now whatever I write with regard to her makes me feel disloyal to Lydia. Darling Lydia, whom I adore and who is the best mum to Noah and Freddie, but life with Merrin would also have been good. Life with Merrin was good! Did you know she was at this hotel? I can’t believe you did, not even you would be that cruel, surely?

I feel again, it’s important to say that I love Lydia. And ours is a good, strong, solid love, but I loved Merrin, too, and she loved me, and you know, Mother, she made me so very happy when I was discovering who I was. She didn’t want anything from me, from us, despite your warnings to the contrary. You were wrong about her, and the way I let her down, guided, encouraged and coerced by you, is something that will haunt me. She deserved better, we both did.

The love that I had for her might have waned, might have dried up or might have bloomed into a whole lifetime of love – who can possibly know? Not me and not you. But you know that feeling, that love that is so all-encompassing it’s like a drunken madness, obsessive and singular – when the prospect of not being with that person is a thought that’s almost unbearable. Well, it was like that. It was everything, and I desperately wanted to find out what came next, but you took that opportunity from us. Should I be thanking you? Because if you hadn’t intervened I might not have met Lydia and my Noah and Freddie would be different or not at all, and those thoughts are as desperate as they are unimaginable to me. But good God, Mum, it was a hard lesson.

I’ve seen Merrin and she is still the same, sweet person; a little shy, but smart and with a warmth and honesty that shines from her. It’s funny, I always think of Port Charles with her in it and yet apparently she has stayed away, away from her home, and all because of what happened. This is a bitter pill for me to swallow because I know that the place is her home far more than it will ever be mine. I guess that’s it. This is what I wanted to say, and a different relationship between us might mean I did not have to write to you, but again, here we are. The whole episode caged us in a thin sheet of awkwardness that I find hard to break out of. If it were easy, I think I would have done so a long, long time ago.

I have decided to leave this letter for you to find after we say goodbye at the end of our stay – and I leave it up to you as to whether you want to discuss it further or, if you prefer, do what the Mortimers are so good at: sweep it under the carpet or tear it into a million pieces and pop it in the fire as if it was never written and as if you had never read it. As dad to Noah and Freddie, I can tell you that I would never meddle in their lives as you have in my mine; would never want to exert such control that it impairs their freedom to think, their freedom to explore, their freedom to choose . . . I want them to choose whomever and whatever they want, Mother, because I think that is real love, love without conditions.

I could go on, but what’s the point? Merrin is still sweet and holds understandable anger, but little malice; she still has so much about her that drew me to her. Our time, our opportunity has of course passed and we both, I am sure, have happy and productive lives, but seeing her has made me ask certain questions: what if? What if I had gone ahead in spite of your dire ultimatum? What if I had packed a bag, married her and moved in with Ben and Heather Kellow? What if I’d chosen to follow my heart and not my head? What if I had chosen her? What then?