Twenty-Five.
Sunday afternoon came quicker than I expected. I had no clue what I'd been doing all Saturday or Sunday morning, but when the afternoon came along, there was a pile of clothes, shoes, toiletries, and random bits and pieces on my bed- unpacked. I checked the time to find that the last bus to go straight to East Manchester was leaving in an hour. I looked back and forth between my bed and my alarm clock a few times, before frantically attempting to get organised.
Forty minutes, three coffees, and the world's quickest shower, I had achieved next to nothing. The pile of stuff on my bed had halved in size, but my bag was full. I needed a box, I decided. Then I needed to pack the rest of my stuff within ten minutes, so I'd get to the bus stop in time. I went across the hall into the spare bedroom, picked up the next best box, and started tearing at the tape. Once open, I dumped the contents onto a spare spot of floor beneath the window.
As I turned away, box in hand, something caught my eye. I realised the box had contained a bunch of my mother's belongings. Oddly enough, they were all things I never thought she'd leave behind. I realised I didn't have time for second-guesses, so I simply picked up the big brown envelope that had originally caught my eye, rushed back to my room and threw it in the box with the rest of my stuff. I taped the box shut, put the bag over my shoulder and took the box in my arms, and made my way downstairs.
I got to the bus stop with about thirty seconds to spare. There was hardly anyone on the bus, so I took my usual seat up the back of the bus, and stretched my legs out across the bench. Mum's belongings, in particular the big brown envelope, rested heavily on my mind. Had I not known Mum at all? Had all the things I thought she cherished, meant nothing to her?
I was moving to the city to leave behind a past I couldn't deal with anymore. A past that hurt me, every single day of the present. A past that I didn't want to be a part of my future. Yet somehow, it became more and more confusing, the harder I tried to leave it. I spent the entire bus ride trying to piece things together. I tried to remember every little snippet between the day I started missing Mum, and the day Dad said she wasn't coming home, and every little snippet between that day and today. My mind felt about ready to explode, but I couldn't stop. There had to be something more to this than I'd been told.
Mum adored me, and I adored her. She tucked me in and kissed me goodnight every single night since I could remember, she taught me how to ride a bike, and she taught me to swim. She read to me, she took me to the playground as often as she could, and she prepared the best Easter Egg Hunts in the whole world- every single year. She let me help her with Christmas cookies, even if I completely ruined them. We decorated the tree together, every year too.
They say the mind blocks out and forgets that which it doesn't wish to remember, but it wasn't like that with Mum. I only had fond memories with her, because we never made any bad ones. We never fought; I never got angry or upset with her. Not until the day she was gone.
She never even said goodbye. She never even hinted she was leaving. I never even believed I wasn't going to see her again, until Christmas came that year, and she didn't come home to make cookies with me, or decorate the tree. The housekeeper refused to do either with me, and Dad wasn't home enough in the weeks leading up to what used to be my favourite holiday.
Christmas Eve that year, was the day I finally realised, that the one person I loved most in this world, was gone. The day I realised she didn't love me enough to take me with her, or to stay, or to tell me why she left. Christmas Eve that year, was the day I stopped believing in unconditional love. After all, if my mother didn't love her only child unconditionally, how could anyone love anything without question or provision?
&&&.
I set the box down next to me, and reached underneath my hair to undo my necklace and take off your apartment key. I let myself in, placed the key on the counter, and moved the box and the bag into your room. On my way back to the kitchen, I ran into Tom, who'd just had a shower. Or he was just randomly walking around in a towel with messy, wet hair. I was going for the shower.
"Hey, welcome back." He smiled and hugged me then went into his room to get dressed.
You'd think he would've been more surprised to see me there, but I think it had gotten to the point where, when it came to me, nothing surprised Tom anymore. Well, not much anyways.
"Hey Tom," I yelled from the kitchen.
"Hey, yeah?"
"What are we doing tonight?"
"I don't know. What do you want to do?"
"I don't know. Is Harry coming home?"
"I don't think so. Why?"
"Just wondering."
Tom stepped into the kitchen and got himself a beer from the fridge.
"Want one?"
"Sure."
He grabbed another bottle from the fridge and handed it to me. I hopped up onto the counter.
"So what are we doing?"
"Do you feel like going out?"
"Not particularly." I was too tired and just generally could not be bothered.
"We could find some popcorn and or tortilla chips and salsa, and watch some movies?"
"Sounds good to me." I smiled.
&&&.
When I went to bed that night, thoughts of Mum returned. I just couldn't bring things to make sense. Sure I believed people were more than capable of lies and deceit, sure I believed they were more than capable of feigning love, sure I believed they were more than capable of abandoning. Yes, I believed that at their core, people were selfish beings, who, when it came down to it, would put their own wants, needs and motivations above others. But this was my Mum.
And she'd been a good Mum. It didn't make sense for her to just suddenly disappear, like she doesn't care. Because I know very well that she did care.
I decided I needed to stop dwelling on this, because no matter how hard I tried, I wasn't going to piece it together, and it wouldn't ever make sense. I sighed and closed my eyes, and decided to go to sleep.
Then it dawned on me how often Kate had said "it's not at all what you think," over the last few weeks, and I remembered the conversation between her and Dad that I heard from the spare room that day. The flashbacks I'd been having, wasn't me going insane. Mum's voice in the back of my head wasn't a bad thing. It was my far smarter subconscious trying to tell me something.
I sat up in bed, and let my head fall against the headboard. Six years later, I finally realised how ridiculously naive I'd been. My mother didn't abandon me. Not willingly or carelessly anyways. The reason I always got the feeling there was something more to her leaving was because there was. The reason I always got the feeling no one was telling me the truth, or the whole truth at least, was because there weren't.
The questions in my head, while they started to increase exponentially, suddenly became a lot clearer. And I got the feeling a lot of them would be answered by the big brown envelope, on top of my things, in the box standing beside the wardrobe.
