“You’ve done nothing wrong, Amber. Remember that. Now, when you go tell her, remember that. Nothing between you is your fault, don’t let her trick you into thinking otherwise.”
Just those words, his words, confirmed I was doing the right thing. I kissed him again.
“Come on,” he said, between kisses. “We don’t have time.”
“Is this crazy?” I asked him. “I hardly know you. I don’t even know where Brown is. Are we totally and completely bonkers?”
Kyle kissed me again. Each kiss was newer, more urgent.
“I have no idea what ‘bonkers’ means, but yes. It is bonkers. And that’s why I trust it.”
“Isn’t that a line from Titanic?” I asked, laughing. So scared, but laughing. “What is it with you and overly dramatic love stories with camp soundtracks?”
“Amber, we need to go now.”
“I’ll bring this up again in the car.”
“I’ll make you listen to the Titanic soundtrack in the car.”
“Is it too late to back out?”
“Yes. Now go pack! I’ll meet you by my jeep in half an hour… And, Amber,” he called, just as I was halfway out the door.
“Yes?”
“Remember what I said. Don’t let her make you think it’s your fault.”
SITUATIONS THAT ARE DESTINED TO FAIL:
Finally saying how you feel
+
After several years
+
A person who refuses to accept blame
+
It being really important to you
+
Because they’re your mother
Twenty-nine
I could hear the disco music as I fled back through the woods. It reached out into the quietness of the forest, seeping into the silence, tainting the surroundings, making it feel like this beautiful wood was suddenly Butlins or something.
My mind raced with all the thoughts I needed to have at the same time. What do I pack? Should I leave a note for my mum? Or should I track her down and tell her at the dance? Was this illegal? How could I say goodbye to Whinnie? Could I leave her a note somehow? And the children, especially Calvin? But my head was also dancing with happiness, with excitement, with total pure joy. I was running away, with a boy I thought maybe I loved. It was destined to fall completely apart – I was sure of it – and yet I couldn’t wait. I really couldn’t wait.
The cabin was empty and I ran straight to my room, chucking all the contents of it into my suitcase. There was no time to fold anything. No time to think really. Just chuck chuck chuck. I sprinted to the bathroom and emptied my toiletries into a bag, and hunted about in the chest of drawers for my passport. I didn’t even know how I was going to get back to England. My return flight was from San Francisco. I knew I wouldn’t be taking it. Finally, carefully, I put my sketchpad and art supplies on top of all my stuff and zipped it up.
Mum was at the door.
“Amber?”
She stood in the threshold – her arms crossed tightly. The sheer anger in her voice unleashed something inside me, something that I’d been repressing for so long. It was my own rage, my own fermenting rage. And it was ready to have its say.
“Amber, what the hell are you doing?”
I picked up my bag.
“Leaving.”
“Don’t be ludicrous.”
“I’m not. I’m leaving with Kyle. Tonight. Now, in fact.”
“Stop being silly.”
“I’M NOT BEING SILLY. I’m leaving! Now.”
Mum’s eyes darted from my face to the bag and back to my face again. Her own face drew in on itself when she realized I wasn’t kidding.
“Amber, you can’t leave,” she said quietly but firmly. “You’re working here this summer. You’ve made an obligation.”
“And you’ve taught me that obligations mean shit.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know precisely what it means.”
“You can’t leave with Kyle. I don’t trust that boy. I never have. He’s a bad influence.”
“ARGH!” I chucked my bag on the floor just to let some of my anger out. “He’s not,” I yelled. “He’s good. In fact he’s probably one of the best things that’s happened to me. Ever since you LEFT ME, Mum. Yes, you LEFT ME. All alone. Without my mother. My mother! It’s not like you DIED, but you may as well have. I never hear from you. I travel all the way out here to spend summer with you and you can’t even cancel a fucking shift at the centre. What about your obligation, Mum? To be my mother? Kyle doesn’t have to care for me, but he does. And I’d rather choose someone right now who chooses to care, than stay here with someone who obviously doesn’t.”
Mum’s face was frozen.
“Amber, you can’t talk to me like that.”
“Why not?” I screamed. “Because you’re an addict? Because you’re a useless alcoholic? Kyle told me why you hate him, he told me what he saw. And what? It’s not his fault that he saw that. But you don’t blame yourself, do you? You blame everyone else. Everyone else has the problem. The world is against you. You poor, vulnerable addict you. How dare I be hurt by you abandoning me? HOW DARE I even try to talk to you about it, in case it makes YOU feel bad? Well what about me, Mum? What about how I feel? Have you EVER even considered it?”
Mum stepped forward. She wasn’t crying, but she looked like she might. “Of course I’ve considered it…”
“But you left me anyway. But you didn’t spend time with me this summer anyway. Because you’re the most important one.”
“Amber…I have a disease…”
The tears came with those words, but they were too late. And they weren’t for me anyway, they were for her. Her tears were always for her.
“So fucking what.” I shrugged, I actually shrugged. Because I was done with feeling sorry for her, I was done with making her excuses. “You can’t just go to AA and have Kevin tell you you have a disease and that makes what you’ve done okay.”
“Amber, come on. You can’t leave!”
“Don’t pretend you’ll even miss me. I’m leaving in a few weeks anyway. You probably weren’t planning to spend any time with me – I don’t fit into your perfect life over here. Your perfect life without your daughter. That is not someone who’s going to miss me. My own mum…” My tears came now, hot and angry. “…never even misses me. You swap me in for some patronizing git with a bum instead of a chin and dump me with Penny and Craig when you know what they’re like and you don’t even care, God forbid, because that might make you feel bad.”
Sobbing now. We were both sobbing. Me sobbing about her. Her sobbing for her. No one sobbing for me. All the things I’d never said, lying on the floor between us, bleeding out into the carpet.
I picked my bag off the floor, and pushed past her to the front door.
“AMBER?”
I turned round one last time. She’d sunk to the floor, her knees up to her chest, her hands over her ears, rocking back and forth.
She didn’t really try and stop me leaving.
Just as I knew she wouldn’t.
SITUATIONS THAT ARE DESTINED TO FAIL:
Crying
+
More crying
+
More crying
+
Knowing crying can’t make the pain go away
Thirty
We drove for hours into the blackness, Kyle steering his battered jeep along the ups, downs and infinite curves of the mountain roads.
I cried the whole time, staring out into the inky black sky – not even the stars able to warm my confused stupid heart. I kept replaying what I’d said to Mum, how her face had looked, how I’d left her.
What if she relapses? What if she drinks again? Because of me? She looked so broken…and yet, it’s not like she’d said sorry.
She’d never once said sorry.
Kyle, either out of awkwardness or just a general psychic ability to know this was what I needed, let me cry. He drove us in silence – no music, no small talk. Every so often, on a straight patch of highway, he’d take one hand off the steering wheel and squeeze my knee. We stopped for gas once. I stayed in the car, still sobbing, worried if I went in to buy gum or whatever they’d take one look at me and arrest Kyle for kidnap.