Gravity by Scot Gardner Page B

chuckled.
    â€˜For being such a nice man,’ Leigh’s dad added.
    â€˜Gosh, they’re beautiful,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure that I deserve . . .’
    â€˜Nonsense,’ Leigh’s dad growled.
    I stood and he shook my hand again.
    â€˜Thanks,’ I said.
    â€˜Thank you .’
    I made it back to the car before the flowers felt completely awkward in my hand. I rested them on the passenger seat. I started the car and wondered what I’d do with the posy. A couple of hours on the seat and they’d be wilted and ugly. I tried to remember how much I’d drunk the night before and I smelled my breath. I changed into my jeans and boots and T-shirt in the back of the Subaru.
    I grabbed the flowers and locked the car.
    I took a train to Mum’s.
    Just to be on the safe side.
    The closest thing Mum had to a vase was a white plastic mixing bowl. The flowers slumped and the bunch looked a bit threadbare, but Mum loved them. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d given Mum anything. I’m sure I’d given her things on her birthday and we honoured Christmas with gifts, but I couldn’t remember a single one. Admittedly, I hadn’t paid for the flowers, but that didn’t soften their intent.
    â€˜Sorry, Mum.’
    â€˜Don’t be silly,’ she growled.
    â€˜But I am. You’re right. I have been selfish and ignorant and all that. I should have done more. I should have . . .’
    â€˜Stop it!’ she snapped. There was real anger in her tone.
    â€˜What? I’m not even allowed to apologise?’
    She shook her head. ‘It’s too late for all that.’
    â€˜Too late? How can it be too late?’
    Her breath came faster, as if she was bracing against a storm surge of emotion. Inside, she was tearing the washing off the line and stuffing it in a basket.
    â€˜How can it be too late?’
    She spoke through her teeth. ‘I’ve made my decision.’
    â€˜What? What decision did you make?’
    â€˜I left.’
    â€˜But you needed a rest. A break. I understand that. Dad understands that. We didn’t do enough. If you came home tomorrow, it’d be different. We’d be different.’
    She shook her head. ‘I can’t go back.’
    â€˜Why not? Of course you can go back.’
    She considered her words for a long time. ‘A mum just doesn’t leave.’
    I understood, with those few words, that Mum and I had broached the same part of the Splitters Creek wall to be there. That, unsurprisingly, our struggles had a common thread.
    â€˜But you didn’t run away, Mum. You escaped. There’s a big difference.’
    â€˜There is?’
    â€˜Of course. You run away if you’re weak. You escape if you’re brave.’
    Mum snorted. ‘Sounds like semantics. Sounds like you’re trying to justify your own bad decisions.’
    How do mums do that? I had been standing on the edge of my self-doubts and Mum had shoved. I teetered, arms flailing.
    There was nothing brave about shirking responsibility. There was no real freedom in pretending that it didn’t happen.
    How do they see straight through you?
    â€˜If you’re weak, you run away. If you’re weak, you escape,’ she said. ‘It’s not a prison. It’s family. It’s a town. It’s our history. Being there isn’t a punishment. It’s a test.’
    She looked at me, her eyes soft with resignation.
    â€˜We failed.’
    The words were as honest as an open hand to the cheek.
    â€˜Every time I see you, every time you open your mouth, every time you say sorry, it rubs my nose in it.’
    There was a long, ear-splitting silence. The sort of silence the city had never known. I could think of nothing more to say or do.
    Nothing.
    I left.
    I waited for a train to take me back to the Subaru. There were more pigeons than people on the platform. They scurried about like big wobble-headed