This Too Shall Pass by S. J. Finn Page B

because our relationship would go on uninterrupted, or maybe since I’d been the one to ruin things, I thought that my parents would be less wracked by the worry of it. I could not understand why tears were rising in my eyes now. I felt as though I was going to throw up and had to stop to take three large lung-fulls of air to calm myself. An image of Faye’s delicious butterscotch pudding came to mind, along with a memory of the taste, which didn’t, of course, make things any easier.
    How do you face people after you’ve rejected their child? I realised I was about to find out.
    I knocked at the back door, my heart thumping.
    â€˜Jen!’ Geoff greeted me jovially. ‘He’s just come out of the bath. Been helping me with the mushroom mulch. Didn’t want to deposit him into your car smelling like manure.’
    Geoff’s large freckled features, his fit brown body, was as neat and bold and uncomplicated as always.
    I was differential – contrite, in fact. ‘He will have loved that,’ I managed to say, my voice a little shaky. ‘Such a good helper.’
    â€˜He got the hang of using the shovel in a blink. Must be in the genes.’
    â€˜You look very well,’ I said then, trying to convey more – the enormous change that had occurred. Geoff didn’t take up my offer to converse about difficulties, his face simply crinkling with his beaming smile.
    Faye appeared. ‘Here’s your little man.’
    â€˜Hi Mum.’ Marcus came towards me in new clothes – obviously bought by them – giving me a sideways hug.
    â€˜How ‘bout a cuppa?’
    I don’t know if I’m more gutless than anyone else in the world but I felt as if I was going to break down, as if I had a seam loosely sewn down my front, held just by a single, fragile thread. Staying would have meant that thread fully unravelling, my insides bursting out with sobs of recrimination, and all onto these pristine, good living people who never felt down or negative – so it seemed – about anything, even the betrayal of their son. I couldn’t sit down to tea, the thick stain of a sullied character was already building bit by bit on my face; it would have been unbearable.
    â€˜I haven’t organised myself very well.’ I began sculpting an excuse. ‘Left no time. Meant to be meeting a friend and… I hope you don’t mind.’
    â€˜Oh, course not!’
    These sunny people weren’t going to protest. Poise and acceptance, politeness and forgiveness are sure ways to put worry and remorse back where it rightly sprang from. If they had been angry I could have been righteous, but I was going to have to take responsibility. It didn’t even matter what they really thought or how they spoke of it in private, it only mattered that they treated me with the same respect they always had.
    My eyes brimmed with tears as we hugged our usual goodbyes. I thanked them for having Marcus, my voice choking a little with the finality that we all knew, despite our ease, was inevitable. Life would not bring us together apart from these brief exchanges while Marcus grew up, and eventually even they would peter out. The changes in me that suddenly seemed stark and real in their company would only cause the gaps to grow. I had no reason to continue and it would be unfair to Dave to pursue a connection. Even for my sake, letting it go was the right thing to do. Life simply couldn’t support the amount of time needed to nurture such a connection. Our relationship would dwindle in direct response to the need for it. We were the computation of circumstance and such computations are full of prescriptive and extraneous duties. They are wrong in the wrong time and place. It would be worse to force things.
    Holding Marcus’s hand, my whole body quivering, I walked carefully down the driveway to my car. They would be watching perhaps, or perhaps not. I certainly knew