My eyes burn. “You’re the speech therapist. Make him speak.”
He laughs a little, until he sees how serious I am. “I can’t make him speak, Mr Scott. With all due respect, maybe you should be talking to his counsellor.”
And I do.
I talk to everyone who’ll hear me before the day is done. His doctor, his child psychologist, the bereavement counselling service. They all say the same bullshit thing.
In his own time.
Slowly, slowly.
This is a complex situation, Mr Scott.
A complex situation in a sea of the same old fucking bullshit.
I’m struggling to keep it all afloat. Floundering in the riptide. I work my ass off, just like every other week, and dedicate the rest of my time to Cameron. I take him everywhere I go. I try everything I can think of to get him to speak to me.
And in the end, I achieve nothing.
The business is still chugging long, just as it was before. Cameron is still the same mute boy who wets the bed at night. Serena is still gone. Mariana is still dead.
And I’m still drowning. It’s a slow death, slipping deeper into the icy depths of monotony. It’s water torture, one cold drip at a time, stripping my soul from my bones.
My demons are screaming at their bars and I don’t even have the freedom of running up the hills to keep their cries at bay.
By the time Friday evening finds me I’m as exhausted I’ve ever known. Cameron is asleep on the sofa at my side, his cartoons still blaring on screen as I stare numbly at the wall.
My phone is on the coffee table, calling me, begging me to reach out to my black swan, but I don’t.
I can’t.
I jump a mile as the handset starts vibrating, my heart thumping like crazy at the irrational thought that it could be her.
It’s not. Of course it’s not.
Serena’s number flashes up.
I ignore her for the hundredth time this week, but she calls back, then calls back again after it.
“What?” I bark when I finally relent enough to answer.
Her sobs knock me sideways. “Please, Leo. Please just let me see Cam. I understand you’re angry. I get it. But please let me see that little boy.” She pauses, and in that moment of self-hatred I wish I’d have been in that fire until the end. “I miss him so much,” she whispers.
And he misses her.
I wish I could tell her I do too.
“You can see him,” I offer. “When?”
Her sobs take her breath. I wait. “Tomorrow?”
I clear my throat. Hold everything back. “Sure,” I say. “Morning?”
“Please.”
I look at my sleeping boy, and I know it has to be this way. “See you in the morning,” I tell her.
And then I hang up.
I carry Cam up to his bedroom and kiss his head as I tuck him in. “At least you won’t have to tolerate another morning in the office, champ,” I whisper.
We can’t go on like this. Not any of us.
Somehow, at some point, we all need to start living again.
Me, Serena, Cam…
Even Jake.
I guess that’s why I find myself out in the yard at gone midnight.
I guess that’s why I take the cover from the pool and start the clean-up process I’ve been putting off for months.
I guess that’s why I make the decision that I either need to refurbish our old burnt-out premises for real or let them go.
I guess that’s also why I fold Cameron’s baby chair up and put it in the utility room, and why I decide that tomorrow is the first day of his new life with new possibilities.
Mine, too.
Abigail
My nerves are jumping right through me as I take the car into Malvern on Saturday morning. It feels a ridiculous idea in the daylight, but not ridiculous enough that I’m not parking up in the station car park at barely past ten.
I was worried I wouldn’t find my bearings, but as soon as I step away from the station I know exactly where I’m going. I cross the road, just as he told me to. I follow the street through the industrial estate, just like he told me to.
I don’t know what I’m looking for in this direction. Too many buildings and they all look the same.
I reach the nightclub so quickly it takes me by surprise. It looks so innocuous in the summer sun. There’s no sign of life whatsoever.
No sign that this was the place I finally brought my fantasy to life for real.
The way back is the real test. I don’t know what I’m looking for. I have nothing to ask a passing stranger. No photo prompters other than the shot of his monster cock saved to my phone. Somehow I don’t think I’ll be using that one.
I navigate by streetlights, recalling every glow of light I found solace in. I’m reaching a bend in the road when I see the one that sets my heart thumping.
I remember the ping of metal in the road. The sound of footsteps behind me.