Page 70 of The Book Swap

“I didn’t realize you were here already, J.J.” She reaches up her arms and wraps them around me, and I can see from her eyes that she’s not really here anymore. She’s the other person now, and I can feel a lump in my throat that I’ve missed my chance to spend time with Mum. There’s no point in telling her to stop or to question what’s going on. She won’t listen and I don’t want to be the enemy so soon after arriving.

“Looking very professional,” I say instead, and she pushes her wild hair away from her face, grinning. “What can I do?”

The amazing thing about Mum when she’s like this is that she can actually do anything she puts her mind to. She doesn’t look as though she’s slept in days, but she knows the names of all the tools. Has read up on exactly how it’s meant to be done, and she’s working at such a speed that I wouldn’t be surprised if she does manage to carpet the whole house within the week, even while I know deep down it will never happen.

“We need to put down the underlay—soft as a cloud, apparently—and then you and Dad can bring up the carpet and we’ll get that down. We went with cream for this room in the end.”

“Sounds good.”

I walk to the far end of the room where the underlay appears to be ready to roll out. Mum leaves so I wait, staring at everything she’s done. I don’t know how Dad’s put up with it. The television is squashed in with the dining table, the sofa and the armchair. There’s no way of actually watching it comfortably. I presume once this is done, all of that furniture will be moved in so she can do the dining room.

Wandering out, I head up the stairs, checking to see if anything’s been started up here yet, and I shrink back in horror at the sight of my bedroom. The carpet’s been torn up and someone, presumably Dad, has tried to do the best job they can at making the room look presentable without its original flooring. It looks like a palace compared to Mum and Dad’s room though. Bits of chipped floorboard and some sort of wooden border with spikes coming out is running around part of the perimeter, and then just stops. A tearing sound comes from behind me and I cross over into Elliot’s room, where Mum’s on her hands and knees, pulling backward on the light gray carpet.

“Mum,” I say, frowning. “We were going to do the underlay.”

“That can wait,” she says, her voice forced as she puts all of her body weight into ripping up the only comfortable flooring left in the whole house. I crouch down beside her, holding on, and together we tear it back, dust and foam flying everywhere as we stumble and land on our backs in the far corner of the room.

She turns onto her side and locks eyes with me.

“Satisfying, isn’t it?”

“Very.”

“How’s London?” She always says the word like it’s some faraway land. Some imagined city from a fiction book.

“It’s okay. I got in a bit of trouble.”

She pushes herself up, dusting her hands down on her overalls.

“What kind of trouble?”

I think back through everything that happened. Try to boil it down to a sentence she’ll have the time and patience to listen to.

“I got talking to Erin, who I used to go to school with, but it was through notes and she didn’t realize it was me. She thought I’d tricked her.”

She frowns, standing up. “Just tell her you weren’t tricking her. Tell her the whole truth.”

She gets up and leaves the room, her feet thundering on the stairs. She’s actually right. Shouting after Erin that I love her isn’t the whole truth; it’s only the beginning. Erin needs more than that to be able to forgive me. I need to help her to understand what I did and why I did it. It might not change anything, but it’s worth a shot.

I stare at the doorway where Mum just was. It’s very obvious she isn’t telling us the whole truth either. Standing up, I go downstairs and into the kitchen, where Dad’s still where I left him, staring out of the window.

“Mum’s not taking her medication, is she?” I say, pulling him out of his world and back into this one.

Dad looks like he’s been caught stealing.

“She said it was giving her a stomachache.” He lights up at an idea. “You could offer to cook for her. She won’t accept anything I give her in case I’ve hidden pills in it, but maybe...” He trails off as he realizes one meal with medication won’t fix anything. That he’s asking his son to spike his mother’s food.

“Where is she? She came down here.”

“I imagine...” Dad says, walking back out of the kitchen, over the rolls of carpet and toward the lounge, where he stops in the doorway, his head tilted to one side. I follow his gaze, seeing Mum wedged onto the sofa beside the dining table, fast asleep.

Dad takes a blanket from behind the sofa and puts it over her and together we tiptoe back to the kitchen, and I close the door behind us.

“I have a feeling we’re about to become experts in fitting carpet,” I say, and Dad laughs gently.

“Your mum’s been playing the videos so loudly, I think I already am.”

I thought I might have timed it so that I was back just as Mum crashes, but tonight as I’m in bed trying to sleep, I can hear scraping and banging downstairs. Footsteps and doors slamming as she goes in and out of different rooms. Eventually the smell of frying onions makes its way from the kitchen, up the stairs and under my door. I haven’t seen her like this since my school years, and I wonder how many times Dad’s told me she’s fine, while living through these moments. He needs a break from it. Deserves a break, and I want to give it to him. What was it he said on the phone when I called for advice about my job offer? He said not to waste my heart’s calling by saying yes to something easy. That the straightforward route isn’t always the best one. Well, I want to give him the opportunity to follow his heart’s calling. To take the best route for himself for once.

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