Page 41 of A Miracle on Hope Street
‘I’ve always loved this riverbank,’ I say to Michael when he catches up with me twenty minutes later and we’ve both calmed down. ‘Look, I’m sorry for losing it back there. It’s not like me to get so hot-headed, especially not in a restaurant, but you lit a fire inside of me back there. You shouldn’t have mentioned my mother.’
Michael says nothing, but just sits down on the edge of the bench where I’m sitting and we look out on to the river and listen to the sounds of the evening traffic zoom up and down the road on the other side.
I look up into the night sky and wish I could make light of what he told me, but I can’t. I really can’t.
‘You know, Michael,’ I say to him, ‘I don’t let people in very easily. I can’t, I suppose, in my line of work, as everyone who’s anyone thinks they know me and that I could be their best friend, but there’s something about you that got to me. I really wanted to let you in.’
‘None of us know all the answers, Ruth,’ he says to me firmly. ‘You may be highly regarded in your job in this town but youcanget it wrong sometimes. Why did your mother leave you? Have you ever really addressed that? Did you ever find out?’
Michael flicks a piece of stray wood into the river and we both watch it bob up and down before it eventually sinks into the darkness.
‘I’ve a million reasons but they’re all made-up in my mind,’ I explain to him. ‘The answer is that I don’t honestly know. I’ve often wondered was there another man involved, which would be the more clichéd but obvious reason. My father was quite a bit older than her and maybe they had grown apart. Or did she miss her own culture and people and so just packed up and went back to Italy where she felt she belonged? No matter how many times I’d ask her in those early days what was going on, she just told me to be patient and that she’d be back soon and then eventually the weekly meetings faded and the phonecalls stopped and I went on to university and tried to block her out.’
Michael turns towards me. ‘And did that work? Blocking her out?’
I can see the pain again in Michael’s face. I need to be honest with him. ‘No. It didn’t work for very long,’ I explain to him. ‘I could pretend for a while that I’d pushed her out of my mind but it didn’t ever stop me crying out for her in the night when I just needed to hear her voice or see her face, or when I was sick or in pain or was worried about something or had my heart broken and I needed her so badly. I never stopped wanting my mum, no matter how many years passed by. I still want her, Michael. I think I want her now more than ever and that’s something that will never go away. Ever.’
Michael rocks gently back and forward, deep in thought.
‘Do you think Liam still thinks of me, then?’ he asks me. ‘I’d hate to think of him calling out for me or having bad dreams or feeling afraid. My God, that’s a killer to even think that way. I suppose I was hoping that he might have blocked me out too, by now. That somehow he might have forgotten me.’
‘Of course he hasn’t forgotten you, Michael,’ I say to him, grabbing his hand. ‘He is your little boy. You are his daddy. He will be going through exactly what I did and what I still am, unless you go and face up to whatever mistake it is you made. If you could hear him cry for you, I bet it would make you run as fast as you could back in his direction and let nothing stop you from easing his pain.’
Michael puts his head in his hands.
‘I miss him so badly, Ruth,’ he says, sobbing now into his strong, manly hands. ‘You’ve no idea how much I want to tell him that.’
‘Then tell him,’ I say. ‘Tell him that as soon as you possibly can. Don’t waste another second of time, no matter what you’ve done in the past. You have to forgive yourself and make things better for both of you. You have to do that as soon as you possibly can.’
Michael looks me right in the eye and the robotic stance from earlier has gone. Now, before me I see a very broken man whose shell has been cracked and who is feeling reality for what I imagine must be a very long time.
‘And you really want to meet your mum again?’ he asks so desperately, as if he wants someone to ask Liam the same question about him. ‘Even after all these years?’
‘I want to meet my mum again more than anything,’ I whisper to him. ‘But I’m still very, very angry at her and I’m very afraid of what I will find out when I do meet her. Please don’t let your son go through the same.’
We sit there in silence, our coats damp from top to bottom but neither of us caring too much as we ponder our next move in the chess game of life.
Here we are, on opposite sides of a spectrum – Michael missing his son but afraid to reach out; me, missing my mother but petrified as to what will happen when I do.
I think of my late father and all the values he instilled in me, undoubtedly making me the person I am – a person who can give out advice but who just can’t take it. Maybe he was the same? I guess I’ll never know.
The feeling of running away and leaving all these memories behind comes rushing back to me and I picture theFor Salesign on the house, wondering if I can actually go through with it.
The idea of selling up my big, empty house and starting somewhere, anywhere, both excites me and scares me at the same time. This has always been my base, no matter where I travelled in the world. But does it still have the same pull now that my dad is gone, my sister is miles away and I feel my connection here has run its course?
Michael turns to face me a little and I can see the white mist of our breaths entwine in the cool evening air.
‘So what’s next for you then, Ruth? After this dinner party, where do you go from there?’
‘I only wish I knew,’ I tell him with a sigh. ‘Have you any bright ideas for me?’
He takes a deep breath. ‘You could open up a place called Ruth’s Lonely Hearts Hotel,’ he says with a laugh and I roll my eyes.
‘Come on now, you can do better than that,’ I say, patting his arm playfully.
‘I dunno,’ he says with a shrug.
I wait for his next suggestion. I try to think too but nothing comes to mind.
