Page 65 of For One Moment With You
‘I was thinking if you like it here, you might stay.’ He started the car. ‘Who knows? But it is one of life’s greatest certainties, Tilly. Surely you must know. That things always change.’
19
Motherhood: All love begins and ends there.
ROBERT BROWNING
This recent chapter of the past fades like a dream, then merges with the whiteness around me, as I remind myself where I am.In the hospital; in Crete. I need to wake up and open my eyes.
I will my eyelids to move, my lips to form a word. A sense of panic returning. It’s as if I’ve become removed from myself. My body is inert; however hard I try, nothing happens.
I’m not sure how much time passes, but in this strange in-between place in which I find myself, I become aware of the boys around me. Then their voices reach me. Robbie’s, trying not to sound anxious; Alex, obviously concerned, love swelling in my heart as I realise this isn’t a dream. That theyarehere.
‘We love you, Mum,’I think I hear one of them say.
‘You’re going to be OK.’
Warmth wells up inside me. But it’s followed by fear, too, a tumbling ocean of it. What if I’m not OK? I can’t bear that when they should be living their carefree lives at uni, they have to see me like this.
I desperately try again to form the words.
I love you both, so much. To the ends of the earth. Further…
But as before, nothing happens.
The boys know I love them, though. Being a mother has been my proudest achievement. OK, so I didn’t do so well on the marriage front. But where the twins are concerned, I can honestly say I’ve done my best to give them a sense of being firmly rooted while letting their wings unfurl. I’ve loved them in bucket loads. Fed them plenty of home-cooked food, too. And I mean plenty of it. I must have cooked thousands of cakes over the years, millions of roast potatoes, not to mention snacks – if you’ve had a teenaged son, you know how hungry they get, how much shopping is required to keep the hangry gremlins at bay.
Still so much lies ahead… I’ve imagined their graduations, my pride knowing no bounds. Seeing them travelling the world, watching where life takes them; in the future, with bright-eyed, adoring girlfriends. Eventually maybe weddings, grandchildren. I still haven’t warned them about the wedding part of things – that if they have doubts, to listen to them; to not do what I did. But if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have them in my life.
This life. The one where I’m unconscious, unable to move; my future unknown.
Not once have I imagined anything like this.
20
Nothing has more strength than dire necessity.
EURIPIDES
It’s an interesting subject, strength. Human beings possess it in immeasurable quantities. But as we all discover at some point, life is also fragile and finely balanced; can be cut off in its prime by something as everyday as a few rogue cancer cells or a wrong step on a flooded Cretan street.
Michail’s house comes into my head, the chickens in his garden and the cats that were the only reason I’d gone there, as I realise that was most probably the biggest sign of them all. It hadn’t been my responsibility, but Tilly the hub had taken it on – another responsibility that wasn’t hers. And, quite literally, bringing me down was the only way the Universe could stop me.
And this is the thing. What happens if I’m not this hub? This person who comes to the rescue of others, who is always there in a crisis, who am I? But in the midst of this place I find myself, the answers floating around me are elusive; I can’t reach them.
Sometime later, the scent of lemons reaches me. Fresh, sun drenched; evocative of a hundred summers. Alex’s voice is like a dream.
She’s always loved the smell of lemons. One time, we were in Italy… She made Dad stop just so that she could photograph the trees.
The memory flashes into my mind, vivid as if it happened yesterday; my heart twisting. It’s of the four of us in a hire car, of Gareth’s impatience to reach the hotel where we were staying, but stopping anyway so that I could stand in the shade of the lemon trees, inhaling the sweet scent of their tiny white flowers. Ten years old, the boys had been filled with excitement, joyful.
What happened to that woman?The thought dimly occurs to me. But all I want to do is take away the worry in Alex’s voice. I concentrate all my effort into trying to move my hand. A hand that remains leaden.
Another thought suddenly occurs to me. I hope Gareth isn’t with them. Or Rick. Even my dad. You see, in their eyes, I’m still the hub. They don’t know how to see me as anyone else, least of all unresponsive in a hospital bed.
‘She fell in the street.’
But it isn’t any of them. It’s a stranger’s voice. Obviously, the stranger who saw me fall. I listen as he goes on.
