Page 19 of Letting Go of Yesterday
It was just as well Nathan hadn’t had the chance to tell her that she was welcome to offload her problems on him. Why on earth would Rowan want to confide in him about the end of her marriage and the worries she was having about the new life she was making for them all? He enjoyed her company, but he was just going to have to do what he did so often in life, and make the best of things. If they could spend time together supporting the growing friendship between the two boys that would be enough. It had to be, because whatever he might say to Will about his past being behind him, the things that had happened meant there’d never be another chance for someone like him to be a part of Rowan’s life.
10
For the rest of the barbecue, Rowan made sure she wasn’t on her own with Nathan again. She’d come so close to telling him the truth about why she and the children were back in Cornwall and she didn’t want to let her guard down like that again. No one outside the family needed to know the full story, especially when her own children still had no idea that their father had fallen in love with someone else.
Fallen in love.That kind of sentiment was so often used as an excuse for bad behaviour. ‘I didn’t want to do it, but I fell in love’, or ‘we didn’t mean to fall in love, it just happened.’ Even ‘I couldn’t help myself, I fell in love.’ When she’d caught him kissing Euan, Rowan hadn’t expected James to use any of those lines on her. She’d expected him to tell her that it was a one off and that it didn’t mean anything. A moment of madness when he’d just wanted to know what it felt like to kiss another man. She’d never thought he’d break down in tears and admit that he loved Euan and had done almost from the moment they’d met. There’d never been any chance of her taking James back, even before he’d admitted the strength of his feelings for the man he loved, but once he had, Rowan hadn’t felt as if she could salvage anything from their relationship.
James had never loved her, not the way he loved Euan, and it had left her questioning whether she was capable of inspiring those kinds of feelings in anyone else. Not that she wanted to, at least that’s what she told herself, but it was harder to pretend when she was around other couples who seemed as though they were made for each other, like Bex and her husband, Matt, and Heather and Will. She wasn’t nearly naïve enough not to realise that everyone had their ups and downs. But for some reason it was even harder to convince herself that she didn’t want to experience a relationship where she was truly loved when she was around Nathan Lark of all people. She tried to pretend the only reason she felt a connection to him was because he always seemed so willing to listen, but never pumped her for information about what had happened between her and James. If she needed to talk to someone, she could call Pippa or Odette to offload on them. They’d both been in touch regularly to check how she was doing and had texted on the first day of term to say that life at Membory Grange wasn’t the same without her. So it wasn’t that she had no one else to talk to; the truth was she liked Nathan far more than she was comfortable admitting. She didn’t want to think what it might be like to kiss him again, but she couldn’t seem to help doing that either. What made it even trickier was that she could tell he was attracted to her too, and she never usually picked up on those sorts of signs. If she made a move, she was almost certain Nathan would respond positively and that could be very dangerous. It was far less risky to stay out of his way altogether and it had been a relief when she hadn’t bumped into him at school in the first few days of term.
Rowan had been in the playground to greet all of the parents and children on the first day, and it had been Heather who’d bought Leo in and explained that, unfortunately he’d be missing the next two days of school as they were going to London to see a specialist. She’d apologised for the timing, but they’d been offered an appointment they couldn’t turn down. Rowan had reassured Heather that she didn’t need to worry about anything. She hadn’t envisaged Leo missing two days of school having that much impact on him or anyone else, but she hadn’t factored in how it would affect her son. With the help of Tiffany, Bella had settled into school like a dream and she already seemed to be right at the heart of things, but it wasn’t going nearly so well for Theo. Day one had been fine, when Leo was there, but without him things went downhill fast.
‘I’m sorry to bother you Rowan,’ Bex said after knocking on her door. ‘But Lyra is on playground duty and she found Theo standing down near the trees crying, and he won’t tell anyone why. He’s refusing to come in too.’
‘Oh God.’ Rowan got to her feet straight away, wanting to get to her little boy and comfort him, but then she started to second guess herself. ‘Do you think it might make it worse me going out there and the other children seeing and teasing him about needing his mum?’
‘Possibly, but if it was one of mine, I’d have to go out there anyway.’ Bex furrowed her brow and Rowan nodded, knowing her friend was right. She didn’t have a choice.
‘Me too.’ Heading out into the playground, Rowan quickened her pace to get to the wooded area, after giving some instructions to the other staff. The area was fenced off from the playground and the five-bar gate at the end of the new path was padlocked, so the children could only access it when staff were with them, but Theo must have climbed the gate.
‘What are you doing, Theo? You need to come back into the playground.’ Usually she would have called him ‘sweetheart’ or some other term of endearment, but that could definitely make things worse if the other children overheard. She’d thought about asking for everyone else to be sent inside, but it was lunchtime and if there was a sure-fire way of Theo being permanently singled out, making the others miss out on playtime would be it. Instead she’d asked the staff to keep the rest of the children back, while Bex went to get the key to the gate, but that didn’t mean no one would be able to hear what she and Theo were saying.
‘I’m not coming back over there.’ Her son was clinging to the trunk of one of the trees like an eco-warrior determined to do whatever it took to stop a new road being built through his beloved woodland.
‘Well, I’ll have to get the gate unlocked and come and get you then.’
‘No! I want to go home.’ Theo sniffed, his voice coming out in that shuddering half-talking, half-crying kind of way it did when he was really upset.
‘There are only two hours left after lunch and then Nanny Kat will come and pick you and Bella up and take you back to the cottage until I get home.’
‘No, I mean to our old house with Dad.’ This time the sob that punctuated Theo’s words was unmistakeable.
‘Oh, sweetheart.’ Rowan hadn’t been able to stop the word from slipping out, despite her best intentions. ‘I know it’s hard and that you miss some of your old friends, but I promise you’ll make new ones. You just have to give it a bit more time.’
‘No, I won’t. They call me Cry Baby Bellamy because I got a bit sad when Leo wasn’t here. They all hate me because you’re the headteacher and when Leo’s not here any more I won’t ever have any friends again.’
Rowan’s throat burned with the effort of trying not to cry. She wanted to fold her little boy into her arms and take away his pain, but she couldn’t do either of those things. She had to try and comfort him in some other way. ‘Leo will be back tomorrow and then you can hang out together again. You really like him, don’t you?’
‘Yes, but—’ Another sob punctuated his words. ‘Dylan said Leo will be gone forever soon, because his legs don’t work and soon nothing will and then he’ll… then he’ll die.’
The last word came out in a strangled sob and as the tears ran down Theo’s face, she had to blink hard against her own. She couldn’t even promise him that his friend wasn’t going to die. This was a lesson she didn’t want him to have to learn yet, but she’d vowed to herself, after all of James’s lies, that she’d try to be as honest as possible with her children. It was bad enough that she was still being complicit in James’s deception, she wasn’t going to lie about anything else if she could help it. Theo and Bella needed to grow up knowing they had at least one parent they could rely on. But she had no idea how much Leo had been told about his muscular dystrophy and the last thing she wanted to do was cause him any distress or fear, by telling Theo something about Leo’s condition that even he didn’t know.
‘Leo has a disease that affects the way his muscles work and that’s why he uses a wheelchair. There are lots of muscles in the body and they’re all important. The reason Leo isn’t at school is so that the doctors can help keep his muscles as healthy as possible for a very, very long time. He’ll be back tomorrow and I bet he’ll be as happy to see you as you are to see him, but you won’t be able to come out here and play together if I can’t trust you to stay where it’s safe. So when Bex…Mrs Whitegets here and unlocks the gate, I want you to come back into the playground and promise me, that whatever the other children say, you won’t ever do anything like this again, because you could really hurt yourself and I can’t let that happen, you’re far too precious.’
‘You promise Leo is coming back tomorrow?’ Her son held her gaze and she nodded, silently praying that nothing would happen to make her break that promise. For all she knew, Leo and his parents could be delayed in London, but she had a feeling that if she didn’t make the promise, Theo would double down on his refusal to come back into the playground.
‘Okay.’ Just at the moment he finally agreed, Bex came sprinting across from the playground, panting hard.
‘Sorry it took so long, someone had put the key back in the wrong place and it took me ages to find it.’
‘Thank you.’ Rowan took the key and unlocked the gate, resisting the urge once again to scoop her son into her arms, waiting instead for him to walk through the gate. ‘Come on Theo, it’s time to come back.’
Reluctantly her son walked slowly towards her and she handed the key to Bex to secure the padlock again. With a hand on Theo’s shoulder, she’d waited until they were halfway across the playground and in earshot of some of the other children she recognised from his class before putting on her best headteacher’s voice.
‘Right Theo, because of what you did you’re not allowed outside for the rest of lunchtime, or afternoon break.’
Her son had looked up at her, his eyes wide and she’d given an almost imperceptible nod of the head to let him know she understood that this was what he needed: a make-believe punishment that would keep him away from the children who’d been giving him such a hard time. It wasn’t a solution they could use long term, but if it worked as a stop gap, it would just have to do for now.
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