Page 100 of Some Kind of Love

ashes

Now

The smell is overpoweringand vile. My former home smells like a BBQ that’s gone terribly wrong. The walls of the house are still damp, old wallpaper peeling in limp shreds. I try not to brush up against them as I walk through the passageway to the kitchen where most of the fire damage was sustained.

Dani steps behind me, her hands on my jacket so she doesn’t lose her balance. “Dani, I don’t think you should be here, it’s not good for the baby.” I keep focusing on the baby. It’s been in my constant thoughts the last week-and-a-half. I try to remember how I felt when I found out my friend’s dreams were coming true. The moment when I spun to Freddy and told him that my life was finally perfect. Half an hour before any chance of perfection was snatched away from me again.

My feelings for those that I love have swung on an out of control pendulum since that night. I’ve slept on the sofa, unable to let myself be close with Freddy. Every time my need to be with him gets too strong and I’m considering finding solace in his arms, I remember that my mum died in a fire because I left her by herself so I could go out with him.

As for my feelings for my mum, well they have no clarity, no defining shape. It kills me to be unable to remember her clearly. During my teenage years she was hard, and her hatred for my father and her resentment towards me shaped my whole life. The woman I’ve known since coming back to town was unpredictable and nothing like her former self. I’m left wondering what she was like during my ten years absence, and I hate myself for not spending those ten years trying to get to know her, for allowing my anger to drive me away.

On the kitchen stove is the pot of baked beans that Mum woke up and decided to cook, but forgot to take off the heat again. If anyone were to ask me before if a can of baked beans could kill someone and destroy a house, I would have laughed at the absurdity of it all. But if you leave beans on a stove to burn away and the gas oven on, it makes a pretty big bang. It’s ironic really that the saucepan is still sat there, blackened and bent out of shape.

Leaving the kitchen, I head up the damp stairs. I clasp Dani’s hand as my throat becomes drier and it becomes harder to swallow with every step I take. My reservations of coming back to the house have kept me out of my old home since the accident, but now I need to see what’s left. I have this ridiculous fear that I’m going to find Mum here. That she’s going to be waiting up like she used to when I was young, ready to tell me off for being reckless and careless. Except I know she can’t because we cremated her three days ago. A day of black and silence, spent with people that I don’t know and who will never know the relationship I had with her. Some I recognised from Dad’s funeral, and they all acknowledged that it was a tragedy I’ve lost both parents so close together. I had to bite my tongue to not tell them that the real tragedy was that I lost them years ago.

The first room I head into is my old room. The damage isn’t too bad. Although the walls are lined with soot, it’s nothing too major. I can see things that I could take should I want. I don’t.

Isaac’s room with the flowery wallpaper I never got around to decorating has been hit slightly worse. With shaking hands, I collect as many of his belongings as I can salvage. Water damage has affected most of it, but I can at least let him choose what he does and doesn’t want.

Back out in the hallway, I breathe in deep lungful’s of damp air. The next room is Mum’s. I eye the door cautiously.

I don’t think I can do this.

Dani reaches for my hand. “You don’t have to do this now. We can come back tomorrow. Or the day after. Whenever you want.”

We could, but I also know I need to be able to walk out of here and know I’ve started a path towards finding some closure.

“Dani, will you come in with me?”

“Of course. We can do this together.” She pushes the door open, and the smell overpowers us. It makes me heave and my eyes water. The kitchen is directly below Mum’s room. That’s why when she went back upstairs to lay down after putting the beans and oven on, her room was the worst hit by smoke. Dani starts to cough, and I hesitate.

“Actually, you shouldn’t come in here. If anything happened to you or the baby I’d never forgive myself.”

She nods, probably thinking the same thing. “I’ll wait here for you.”

“No, go outside and get some fresh air. I’ll be okay.”

With my words, I step away from the reassuring company of my friend and into the room. The floor is damaged, the carpet curled and blistered from hotspots. Smoke clings to everything. My eyes are drawn to the bed they found her on. It looks like she’s just got up from a night’s sleep, not that she died here. Everything is as it always was, neat and tidy, hardly any personal belongings. My mum wasn’t one to keep things, and she definitely wasn’t the type to get personally attached to belongings, or in fact anything. Not like me, who kept Freddy’s locket in a box for ten years, unable to throw it away. My fingers automatically drift to the necklace, and I draw some strength from the cool sensation of the metal beneath my touch.

Turning for the wardrobe, I turn the key in the old-fashioned lock. It takes a stiff turn but finally the lock clicks and I’m able to look in my mum’s wardrobe. Over the last few months of reminding her to get dressed, I’ve been in the cupboard numerous times, but I’ve never investigated the cardboard boxes lining the bottom of the storage space. I pull one out and lift the lid. The faint smell of smoke is released with my movement and my understanding of how deep the smoke must have penetrated becomes clearer.

Inside is the very last thing I’m expecting. Notebook after notebook line the box along with pictures in frames. The first picture I see is one of me on my seventeenth birthday. I’m standing by the clapped-out Renault Clio my dad bought me. That was the car that led to Freddy and I meeting, and I smile fondly, nibbling my bottom lip as I recall that snowy day. Putting the picture out of the way, I pick up a notebook. Inside is my mum’s meticulous writing. It only takes me a flick through a few pages to realise that it’s a diary. I had no idea that my mum wrote diaries. It doesn’t seem like anything she would have done. I skim a couple of entries and learn that it was written around the time I was fifteen. Mum was already distant to me by then and I’m torn between investigating and finding out why and leaving my mother’s thoughts in the past where they should be. I flick another couple of pages and notice that every entry starts with a strange name and a measurement.

What is that?

Sitting on the floor and folding my legs, I take another book out of the box. This one looks far older and I flip through the pages, looking for a date without reading any of the other content. It’s from when I was a year old, and my name jumps off every page. I can’t help myself, I turn to the first page and start to read.

I don’t know how long I’ve been sat on the damp floor when the door opens. “Amber?” It’s Freddy. He steps into the room, his eyes quickly evaluating the debris I’m sitting amongst.

Tears slip down my face when I see him. My arms and legs feel heavy like they may never work again.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“I’ve found Mum’s diaries, Fred.” My tongue doesn’t want to move, and my hands shake as I motion to the book on my lap. I’m currently five and my mum is trying to cope with the school run by herself. I know this story; I’ve lived it myself. Dad is working long hours and Mum is battling to keep on top of the housework and parenting me. I may have been a bit difficult. The names at the top of every entry began three years before and I quickly worked out they were drug names and measurements.

Freddy comes and sits on the floor, his knees touching mine. It’s the closest to physical contact we’ve had in days. “You’ve been in here hours, Amber. What do they say?”

I take my time contemplating my words. “I don’t think she was very well, Freddy. Look at these.” I show him the volume in my hand and point to the unfamiliar name at the top followed with a measurement of 200mg. Quickly, I flip to the previous entry and the name again. Then I pick up another notebook and show him a page from that. This time a different name, and different quantity.

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