Never Again - 33

Chapter 33 - healing the wounds

Max! Erin could barely believe her ears. It had been a year since their divorce had been final, and at least six months more since she salvaged a few belongings from their marital home. As far as she knew he’d left the company taking all their marital funds with him. To hear that he was back, and that he was attempting some sort of blackmail was ridiculous.

                “Max? You are a joke. I’m going to hang up.”

                “Are you happy for intimate details to appear in the highest paying tabloid? Because I’m willing to tell the world ALL about the kinky sexual preferences of Jack Reilly’s latest screw! Who else but her ex husband would know that?” He had a haughty confidence in his voice, but he’d always dominated and controlled her in the past, for some reason he thought that he still could,

She fumed silently for a moment, just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse it just did. But she wasn’t the same person that he’d abandoned, she was stronger, he no longer was the centre of her universe. She’d lost more than she’d ever had with him, and she knew he wasn’t good enough for her, but that had taken a long time to realise. It had taken Jack to make her see it. Even at his worst Jack cared for her in his own way more than Max ever had, he was a king compared to the slug who even know was still after his pound of flesh.

                “Max, I am hardly Jack’s latest screw, and as you left me destitute I am hardly in a position to pay you any amount of money, I’m not working, I can’t help you.”

He laughed, an ugly sound, “you? No money? Screwing a multimillionaire footballer, daughter of another famous player...you are hardly skint. Pay up, or it’s the papers!”

Erin wasn’t being dragged into this conversation, she was determined to hang up, a few weeks ago she’d have cared about what was written about her, even the mention of her name in the tabloids had scared her, but nothing could be worse than having your miscarriage as a headline, anything Max could make up for effect, for money, would be lies, and she didn’t care. Not really. So she called his bluff, “do what you have to Max, but bear in mind if you as much as hint at something slanderous I will sue you in the highest court in the land. You won’t get chance to run away a second time.”

He laughed as they phone went dead, but Erin thought that it sounded a less confident laugh than earlier.

With a groan and a nausea creating sense of foreboding, she climbed back in the car to head back to her parents, knowing that she had to forewarn Jack, he deserved that.

                “What do you want?” Jack’s words were harsh, but his voice cracked as he looked at his mother, the last person he ever imagined seeing on his doorstep. She’d never left Ireland, not as long as he could remember. And whilst he wanted to hate her, as he looked at her he remembered how much he’d wanted her to be there back in the hospital when Erin was so sick.

                “You don’t reply to my messages or answer my calls...I’m worried about you. I always worry about you, but this business...to read about it in the papers...”

 He shook his head, “too little too late Ma.”

AS he went to close the door, she placed her foot in the doorway and stopped him, for a septuagenarian she was feisty, came from having so many children and grandchildren! “Running away from me hasn’t made anything better in your life, so for your own sake stop!”

Jack snapped, “I watched all manner of hell in your home, and most of it I can’t forget, no wonder I wanted to run away at the first chance I had!”

                “What hell did you ever see? I know me and you Da had a hard time but it was hardly traumatic.”

Jack shook his head, “he hit you! Beat you! Then proceeded in impregnating you more times than I could count uncaring if you lost them...”

His mother’s face fell and she was suddenly white as a sheet. “Is that what you think? Really?”

She barged past him into the lounge and slumped into a seat, staring up at her son. “Honestly Jack, it was nothing like that! I swear!”

He strolled in and sat opposite her, “a month after my tenth birthday was the moment that it all changed for me, you lost a baby, we thought we’d lose you, not that it was the first time...and that was after he hit you down the stairs. You were black and blue. Then you started to bleed...” He shook his head, the memories from his childhood merging with those of Erin only a few weeks ago. Regardless of who was struggling, fighting against things, it tore at his heart.

                “Your father never hit me.” Was all she said, when he looked on in disbelief, she took a deep breath and finally met his eyes. “It’s me Jack, I’ve...” she sighed, “I’ve fought manic depression all my life, I never wanted anyone to know, so your father pretended that I wasn’t hyper cleaning the kitchen at four am, and equally that I wasn’t lower than the gutter feeling like I wanted to die. Your poor Da put up with it all...”

Jack shook his head, “so you hit yourself? Blacked your own eyes?”

His mother slumped back and looked at him, “I didn’t get advice or treatment for my problems at any point until way after you’d left home. Every child I lost killed me a little, and I became obsessed with children lost rather than you and your brother and sisters...it was the attempt to control things when nothing was going how I wanted, and I felt children a whole host of them would make me have to be better.”

Jack shook his head, “depression can’t be bargained with.” A colleague once had tried to take his own life with depression, as a twenty one year old man it had opened his eyes to the reality of the disease. How could he have missed that in his own mother? But they’d all missed it in Robbie, no one knew he was at rock bottom, he’d hidden it well, were his parents that clever?

                “I know, but I was in denial, I fought your father’s guidance at every turn.” She reached for his hand, “and now I know that you maybe experienced the bulk of the problems, the main issues. But please don’t blame your father...”

                “I saw the bruises Mum, you didn’t do that to yourself...” when she started to nod, he could barely fathom it all. “You did?”

She blushed, “I would have horrendous lows and I wanted to die, your father would try and remind me of you, the others, but I’d hit myself, thrown myself down stairs, I even cut myself. I’m not proud of that Jack, I really am not, and you need to know, I never hurt any of the babies, the miscarriages were all bad luck, fate...I don’t know. But when I was pregnant I was happy, you know? It was all good.”

Jack staggered into the kitchen and slumped over the work surface, “you’ve never told me this before...”

His mother had followed him and perched opposite him, “thirty years ago in rural Ireland? You didn’t mention that word, your father told all manner of lies to cover for my failings, or my mania, he practically brought you kids up...I’m ashamed of it all Jack, but the last ten years I’ve been treated, counselling, medication, I’m coming to terms with it all, and I’m happy...finally. And I’m really proud of you, you may not realise that, I’ve followed every detail of your life. I should have spoken to you months ago, years ago...but you never wanted to speak to us.”

He closed his eyes, his hatred for his family had fuelled his life for so many years, it felt as though the rug was being pulled from under his feet, everything he knew was wrong. “Why now?”

Looking at her he saw the wry smile, “I know what you’re going through, I wanted to come and help you and Erin. I’ve been there, I know how hard it is.”

Closing his eyes he felt more than the gentle prickle of tears at his eyes, “she’s gone, left me.”

His mother’s hand covered his, “why?”

Shaking his head, Jack kept his eyes closed, “she doesn’t love me, without the baby she sees no need for me.” He’d not vocalised his fears before and the words came with a driving pain into his chest like a knife. “She checked out of hospital the moment I left her, and her parents have told me she needs time to recover...”

                “I don’t believe that for a second, the woman I spoke to had you as the centre of her universe, she wanted to do right by you, not what she thought should be done. If she didn’t care she’d have done what she felt would be best for her and the baby, but she didn’t. That’s a selfless woman, and one who respects you. That doesn’t happen very often!”

When he opened his eyes tears were rolling down his face, “she nearly died Ma, and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through, I was so powerless. I’m sad she lost the baby, of course I am, but I’m devastated that I had to watch her in such pain, so ill...and now, she’s gone. I don’t even know if she’s well...”

                “Why not son? You love her, she’s your soul mate, why aren’t you breaking down doors, knocking people over to get to her?”

Love? He couldn’t remember loving anyone, to love was to expose yourself to pain, that was all that his tortured life had taught him, but this was pain. So maybe his mother was right, maybe this finally was love, maybe this was him feeling bereft from the only person he needed in her life.

He half laughed, swiping at a tear, “because I didn’t realise I loved her, not until now.”

Reaching out his mother dragged her thumbs across his cheeks wiping away the tears, “Jack Conor Reilly, you are a wonderful man, I’m so proud of you, but at this moment I want to knock some sense into you. When you get something good, something that makes you smile, feel proud...you never let it go, you hear me?”

He nodded and it seemed only natural to lower his head to her shoulder and let him hug her, he hadn’t cried since he’d left home fifteen years earlier, but now here, it was his mother’s presence that had finally made him confront the last six months, all that he’d gained, then lost. As she held him, tears still falling, he realised a lot. He’d not let Erin get close to him, she knew so little about him, yet she’d been transparent from the moment he’d met her. He had become a part of her life, whereas she’d lived in his house without the same commitment.

He could blame the woman who’s arms felt like the safest place in the world, or he could accept that nothing in life was ever straight forward. Suddenly he knew he had to find Erin, tell her how he felt. If she laughed, if she didn’t feel the same, he’d understand, it would hurt, but nothing could be as bad as this state of perpetually not knowing!