The Home for Broken Hearts

by Rowan Coleman

  “That I care too much for appearances. Would he want me if I were fat, or gray, or never took any care with my hair or clothes?” Sabine unconsciously gestured at Ellen, who determined not to be offended, because after all she never thought twice about the way she looked.

  “So what do you think? Do you think that these lists will help us reconcile?”

  Ellen glanced at the clock; it was twelve minutes past six.

  “I have to be honest, Sabine. I’m not really an expert on relationships, I’ve only had one important one—but if the list of things you don’t like about your husband is this long and if one of the things on it includes him being in love with another woman—I don’t really see how you could ever get over that. I know that I couldn’t.”

  Sabine’s face crumpled and she buried her face in her hands, as if she had just heard the bad news for the first time.

  “But what do I know?” Ellen added hastily, putting a hand on Sabine’s shoulder. “I am probably completely wrong—only you know what your marriage means to you and him.”

  “You are right, of course.” Sabine sobbed. “Of course I can’t take him back, what honor or pride would I have left if I did, knowing he was always thinking of another woman? It’s just that I love him, Ellen. I love the evil, disgusting pig. I love him, I always have, and he’s ripped that all to shreds.”

  Ellen wrapped her arms around Sabine and let her sob into her neck, keeping her eye on the clock. In twenty seconds she would officially start panicking again.

  Just then the front door slammed shut and Ellen heard voices in the hall. Charlie’s and someone else’s… Hannah’s. For a few seconds she was flooded with relief, an emotion that in turn drowned in her fear-fueled anger.

  Ellen withdrew her arm from Sabine, who stood up and went to the sink to splash water on her face, piling her list back into her bag as she went, clearly keen not to be caught crying.

  “Hi, Mum,” Charlie said happily as he slammed open the door, adding to the dent in the plaster that he’d been working on for some months even though Ellen repeatedly begged him to be more careful. “You’ll never guess what, it’s really cool. Aunt Hannah’s brought me a PlayStation 3 and a load of games!”

  “Charlie—it’s past six. Where have you been?” Ellen asked, her voice low and tight, the terror she had been fighting to repress suddenly galvanizing into a heavy lump in her chest.

  “With me, Ellie,” Hannah informed her brightly. “Thought to myself what a beautiful afternoon, too good to waste in an office, so I left work a bit early, picked up Charles from school, and we went to the West End for a bit of shopping. After all, what’s the point of having money if you don’t use it. Don’t mind, do you?”

  “Don’t mind?” Ellen found that she was shaking again, shocked to her core by exactly how frightened she had been at not knowing exactly where Charlie was, thinking of him out there alone in the world. Her cheeks flushed and her voice trembled. “You take my son off for nearly three hours, buying him expensive presents without asking me, without even letting me know where he is! Hannah, I’ve been worried sick!”

  Hannah blinked at her, rubbed the end of her nose, and laughed. “Ellie, don’t be so ridiculous.”

  “I am not, I am not, I am not ridiculous!” Ellen shouted, advancing on her sister with each word, until they were just a few inches apart. Hannah stared at her, her confusion reading as if she were mildly amused by Ellen’s outburst, which just served to aggravate Ellen even further. “Don’t you get it, Hannah? You might be Charlie’s aunt, but you don’t get to just take him! You don’t get to take him places, buy him things he doesn’t need without asking me first. I am his mother, not you!”

  “But—” Hannah looked perplexed.

  “I told her you’d said it was okay, all right?” Charlie shouted, stepping between his aunt and his mother, shielding Hannah from her older sister. “I told her I’d phoned you and that you didn’t mind because I knew that if she asked you, you’d say no because you just want me to be stuck here in the house all day like you are and to never go anywhere and to never have any fun at all. And I turned my phone off so that you couldn’t spoil everything like you always do. And anyway everyone else has got a PlayStation except for me and if Aunt Hannah wants to buy me one then I don’t see why she should have to ask you and at least she does take me out, at least she will go places with me, which is more than you ever do!”

  “Charlie.” It was Sabine who spoke, her voice calm and level. “You are unfair to speak to Ellen like that, she was only worried about you.”

  “And you can shut up—it’s none of your fucking business!” Charlie yelled at Sabine.

  “Charlie Woods, go to your room right now!” Ellen thundered, shocked by the volume of her own voice, which was seldom, if ever, raised. Needing no further prompting, Charlie picked up the bag his console was in and made to leave. “And you can leave that there, for a start,” Ellen told him.

  “What?” Charlie whirled around, his eyes burning. “It’s mine. I’m setting it up upstairs.”

  “No, no you are not.” For those few seconds, Ellen concentrated every ounce of her anger, panic, and anxiety on him and realized that she was glad when she saw him shrink a little under her glare. “You are leaving it in its bag with its receipt until I decide what to do with it.”

  “Or what?” Charlie challenged. “Going to take it back to the shop, are you?” Ellen felt her brief moment of power dwindle away. “No, didn’t think so. Fine, do what you like with it. I don’t give a toss.” He kicked the bag halfway across the kitchen floor, its journey stopped with a thud by one of the kitchen cupboards, and slammed viciously up the stairs.

  Ellen turned to Hannah, who stood fidgeting with the strap on her bag; her eyes were bright, and a nervous half smile was fixed on her lips, as if she didn’t quite understand what was going on. “Don’t you see at all what you’ve done?” Ellen asked.

  “Honestly, Ellen, Charles shouldn’t have lied to me about calling you, but really, what’s the big deal if I buy him something every now and then. God knows his life is so depressing, he deserves a treat or two. And I thought what with… well, it being nearly a year since the accident, it would be good for him to have something to take his mind off of things. And you know how much he’s wanted one of those. I really didn’t think it would do any harm.”

  Ellen shook her head. It was as if her sister lived in her own impervious little bubble, immune to the effect she had on the lives of those around her.

  “Hannah, perhaps you should go,” Sabine said quietly, but if she was attempting to defuse the situation, it was too late.

  “How dare you,” Ellen growled at her sister. “Charlie and I have been through hell together over the last year and we’re not back yet. Don’t you think I know how hard it’s been on him? It’s been hard on me, too. But I’m his mother, and I’m the one doing my very best to keep things together for him. You know how hard it is for me to make ends meet and you swanning around playing the big ‘I am’ doesn’t help! It’s almost like you’re trying to make him like you more than me!” Ellen’s revelation escaped her lips before she could stop it. Was that why she was so angry? Was it pure jealousy, seeing Hannah spend the kind of time with Charlie that she didn’t seem capable of doing herself?

  “Well, that wouldn’t be hard,” Hannah mumbled under her breath, rolling her eyes like an insolent teen, which blotted out all of Ellen’s other thoughts.

  “I’ve had enough of this, Hannah. I don’t want you round here or Charlie for a while. Yes—yes it is the anniversary of Nick’s death soon, it’s going to be hard enough for Charlie and me without you trying to stir things up. So can you please just leave us alone to get through it—after all, we’re the ones who loved him, we’re the ones who lost him. You—you have nothing at all to do with what we are going through.”

  “Oh, you selfish, self-centered bitch.” Hannah’s laugh was shallow, rubbing disjointedly against the insult. “You really do t
hink the whole world revolves around you and this fucking house, don’t you? You love to play the martyr, don’t you? To have everyone beating a path to your door to tell you how marvelously you’re managing, how terrible it is for you. Well, what about me, Ellen?”

  “You?” Ellen exclaimed. “What about you, Hannah? I’m his widow, I was his wife. You… you were his sister-in-law, who, frankly, he could hardly stand to be around. What the hell are you talking about?”

  “What am I talking about?” Hannah paused, running her tongue nervously over her lips. “I’m talking about you wanting to keep Charlie locked up here like some little doll that only you get to play with, about you not sharing him, not letting him have any kind of life because you don’t want one. That’s … that is what I’m talking about.” As she spoke, Hannah’s face had transformed into an ugly, vicious mask, her finger jabbing into Ellen’s face.

  “You have no idea what it’s like to lose someone you love—you have no idea what it’s like to love anyone apart from yourself,” Ellen accused.

  “I have no idea? I have no idea—well, that is a laugh. If you knew—”

  “Hello, all!” Matt walked in through the kitchen door, very glad to be home, immediately realizing that he’d walked into the middle of something. He froze on the spot. “All right?” he questioned weakly.

  “Hannah, come on.” Sabine stepped in, putting a hand on Hannah’s arm and taking the opportunity to lead her to the front door. “Let’s go down the road and have a drink, you and I. I have some work questions for you.”

  “Yes, let’s—let’s go for a drink, let’s have some fun like normal people,” Hannah shot over her shoulder as Sabine led her away.

  Slowly Matt put his bag down on the table.

  “Fuck—what was that all about? You two looked like you were about to rip chunks out of each other,” Matt said as Ellen sank into her chair and found that she was trembling.

  “I don’t really know,” she said, touching the back of her hand to her flaming cheek.

  “Well, look, don’t tell me if you don’t want to, but in my experience booze usually makes a bad situation a million times worse.”

  “Booze…”

  “Yeah, Hannah—she was tipsy, wasn’t she? I’m sure she didn’t mean anything she said.”

  “My sister hadn’t been drinking,” Ellen told him. “She wouldn’t, not when she was looking after Charlie. She might be thoughtless, but she does love him.”

  Ellen felt a pang of remorse. She had allowed herself to become so afraid that when Hannah and Charlie had arrived, she’d simply attacked without thinking. None of it had really been Hannah’s fault; she had believed that Charlie had told Ellen where he was going—and could she really blame Charlie for wanting an afternoon out of the house, having some fun for a change? He had made it abundantly clear that he didn’t get that with her, and he was right. Ellen saw herself for a moment, trapped in her home like a fly in polished amber, but even if that was true, even if she was trapped, she still could find the will or desire to escape. What was it about Hannah that made her so instantly furious? Privately she could concede that she was jealous of how easily Charlie and Hannah got on, but it was something more than that. Something that had happened since Nick’s death that she couldn’t quite put her finger on, that meant that whenever Hannah was around, she felt disjointed and uncomfortable. Theirs had not been an easy relationship, not since they were children, but rarely had it been so strained at it was now. Perhaps it was because Hannah was trying, because she was making such an effort to be there for Ellen now. It made Ellen wonder why she had never tried that hard before.

  “No? Well, I’m wrong then,” Matt said, taking her denial lightly. “It’s probably because I’m spending too much time around alcoholics. It was just her eyes—you know, a bit bleary and bloodshot. She looked like people do when they’ve had a lunchtime drink. But still, I’m wrong. It seems to be my specialty today.”

  Still lost in her thoughts, Ellen looked down at the tabletop and reran everything that Hannah had said. There had been something, something that she hadn’t said but that had been there in the room between them as real and as solid as this table. Hannah wouldn’t have gone anywhere with Charlie if she’d been drinking, would she? She was stupid and selfish and vain; if Ellen put all the things she found annoying about her down on paper, the list would far exceed Sabine’s in length. Hannah was about as irritating as a person could get, but she loved Charlie—she wouldn’t have done that?

  Ellen looked at Matt, sitting opposite her, looking at a loss as to what to do. Poor man, Ellen thought. This is the last thing that he needs after a hard day’s work.

  “Tell you what, you tell me what the fight was all about and I’ll tell you how I officially became the shittiest man on earth today.”

  Ellen explained everything that had happened, looking at Matt as she spoke. “I let it all get out of hand, didn’t I? I overreacted.”

  “I dunno,” Matt said. “I mean, I’m not a parent, but I imagine that in this day and age, not knowing where your kid is can be pretty scary.”

  “Nick often told me that I was prone to overreacting,” Ellen told him. “He said that I questioned him too much and sometimes made him feel like he couldn’t go anywhere or do anything without me knowing about it. He said that I was too emotional, my skin too thin—that I responded to every little thing with my heart instead of my head.” Ellen raised her chin a little as she remembered. “He used to say, ‘Christ, Ellen, home is supposed to be a place I want to come back to, not somewhere I have to avoid. Try thinking once or twice before you open that mouth of yours.’”

  “Really,” Matt said, taken aback. “Not sure I agree with him there. Whenever you open your mouth, you usually have something pretty interesting or clever to say.”

  Privately, he thought that Ellen’s late husband sounded like a bit of a dick, but there was nothing at all in the way that Ellen talked about him to suggest that she thought anything of the sort.

  “I should go and talk to Charlie, shouldn’t I?” Ellen said. “Perhaps I’ll tell him he can keep the games console but that he can’t have it ’til his birthday in September. What do you think? I mean, Hannah meant well, trying to distract him from the anniversary—but it’s not gifts he needs, or even distractions.”

  “Sounds like a good idea.” Matt nodded.

  “I don’t want to lose him, I don’t want him to drift away from me. He’s everything to me—I’m not trying to stifle him, or keep him prisoner. I just love him, I just really love him—he must see that.”

  “I bet he does,” Matt said. “I bet he’s in his room right now realizing he’s been unfair to you. He’s just kicking out, testing boundaries. He’s trying to grow up and for him it’s going to be harder than it is for a lot of kids. It’ll be painful for you both.”

  “I’ll go and talk to him,” Ellen said, half rising from the chair.

  “You know what?” Matt rested his hand on her forearm. “Let me go and check on him—neutral party, that sort of thing.”

  Matt took the stairs up to Charlie’s room three at a time and knocked on his firmly shut door. “Mate, got a sec?”

  Matt waited, and after a second Charlie pulled open the door an inch and peered out at him with one watery, vivid blue eye. Matt’s heart went out to him, the poor kid. Charlie was doing his best to look like he didn’t give a damn, but Matt guessed that very probably the thing he wanted most right now was a hug from his mum.

  “Well?” Charlie asked.

  Matt reached into his pocket and pulled out a DS games cartridge. “Borrowed this off a bloke at work. Splinter Cell, he says it’s pretty good. I was going to play it later but you can try it first if you like.”

  Charlie thought for a moment and then opened the door a crack more and took the game out of Matt’s hand. “I could have been playing on a PlayStation if Mum wasn’t being so unfair,” he grumbled.

  “Really?” Matt crossed his arms and leaned a
gainst the door frame. “You really thought you’d get away with that?”

  Charlie shrugged.

  “Your mum’s downstairs worried sick about you. Cut her some slack, all right? She does her best.”

  “Why do you care?” Charlie asked. “Why are you sticking up for Mum? You’re only the lodger, you know.” Matt couldn’t argue, nor did he understand why it mattered to him so much that things were okay between Charlie and Ellen. When he’d first moved in he’d been a little embarrassed to be renting from a widow and her son and not taking up residence in some swish docklands crib, but now, after years of getting by more or less on his own, without a thought about whether or not he liked it, he’d begun to get used to the rhythm and flow of a family around him again. A fairly odd, disparate little family, but the five of them were becoming just that all the same, and Matt had discovered that he liked it.

  “I like your mum and I like you—you’re a pretty cool kid, you know.”

  “Right.” Charlie was tight-lipped.

  “Yeah, and if there’s ever anything I can do to help…”

  “Really?” Charlie looked skeptical.

  “Yeah, as long as it’s not asking for back issues of Bang It! Don’t want your mum to murder me before I end my probation period.” Charlie rewarded Matt with a ghost of a smile. “Right, well, I’ll leave you to it.”

  Matt was on the top stair when he heard Charlie say, almost under his breath, “Cheers, Matt.”

  Ellen looked up when Matt returned to the kitchen, her olive skin blanched, her face pinched.

  “Is he…?”

  “He’s upset, and angry and embarrassed. But I reckon he’ll be all right in a bit.”

  Ellen nodded. “Thank you, Matthew.”

  Matt smiled, taking pleasure in hearing her say his name.

  “Anyway,” Matt said, picking up a thin plastic bag that had been resting by his legs, “I stopped off and bought some lagers on the way home. Want one?”

  He cracked open a Stella and drank straight from the can. After a moment’s hesitation, Ellen followed suit.