“Because I’m dying and if I didn’t tell you, I know no one would.”
A rogue tear falls down her cheek, instead of wiping it away, she laughs.
“We connected more in letters than we did in all the years we shared a home and as your mother, I am sorry from the bottom of my heart for that. I want a do over but unfortunately that isn’t possible.”
Here is my time to ask the questions I can only ask now or forever live without the answers I seek.
“Why was that? What was so wrong about me that you had to push me away?”
Another tear falls from her eyes and I ignore them.
“Baby girl, there was nothing wrong with you. There was plenty wrong with your father and I, but never you. We didn’t plan on having a third child and when you came along, we knew we had another eighteen years of child rearing and I was tired of doing it again. Sure I had your father, but he never changed nappies or bathed you, none of you children. He was the provider and I was the one left at home to raise his children. I was the one who got up each and every night to feed you and change you. I was tired of babies, Cam. I wanted to be free of the constant crying and need of being needed. I guess, by the end I was getting by day to day and before I knew it, you were an adult and I had lost all your respect.”
I sit intently and in silence, waiting for her to catch her breath.
“It was easier to act blind to the hurt you were feeling, your father isn’t an easy man to live with and I thought if I made him happy, we would all be happy. Silly, I know, but that’s what I thought. He is a very stubborn man and oh so set in his ways that it isn’t possible for him to change, not then or now. I wasted so many years with you. I want you to know, I cherished every letter you wrote and saved every photograph you sent me.”
“I have all the letters you sent me too,” I smile, through the tears.
We sit talking about normal, day to day things for a while and I hardly notice the time passing until Drake comes into the room and leans against the wall next to the door.
“You’ve been in here a while, I thought I’d check you were all right?” he says, watching me closely.
“Everything’s good,” I assure him.
My mum smiles at him and I’m relieved when he gives her one of his genuine smiles back.
“You know, when you came to Robert’s birthday dinner, I saw you were strong and when Cammie left with you I wasn’t worried for her safety with you. I’m happy she has you. Please look after her and continue to love her like she deserves.”
“I always have, I don’t intend to stop,” he promises, moving a spare chair next to mine.
We manage to talk for another thirty minutes before my father makes a reappearance. The room instantly fills with tension and thinking of my mother who doesn’t need it, Drake and I leave, promising to come back to see her tomorrow.
Walking past my brothers, neither of them bother to speak to me.
It has been such a long and surreal day. I should be tired. Darkness covered us hours ago and I still can’t shut off from the world.
The water stops running in the adjoining bathroom of our hotel room and it gives me a few minutes to pull myself together.
Listening to my mother talk about being weak with the man who supposedly loves her and wants the best for her has been stuck in my head all day. She loves my dad, you would have to be blind not to see it. She gave up on more than a relationship with me because she wanted to make him happy. I can’t begin to fathom how sad that truly is. I’ve never understood my father and I always pushed him to the back of mind. Today, I grew to hate him. If it wasn’t for him and how he is, I would have had a mother like all other children did.
“You’ve been pretty quiet since we left your mother,” Drake says, dropping down on the bed beside me, making me jump.
I hadn’t heard him come out of the bathroom.
“Do you think I’ll be a good mum?” I ask.
“What? Babe, you’ll be fantastic.”
“She’s dying, and she has all these regrets. I don’t ever want that.”
“What regrets do you have now?” he asks, pulling the duvet up and covering us and turning off the lamp.
“I don’t have any.”
“I don’t live to regret and nor will you, don’t worry about that shit and as far as our kids when we choose to have them are concerned, you’ll be the most loving and devoted a mother can be.”
He strokes my hair and my eyes grow heavy with every stroke he makes.
“Don’t grieve for a mother you never had, celebrate the peace she will find soon. The entire world could die around us, but I’d still be standing by your side. You’re never alone with me no matter who dies.”
How can one man make me feel like I don’t need anyone else?
Chapter Thirty-Four
Drake
Susan passed away two days after we arrived at the hospice and an hour before Cammie was due to go and visit her.
Her fucking prick of a father and idiots for brothers didn’t bother to hang around to tell her themselves. She had to find out from one of the nurses upon arrival for her visit.
Apparently, she wasn’t in any pain and died peacefully, slipping away in her sleep. I could murder the rest of her living family for not having the decency to tell her themselves. Cammie assures me that she is fine about it, I can’t understand it myself. That’s why I tried everything in my power to persuade her to leave before the funeral. Her mother isn’t there as much as mine isn’t in her grave, no matter how much I like to think she is.
She wasn’t having any of it, this is her closure and a fuck you towards her father. She wants to show him that she had a relationship with her mother and there isn’t anything he can do to take that away from her now.
So being the man I am, the husband I want to be for Cammie, I’m standing beside her at the cemetery as her mother’s coffin is lowered into the ground. I watch my girl and wonder why she isn’t crying. She has had her eyes closed the whole time, but it isn’t from trying to keep from crying. She’s smiling.
The services wrap up quickly as the first rain of the day begins and everyone makes their way back to their cars.
By the time we reach the Audi A5, the rain is coming down hard. Opening the door, I wait for Cammie to get in before running around to jump in myself.
“That wasn’t so bad,” she says, shrugging out of her wet coat and throwing it on the back seat.
“Could have been better,” I snort, turning the ignition on to warm the car.
“How? It was a funeral, there not meant to be fun.”
“Babe, there must have been over sixty here to say goodbye to your mother and not one of them said hello to you,” I point out.
She had to have noticed.
“I wasn’t here to talk to anyone, Drake. I preferred no one spoke to me, it saved me the trouble of telling them to fuck off,” she grins.
I exhale pure relief she doesn’t have a care for them and try to see if she wants to skip the wake.
“No, we’ll stay for one drink. Toast to her peace and then we’ll leave. Maybe we could pop in and see Marg on the way home. We haven’t seen her months.”
“Anything you want.”
Stepping into The Golden Boot pub is what I imagine stepping into a morgue would be like. Cold, silent and no lively people. I know it’s a wake but for goodness sake, everyone is standing around looking like they died themselves. I’ve been to a few wakes in my time and they weren’t no picnic but they were still celebrations of the deceased life. There is none of that here. A feeling of boredom shifts from person to person and I’m glad we came now.
Cammie goes to find us a table while I order our drinks. While I wait for our drinks to be poured by the slowest waiter in history, and I continue to see not one person go over to Cammie to offer their condolences. They must know who she is, she hasn’t changed that much since she lived here.
It’s not till I get to the table that her father arr
ives at the same time. His tie is loosened and his jacket is nowhere to be seen.
He looks terrible, I almost feel sorry for the guy. He’s a complete prick but he has lost his wife, I wouldn’t be able to breathe if Cammie died, yet he is standing and going through all the motions of a widower.
“Why don’t you carry on walking and go talk to someone else? You don’t have any business here,” I sneer at him.
“Can we talk, Camila?” he asks, ignoring me.
“She doesn’t like to be called Camila, Robert.” I say, stepping towards him.
He squares his shoulders and then they immediately slump again.
“I’m too tired and I’m fucking grieving, I just want to talk.”
I stay where I am but turn slightly to see if Cammie wants to talk to him.
She shrugs her shoulder and sits back down. She doesn’t open her mouth and her hand seeks mine out under the table.
“I…found your letters to your mother when I was going through her things,” he begins.
“I didn’t know you were in contact. I hope you don’t mind but I read them. I read the way she spoke to you, she missed you so much and I let her feel like she couldn’t tell me.”
I study him cautiously, waiting for his sharp tongued demeanour to return. It doesn’t, there is only sadness.
“You wouldn’t let her. Do you know she missed our wedding day? The closest she got to see Cam in her wedding dress was in a photo.”
I don’t care about his feelings or what he’s going through, I’ll fucking tell him straight.
“I saw, you…looked like an angel.”
Cammie gasps beside me at probably the first compliment her father has given her.
“I was never…” he carries on, but Cammie interrupts him.
“You were never what? A father to me? Made me feel like an outcast for as long as I can remember?” she spits.
“I’m not doing this with you, you’re too late for whatever this is. I came to say goodbye to my mother and I have.”
With that, she stands to leave, dragging me up with her, not that I have to be dragged.
“Please, stay.” Her father asks.
She looks at him and all I see is pity for the man standing in front of us.
“You gave me nothing to stay for the first time I left and nothing has changed. Don’t forget, you still have Adam and Mark, your golden boys.”
We walk away leaving her father to watch his daughter disappear for the last time.
The last few days Cammie has been the same only a little morose, but in the car for the last hour, she has been the girl who has shared my life for the last six years.
I don’t ask how she is or what she is feel regarding her father. He is in the past where he belongs.
The silence between us was comfortable once again and I knew as soon as she was around Marg and Lorna, the last few days would be nothing but a memory.
My phone ringing broke the silence and Cam goes to answer for me.
“It’s Marg.”
“Put her on speakerphone,” I instruct her.
She does and it’s William’s voice that comes through, not Marg’s.
“Drake? You there?” he rants, causing me to slow down a bit so I can listen carefully.
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“I don’t know how to tell you this over the phone,” the line goes quiet and so does he until I prompt him to explain.
“Marg’s been attacked, she’s in the hospital.”
“What the fucking hell are you chatting about?”
“I would’ve called you sooner but I waited till she got out of surgery.”
“Surgery? Fucking talk, mate. Now.”
Who the fuck would attack a woman in her fifties? She hasn’t hurt a soul in her entire life.
“She only wants to communicate with you.”
Communicate? Who fucking talks like that when they’re this angry?
“Are you with her?”
“Yeah,”
“Put her on the phone, I’ll talk to her myself,” I tell him, running out of patience of getting no answers from him.
“She’s asleep right now, however, she wouldn’t be able to talk if she were awake anyway.”
“Why?”
Pray God, he tells me this time.
“Whoever attacked her, broke her jaw. That’s why she was in surgery.”
I pummel into the steering wheel until I nearly lose control of the car and Cammie shrieks for me to stop.
“She wants to see you,” William says, when we I regain control of myself and the car.
“She knows I can’t go there.”
I concentrate on the call, ignoring Cammie’s frown at my admission.
“I know, she told me. As long as she continues to makes progress they’ll release her tomorrow. She asked for you to come to her place.”
I literally have to bite my tongue from lashing out and breathe through my answer.
“Call me when she’s home and I’ll be there.”
The line goes dead and Cammie stares at me waiting for an explanation.
“Why would anyone attack Marg? It doesn’t make sense to hurt her, she’s an old woman for fuck sake.”
“For whatever reason, they’re going to regret it.”
Cammie leaves me be for a while and now we can’t go to Marg’s till tomorrow, I change direction and head for Essex.
The winter nights are drawing in earlier and the darkness offers us a black blanket of protection.
“Drake?”
“Yeah?”
“Why can’t you go to the hospital?”
I have been waiting for her to ask, I would have put money on her asking long before now.
“I’ll tell you later.”
I can’t afford to tell her now because I’m barely containing the anger over Marg being attacked, I can’t deal with her anger just yet and trust me, she is going to be angry when she finds out the truth.
Cammie has been asleep for the last hour and has missed the dark decent into the country side. Every lane I have driven down has been lined with over hanging trees and we only pass another car every few miles.
He said it was secluded and private but I never thought Stan would be at home living out here.
“Babe, we’re here.”
I turn the engine off and nudge her leg until she stirs awake.
“Where is here?” she asks, groggily.
“At Stan and Lorna’s place.”
She perks up hearing this and looks out of the window. The house looks like it has been converted from a barn. This is more like Stan.
Speaking of whom, Stan comes out closely followed by Lorna holding their two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Maddie, on her hip.
“Drake, my man. So fucking good to see you, mate. Come on in,” Stan grins, slapping me on the back and scouting the area at the same time.
The girls shriek and cuddle before Cammie plants tiny kisses over Maddie and takes her from Lorna’s arms. She takes my breath away when I see them together. She will be a natural with our own child.
“Are you cool with us staying for a couple of days?” I ask Stan, as we follow the women into the house.
“Sure, you’re always welcome here. While it’s good to see you, you look like you’re here for a reason?” he hedges.
“You’re not wrong, we need to talk in private.” I tell him.
He holds back as Cammie and Lorna disappear into the kitchen and we step into what looks like his den. Large, plush black leather sofas line one wall and a huge television faces them.
Without having to keep calm for Cammie’s sake, I begin pacing the den trying to find the smoothness I need to get through this.
“Marg has been attacked, she’s in the hospital with a broken jaw and fuck knows what else. William called after we left the wake,” I say, all in a rush, not smooth at all.
He goes to speak but I cut him off.
“I can’t go to the hospital so I have to w
ait until she is released at some point tomorrow.”
“What are you thinking?” he asks, sinking into the leather looking a little pale.
“He said, she only wants to see me. She must have something to tell me,” I mutter.
“You think this has something to do with you?”
I stop pacing and stare at him. It isn’t a farfetched assumption to make, it could be because of me. I haven’t been around London in a very long time and if someone wanted to get to me, they all know Marg is a huge part of my life.
“Either way, if it doesn’t have anything to do with me then she knows who did it and wants my help taking revenge. It’s been a long time but I still remember how to make a man bleed.”
And she knows I will for her.
“I should go to her, what if you’re seen?”
Turning back to him, a slow smile creeps across my face.
“No-one will see me until I want them too.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Cammie
Although the circumstances aren’t the greatest, I’m happy to be here. I haven’t seen Lorna and Maddie for nine months. Maddie is the cutest, curly haired toddler you will ever meet and every time I see her, my loins burn for my own child. For Drake’s child.
After filling her in on my mother’s passing and Marg’s attack, I help her set up the guest room Drake and I will be sharing while we are here.
“Do you remember when we stayed in all the different hotels on our holidays, we never had to make our beds,” she laughs, stuffing the pillows into their cases.
“Yeah, I wish we were still out there,” I sigh, heavily.
“Me too, hopefully we can book another holiday soon.”
“What do you think they’re planning?” I ask her, choosing to ignore her holiday idea.
I would love to go back to the sun and white beaches, but I don’t have the energy to dream about it right now.
Her snort should sound condensing, but I saw the way she gave up years ago trying to find out Stan’s business.
“Never mind,” I murmur, throwing myself down on the bed.
Perfectly Obsessed Page 26
