by Angel Devlin
If someone had told me just two weeks ago, I would be having to sell my home as a widow of a liar and abuser, I would have thought they’d taken drugs. From being a woman who basically didn’t have a care in the world, I now felt the weight of that world on my shoulders and I wondered how long it would be before I ever felt like the old Becca again, if ever.
After a final night at Violet and Milo’s, Laurel and I went back to our house for what would be maybe the last time. The estate agent came, looked around the property and gave me a valuation that I accepted; and the charity came and picked up the items of furniture. I looked around at what was once my home and now was becoming a bare shell. I realised the house resembled me, once full of love and now pared back to an empty structure.
I was just about to call my father and ask him to come pick us up when there was a knock at the door. All knocks now made me jump in apprehension of what I might find at the other side of the door, so I was thankful when the peephole revealed Callum at the other side. I opened the door, stepped aside to let him pass and then closed it again firmly behind me after checking the street like some cheating mistress making sure no one had spotted my lover turning up.
“Wow, it looks so different in here with everything packed away.” Callum said while his eyes roamed around the living room.
“I know, and it’s so echoey. It makes Laurel's screeches seem twice as loud.” I mimed putting my hand over my ears. Laurel herself was on the sofa playing with dolls and chattering away. She was so engrossed that she hadn’t even stopped to say hello to Callum.
“I was just passing and I wondered if you’d have left yet. What time are you going?”
“Funnily enough, I was just about to call my dad and get him to come pick us up.”
Callum looked at his feet, and then back up at me. “I know it’s weird, Becca, and that we don’t know each other well, but I wanted to just come and wish you all the best and to let you know that if you ever need me for anything, you have my number. I will always be at the other end of the line. No matter what time, day or night, you can ring me. I know you have your parents, but I remember when my life hit the skids, that sometimes I would have liked to be able to talk to someone outside of it all. To have someone who I could have just poured my heart out to without judgement. So if you need someone, you can call your friendly local electrician, okay?”
Emotion hit me as I realised that I really was leaving Willowfield behind. As tears began to fill my eyes, I stepped forward and Callum opened his arms and embraced me in a hug. We stood there for a few minutes while he let me cry, and then when I stepped back from his embrace, he walked into the kitchen, returning with some kitchen roll so I could blow my nose.
“Thank you, Callum Waite, for all your support, and please thank your family for everything they have done for me in the past couple of weeks. I seriously don’t know what I would have done without you all. I’m moving away from Willowfield, but I’ll still be in touch with Violet and Jules and so you never know, one day I might just turn up to a bowling night.”
“That would be really nice, so let’s not put a timeframe on it, but just say that it’s not goodbye forever, it’s just a goodbye for now, and that one day we might meet again.” Callum said, and I could hear the emotion choking his voice.
“Callum, you need to talk to Tali. You need to tell her either the truth, or enough that you feel able to move on with your life and to start dating again. You’re an amazing man and you will make a wonderful partner to some lucky woman out there. Don’t close yourself off just because of your health issues. The right woman will be able to work around it. In fact, I want a promise from you right now, that by this time next week you’ll have a date. I shall check with Violet that you’ve done it.”
“You are so bossy.”
“You’re only just realising that?”
He chuckled and began to move towards the door. As he passed Laurel he tickled her under her chin. “Where are you going? You need to stay and have tea with me and my teddies.” Laurel instructed him while picking up a teddy.
“Callum has to go now, sweetie.”
Laurel pouted but then turned back to her teddies.
“If only we could all get over things so fast.” I raised a brow at Callum.
I walked him to the front door, unlocked it, and watched as he began to walk down the path. As he reached halfway, he turned back around to face me and for a moment with the expression on his face, I wondered what he was going to say.
“By the way. While you’re at your parents' house, if they have a bowling alley nearby, I’d get some practice in. Because when you come back to Willowfield, I intend to whoop your arse at bowling.” He sniggered.
“In your dreams, Waite boy." I yelled back. "You just made that a challenge, and one thing you should know about me, I never back down from a challenge. So it’s on. I don’t know when, but one day I will return and when I do your arse is toast.”
Callum walked off still smiling as he headed down the street, but he didn’t look back. Closing the door, I called my father and I left Willowfield behind.
It was time for me to let my parents look after us in the way I’d always found suffocating, but this time I hoped would help me feel safe, until time had indeed had a chance to heal us, and I could think of what I did next.
Chapter Fourteen
Callum
Seeing the ‘For Sale’ sign appear at the entrance to Becca’s house was strange. I didn’t ask Violet if she’d heard from her because Becca had been right. I needed to speak to Tali. I needed to get some closure and then I needed to start dating again. So I couldn’t have children biologically, but I could still be damn well more of a husband than Rob had shown himself to be. Taking a deep breath, I knocked on Milo’s door.
Violet answered. “Milo’s not here, Cal. I’ve sent him out pricing up another job. I’m sure he’ll not be much longer.”
“Actually, it’s you I’ve come to see.” I shuffled from one foot to the other, because my mind was focused on talking to Violet, but my feet wanted to go in the opposite direction.
“Oh, sure, come in.” She let me in and we walked into the living room. “Everything okay?”
I nodded, deciding to come straight out with it. “Vi, you know how you had counselling about your mum? How do you engage with a counsellor? Only, I need to talk to someone about the fact I can’t have kids. It’s stopping me from living my life. Somehow, I have to get past this and accept it.”
A tentative smile appeared on Violet’s lips. “That sounds like a wise decision, Callum. The worst thing about counselling is the fear of it, the fear of the process itself, and wondering what it will entail. Let me get us both a drink and we can chat about it and then if you’re still sure you want to engage with one, I will grab you the number of mine. I had to pay privately because the counsellors on the NHS have incredibly long waiting lists.”
Violet walked into the kitchen and I followed her through, taking a seat at her dining table and watching while she took two mugs out of the cupboard, put the kettle on, and grabbed a teabag for us both. “You having your usual?”
“Yes please.”
Having fixed our drinks, Violet came and sat on a chair at the side of me, after putting the mugs on the table along with an open packet of chocolate digestives.
“So what brought about the change in your thinking?”
“Becca really. We had a good chat about things before she left. She basically told me straight that I needed to sort myself out.”
Violet chuckled. “Yep, that sounds like Becca.” Her expression went thoughtful and she spoke to the air rather than making eye contact with me, “Gosh, I hope she manages to get some peace while she’s at her parents' house. God only knows she deserves it.”
She looked back at me and I nodded.
“When I first went to counselling, I was so nervous. I didn’t know what the counsellor would look like, what her personality would be like, and whether she
’d judge me for my actions. I almost didn’t go in, but I knew that I had to speak to someone and I didn’t want it to be anyone I knew. And that’s what happened. My counsellor turned out to be a really approachable person who guided me with questions, but sat and let me speak and listened to me without judgement. She got me to think about things and to realise that I was judging myself too harshly. The main thing was how she got me to see that there were no overnight miracles, but that I could work on myself slowly but surely until I felt like the real me again. She said something to me that will always stick in my mind and that was instead of trying to continually push up the hill in getting better, sometimes it was okay to rest at that exact spot on the hill and take time to gather yourself until you felt able to take another step upwards. What she said was so true because that’s how I was, putting pressure on myself, thinking that because I’d lost my temper with my husband once, it would happen again and that I might turn into my mother with her violent temper. It has taken me a long time, Callum, to realise that this is extremely unlikely, but I don’t think I’ll ever forget the event that led me to the counsellor's door. I have coping strategies now and of course your bloody brother.”
“Yeah, Milo is unlikely to let you have a downer on yourself seeing that he thinks the sun, moon, and stars shine out of your arse, alongside glitter and rainbows.”
Violet rolled her eyes but the smile that kissed her lips showed her true feelings about my brother and cemented my feelings about going to see a counsellor. I wanted someone who thought of me and smiled in the same way.
“Thanks, Violet, for being so honest with me about your experience. I guess it's going to be difficult, especially as a guy, for me to go and pour out my thoughts and feelings to a stranger, but I need to do this. I need to be able to move on. I can’t spend my life in the Waite family home while everyone meets the loves of their lives and moves out and I’m left knocking around the place with my dad.”
“Hey, your dad will move on too. He’s not going to stay single forever. We need to make sure we don’t let him for a start. You’re all grown up now and it’s time Josh worked through his own issues and found some love outside of his family.”
It was something I'd previously not given much thought to. I saw Dad as the constant; the person who was always there for us where our mother hadn’t been. Even when we’d all started dating and our father gave us his advice, I'd not given a lot of thought to him dating again. I think we’d all pretty much accepted that Dad was bruised and broken after mum and happy to be on his own. That was the impression he'd always given us, but maybe we were wrong and that was just his way of masking his own problems. Perhaps he was sticking his head in the sand, distracting himself via his children when he should have been dealing with things and moving on himself. It seemed it was the Waite family way to pretend things hadn’t happened and close yourself off from opportunities for happiness. Something that we all needed to change. With that in mind, I made up my mind once and for all that I would definitely make an appointment to see a counsellor.
I finished my drink, and then Violet got me the number of the woman she’d seen. She wrote it down for me on a scrap of paper and handed it to me. “If you need someone to go with you, to just sit in the car outside while you go in, I can do it. You just have to let me know when.”
“Thanks, Violet.” I said, followed by a grateful smile. “But I’ll be okay. You never know, I might drag another one of the broken Waite family with me yet.”
Violet's features softened. “Oh, Callum, you aren’t all broken, no more than anyone else. The rain pours down on us all at some time in our life. It’s about how we deal with it. We can drown in it. We can put an umbrella up and try to pretend it’s not even raining. We can dance in it regardless. All we can do is get wet and then slowly dry off.”
"You're so wise, Violet Blake."
She smiled. "Right, I’d better get back to work now. Your Dad's been very flexible with me because of helping Becca, but she's gone now."
"Yeah, I'd better get to work too."
I left Violet’s house clutching that piece of paper with the number of the counsellor on it, but more than that, I felt I was holding onto a small piece of hope for the future.
Before I went to work, I went back to our house, up to my room, and took my phone out of my pocket and dialled the number immediately. I knew if I didn’t, I’d lose my confidence and make excuses as to why I shouldn’t proceed. There was no time like the present and so I made an appointment to see Jennifer, the counsellor. The first appointment she had was for the following week. She explained that she worked at two different practices and that the only free appointment she had was at one an hour’s drive away from Willowfield. I accepted it immediately, thinking that the drive would give me time to think both before the appointment and after it. Also, it meant that no one from Willowfield would be watching me enter the counselling practice and gossiping that it was no doubt to do with my ex-fiancee’s upcoming wedding.
Chapter Fifteen
Callum
I was enjoying a beer on the back garden on Sunday afternoon when Milo came through the gate. He picked up the extra can I’d brought out in case I fancied another and plonked down onto the lounger at the other side of me.
“Doesn’t matter how much you tan yourself, you’ll always be an uglier version of me. Can’t even take the advantages of being younger if you’re going to age yourself through the sun. Hope you’ve got your factor fifty on there.”
“Had a facial and waxed your bikini line, have you?” I quipped.
“You won’t be laughing when I still look in my twenties and people ask if you’re my dad. I don’t mind being in touch with my feminine side if it keeps me looking good. I have to keep Vi interested, you know.” He held up his hands. “These get rough, so I’ve started using hand cream.”
I groaned. “Was there a reason to this visit, other than you sharing skincare tips?”
“Yeah. So you know how me and Vi no longer have any secrets from each other?”
“Go on…” I braced myself for what was going to come out of his mouth because sometimes his advice was golden and sometimes he was like a cattle prod.
“So I know you’re seeing a therapist. I won’t tell anybody, mainly because if I do Vi’s gonna cut my balls off and deny my penis any action; but I just wanted to say I’m glad.”
“Thanks, bro. Good to have your support.” I gave him a comradery smile. He was an idiot at times, but he always had my back.
“Yeah and also I want to marry Vi soon and need you as my best man if possible, or in attendance at least. Don’t want you arriving and having post traumatic stress and screaming the place down or something.”
Yep, idiot. I threw my now empty can at him, the last droplets landing on his chest.
“Steady on. I forgot to ask if this suncream was waterproof.”
“I thought Violet wanted to wait to get married, given that you’ve been dating her a matter of weeks?”
He sighed. “I know. She’s so bloody stubborn. She’s stuck with me whether she likes it or not, so I don’t know why she just doesn’t give in. Do you know she suggested the summer of 2022? That’s like two years away!”
“Give her some time, mate. Women like to plan stuff and do the whole dress, cake, venue, blah blah blah. I remember what Tali was like. She spent an hour deciding what kind of ribbon to have on the backs of the chairs at the reception. I mean, who the fuck cares? But they do. And the favours. You can’t just put a chocolate on the table. It has to be a lottery ticket, or some kind of plant that blooms only on your anniversary and is named after the bride and groom. Then there’s all the single-use cameras.” I trailed off. “Actually, bro. Kidnap her and take her to Gretna Green or Vegas. Avoid all that crap.”
Milo beamed. “See. I’ll tell her you’re on my side.”
Blind panic must have hit my features because my brother guffawed and shoved me in the arm. “Your face.”
“Don’t do that to me. I don’t want your fiancée as my enemy, because if she can keep you in line…”
“She mainly keeps me lying down.”
I pretend heaved.
“So, after all this counselling, are you going to start dating again?” Milo’s serious face was now in position.
“Yeah, time to get on with my life. Find a woman who’ll put up with me. I figure if you’ve found one, there’s definitely someone out there for me.”
We sat chatting for a few more minutes and then we heard the doorbell ring.
“Wonder who that is?” My brow furrowed. We didn’t get many visitors on a Sunday afternoon. No one came to fetch us, so I presumed it was a door-to-door salesperson and Milo and I carried on talking about football and how terrible our local team were playing.
The clatter of high-heeled shoes came from behind and a female voice went, “Hello, boys,” in a sultry accent.
As I spun my head around to look at our visitor, Milo clapped his hands and once again that guffaw exploded from him.
“Fucking hell, brill.”
The woman’s smile dropped, and she began scowling. “Why are you laughing?” She said haughtily.
“Ezra, I’d recognise those fucking knock knees anywhere. I don’t care how good the rest of your prosthetics are, they need to stick some shit on your knees.” Milo pointed.
“Oh fuck off,” our elder brother said as he dropped his female accent and his ‘actor’ accent and fell straight back into being a Waite brother. He kicked his heels off and walked barefoot over to us. “Those things are evil. Why women wear them I don’t know.”
