The Time Comes to Fly

She wants to blame the girl.  She tries to blame the girl.

It was the girl who’d swum in out of the blue and slid into Roddy’s life and started working her witchcraft on him, changing him in all those subtle little ways, chipping away at his connection to his family, to the bonds that nature gave. It was her who’d done that. That girl. That brash, stubborn, conceited young woman.

But no.

Liesel steps into the room and turns around in it, a full circle. She’s left it just the way it was – the way a mother does – with all his posters still on the walls, all screaming out his youth, the way he once was. His models still on the desk, half-finished. His leather jacket hanging on that hook – worn, it’s lining red and torn, ruby-red, and he’d loved it once upon a time, that jacket, worn it as his second skin.  The green and silver bed-spread. The sheepskin rug. His weights in the corner. Just like it was.

Because there might be a time – and who knows when? – when he might just walk in the door, young and unchanged, ready with a hug for his mother, with stories to tell.

But four years. Four years is a long time.

#

The girl. Her name is Cara.

She was a waitress at the spot where Roddy went to study. She’d serve him his lattes, and sometimes put a little chocolate next to the cup. And one day she’d struck up a conversation, just something casual - the weather, or the roadworks, or something. And then next time: what book was he reading? What was he studying? Yeah, she had a thing for history too. She wasn’t one to study, but she could devour an historical novel like it was a plate of chips. Then sitting down next to him, chattering away.

He took the hint in the end. Asked her out.

Ask her out again.

Took her home to meet his family.

And Sylvia, she’d taken to her just fine. They were only a few years apart, and she’d always had similar tastes to her brother anyway. And Cara was always talking, always dressed brightly, pulling everybody into her orbit.  So open. So… loud.

“Why can’t you see the good in her, Mum? She’s so nice, and she’s trying so hard to get you to like her.”

But she couldn’t. She didn’t trust her. She didn’t like the way her size-and-a-half personality seemed to rub off on her Roddy; her quiet, shy, studious Roddy. Her little boy.

Cara changed him. And away he went.

#

But no.

It didn’t happen like that. Not exactly. Not entirely.

Sometimes, late at night, with a couple of glasses of wine in her, and the house all empty, and the darkness lapping at the windows, she still remembers.

Little things. The car he bought. “You can’t afford to buy something like that. The bus stops just down the block, Roddy.”

His friend, Mike, and the trip. The hiking trip that was going to take them all around Europe. “Roddy. Some of these places, they’re not safe. I lost your father. I don’t want to lose you too. You must see that.”

“Is that an earring? In your ear? Roddy…”

“Roddy…”

“Roddy.”

“You were late home last night. I didn’t know where you were…”

#

She remembers: another man. A man with the same eyes as Roddy, with the same cheekbones, and that pointy chin. She remembers the night he said he felt smothered, that he needed to fly.

“Fly? Do you hear yourself?”

“This rut, darling, it’s killing us. I’m sorry.”

“I’ve been so good to you.”

“I know.”

“Anything you wanted.”

“I’m sorry. Very sorry. I’ll send you money. For the kids. I’ll still be there for you all.”

There. From a distance of about a thousand miles. There: in spite of the blond woman now at his side, the one who doesn’t seem to be tying him down, the one who has matching wings, and can fly beside him.

Josie, she thinks that’s the name.

#

They balance each other. One on each side of the world, weights that sink Liesel’s heart.

Roddy. He’s young, he does need to see the world; find his feet; find his soul. He should leave the nest; he probably should fly. And he has.

But his father…

You never gave me the chance to fly beside you.

Liesel stands in that room, untouched by time. She sees herself in the mirror, and she is touched by time. Very touched. Beyond middle age now. Her children both grown and flown. But at least Sylvia still calls.

Roddy, if he wasn’t so much like his dad…

Liesel picks up the i-pad. The email sits there on the screen waiting to be sent. It’s full of all the little inconsequential details of her life, full of the little touches of pain, thinly disguised as news and inquiry. Between the lines it calls out: please come home. And she knows what sort of a reply she’ll get from it – just a few lines, a couple of place names, a photo of Roddy with Cara. Always with Cara. That too-bright smile. Reading it’ll probably make her cry again.

Liesel blinks back a pair of salty tears. But as long as she keeps the thread intact… his room waiting… his bed all made-up and waiting…

With a sigh and an intake of breath she hits send.

 

Picture credit/discredit: author's own work