London, 2014
My fingers fly across the keyboard as I cradle the phone between my neck and my shoulder, tap-tap-tapping everything the woman on the end of the phone is saying, trying to ignore the creeping pain in my back, which always happens when an interview goes on a bit longer than I expect.
The door slams, and damn, Annie is home, which means I have to get off the phone, have to hang up my journalist coat and go back to being Mum. I can’t interrupt her, though, my interviewee, not yet, not until there’s a natural break, but I’m willing her to hurry up, so I can go and catch up with Annie on the events of the day.
Since my divorce, and to try to make up for the kind of mother I was for most of my marriage, I have tried to be present for her when she comes home. I’ll never be the kind of mother who sets out elaborate teas, an assortment of cakes, biscuits, sandwiches—trust me, there are plenty of mothers around here who do actually do that—but I try to have something nice for her to eat, a hot chocolate in winter or lemon squash in summer. Even if I don’t often have something homemade, I will at least get the biscuits that she likes.
“Mum!” she yells through the flat, even though she knows I’m where I always am if not in the kitchen: in the tiny cupboardlike office at the end of the corridor.
“Coming!” I say, finally telling the woman on the phone I have to go, saving my document, tidying the papers on my desk that manage to spread over every available surface, every day, and joining my delicious daughter in the kitchen to finally be the mother I always hoped I would be.
* * *
Every day, after school, I sit at the kitchen table and marvel at the child I have created, this person who is, in looks, a combination of both me and my ex-husband, but in personality is all her own.
I would like to tell you I knew what her personality was from the beginning, but the truth is, for a very long time I never bothered to stop and look. For a very long time, the only thing I cared about was numbing everything in my life with alcohol, and as ashamed as I am to admit it, it wasn’t until I got divorced that I finally woke up and realized the mess my life had become.
Of course, I recognize the irony of writing feature after feature about divorce, and feature after feature about being a single mother, and even—yes, I will admit this—a first-person piece in the Daily Mail about the shame of being a mother who drank, which, by the way, garnered over a thousand comments online, almost all of them filled with a vitriol and hatred that felt like someone was twisting a knife in my stomach. There I was, trying to be honest, to own my part in it, to admit my sins in the hope that I would emerge renewed, and all those people could see was my deficiencies, what a terrible mother I’d been, what a terrible person I was.
Well, duh. Tell me something else I didn’t know. My sponsor had warned me about writing the piece, but I went ahead and did it anyway. You are only as sick as your secrets, I had heard, over and over in AA meetings, and I knew I could only be properly cleansed if I told my secrets.
I had this grandiose notion of helping people, that if I was honest there would be tons of women reading my story who would realize the mess they were in too, might be inspired to do something about it.
There were a few. But the notes thanking me, sharing their own stories, washed over my head while the criticisms and insults lodged their way into my heart. At least for a week or so. Since then, I’ve learned first of all not to reveal quite so much of myself in my articles, and secondly not to read the bloody comments.
“So how was school?” I ask, sliding gingersnaps onto a plate and watching her devour them as soon as the plate hits the table.
“Do you want an apple?” I slide the fruit bowl over, seeing her grimace. “You’re having dinner with your dad tonight, so don’t fill up now.”
“Oh, yeah. He texted me. He’s picking me up at four thirty. We’re going to Cara’s sister’s for dinner.” She rolls her eyes, and I am secretly glad, although pained as well, at how difficult this new girlfriend of her father’s is for her. And for me.
“How was school?” I change the subject, resisting the temptation to quiz her, as I sometimes do, about Cara, and her family, and the general all-round horribleness of her.
Annie shrugs. “Fine. But Lucy’s being a bitch again.”
“Oh God.” I do wonder if I should berate her for her language, but it’s not like I’m a paragon of virtue in that arena, so I let it slide. “What’s happened now?” Lucy is her best frenemy. They are either as thick as thieves, together all the time, or they hate each other. Lucy is one of the popular girls, so Annie has to vie with others for her attention. I see her open up in the sunshine glow of Lucy’s gaze, shrink with despondency when Lucy chooses to shine her glow elsewhere.
Not that my daughter is entirely innocent. I am quite sure Annie is not the easiest person to be friends with—she is demanding and all-consuming—but Lucy, girls like Lucy, have always scared me a little, and I would so love for Annie to find a different set of friends, girls who are a little less glamorous, a little less compelling, a little more ordinary and stable.
“I went to sit with her and Mary at lunch and they started whispering about me and giggling. I hate her.”
“I’m sorry, darling. Could you sit with Pippa instead? She’s a nice girl.”
Annie shrugs. “Pippa’s really boring. There’s no way I’m sitting with Pippa. She’s still obsessed with One Direction, which is just so yawn.”
Annie grimaces with disdain, and I think now is not the time to point out her bedroom wall is littered with posters of Harry Styles.
“Do you have homework?” Some days, Annie comes home filled with chatter, and I delight in listening to her, the two of us able to sit at the kitchen table for hours, but other days, like today, it is like squeezing blood from a stone.
“A bit,” she says.
“Why don’t you get it out? I’m going to start making dinner for tomorrow night.”
“What’s happening tomorrow night?”
“Sam’s coming over. He’s turned pescaterian, so I thought I’d do salmon.”
“Can you do risotto?” The only kind of fish my daughter will eat is the kind that is disguised by carbohydrate.
“Maybe,” I say. “Although I was thinking of doing something simple, then making ice cream for dessert.”
“He’ll definitely eat the ice cream,” Annie says, knowing full well that Sam is always on some kind of ridiculous diet, all of which goes out the window when it comes to dessert.
Sam has progressed from my gay best friend to my gay husband. He often commissions me, bless him, and since he and his long-term partner split up a couple of months before Jason and I did, he understands exactly what I have gone through. Although he is the one I invariably turn to for advice, I do believe we have become each other’s ports in the storm. The only thing he doesn’t quite get is the AA stuff. He drinks. Not excessively, unless it’s a celebration, but he doesn’t understand why I can’t have the occasional glass of champagne.
We have learned to agree to disagree. After I got sober, this time, I let go of a lot of people, the relationships I had that were based on drinking. I didn’t want to be around unhealthy people anymore. Sam isn’t exactly unhealthy, but if I didn’t love him so much, I might have reconsidered his constant urging to “go on, just a glass.” Luckily, I have been sober enough for long enough that it doesn’t bother me. I am never tempted these days, and quite happy to keep wine at home for when Sam comes over.
It helps that Annie completely adores him. The three of us have formed an unlikely family of choice. Birthdays, Christmas, Easter, Sam is always first on our list.
Annie looks at me. “What kind of ice cream will you make?”
“I thought maybe banana.”
Annie makes a face. “Or I could do coffee chocolate chip.” She grins—her favorite ice cream, and even though I know I shouldn’t, for she will doubtless finish the tub within the next day, even though I know I should be trying to encourage her to stay away from the devil that is sugar, she’s my daughter, and this makes her happy, and the guilt I have long carried over the years I was not the kind of mother I should have been, not the kind of mother anyone would have wanted, is enough to make me give her ice cream every day for the rest of her life, if that will make her happy.