When I got in I went straight up to my room, chucked my stuff on the floor, and changed out of my football gear. It was only then that I noticed the leaflets, falling out of my bag. I must have stuffed them in there without thinking back in the nurse’s office.
One had a photo of a chalky-faced kid on the front. His eyes had dark circles underneath them and he looked as if he was about to throw up. The heading across the top read JUST SAY NO in big red letters.
I scrunched it up, and was just about to get rid of the others too when something made me stop. The photo on the front of the second one . . .
It wasn’t anything to do with drugs. There were gravestones, and people hugging or standing with their heads bowed low. The title said WE ARE ALWAYS HERE TO HELP.
I scanned the text inside, looking for something in it that might help Dad. It had a load of words on it like “Depression and Anxiety” and “Anger and Loss,” but it didn’t go into any detail. Further down, it listed the different types of counseling available—things like “Artistic Healing” and “Musical Medicine.” Then it just had a load of pictures, and a quote from a girl who ran away from home and found help through counseling.
But I didn’t want to run away from home. I just wanted Dad to be okay.
Ever since the Longest Day, he’d been getting quieter. He never came to watch me play anymore, and he stopped asking to kick the ball around with me months ago. It could be annoying but I couldn’t get mad, because even though the Longest Day had been awful for me, it must have been worse for him. I’d only known Mum for eleven years, and some of that I was a baby, so for those years I didn’t really know her at all. But Dad was married to her for fifteen. He had lived with her every day, and now she’d gone.
I looked again at that term—“Artistic Healing.” Dad was an author, but he hadn’t written anything in over a year. Back when he did write, he used to sit in his study for hours and when he emerged, there was a spring in his step. Maybe these people could get him writing again?
Right at the bottom of the leaflet, there was a number to ring. I hesitated, wondering whether I should call, wondering what would happen if I did. Maybe I could just leave the leaflet on his bedside cabinet? No, he’d know right away it was me. I could call the counselors myself . . . get them to talk to Dad, without him knowing it was me.
I stared at the leaflet, memories of Mum’s funeral racing through my head, until something jolted me out of my thoughts.
The fire alarm.
Still holding the leaflet in my hand, I rushed downstairs. Smoke filled the hall in a gray haze. It wasn’t thick, but it smelled rank, and I covered my nose with my T-shirt as I stumbled into the kitchen.
“Dad!” I blurted, smoke stinging my eyes.
“It’s all right!” he said, flapping a tea towel uselessly at the fire alarm on the ceiling. “I’ve got everything under control.”
I glanced round, trying not to breathe in. There was a pan on the stove with what looked like thick black treacle glued to it.
“What’s that?” I moved closer.
“It was going to be dinner,” Dad said. “But since this is what happens when you try to crack into it, it’s not anymore.” He held something up, but my eyes were watering so much I had to rub them dry before I could make out what it was.
What it used to be, anyway. Now the spoon looked more like the metal pegs used to pin tents down with. It was curved in three places, bent completely out of shape.
“Are these beans?” I said, turning back to what used to be dinner.
When Dad said he was cooking dinner, what he really meant was he was throwing a ready meal in the oven or pouring something out of a can. He used to be a great cook. Before the Longest Day, he’d done most of the cooking, shutting himself in the kitchen while he worked on hand-pressed burgers or homemade pizza. But ever since then, it was as if something had squashed all the interest out of him. You didn’t get meals like this if you loved cooking.
“Er, yes,” he said.
“I didn’t think it was possible to burn beans.”
He chuckled. “Well, you learn something new every day.”
He sloshed water into the sink and threw the pan in with a squeeze of dish soap. The smell of lemon balm filled the kitchen—it was Mum’s favorite smell, lemony and minty at the same time, and Dad kept buying it.
“How about we get takeout, eh?” Dad said, rubbing his face. Before the Longest Day he used to shave all the time, but now his cheeks were always covered in gray stubble. “Your choice. Whatever you like.”
We ordered pizza from the new restaurant in town and sat in front of the TV with the greasy boxes. Dad flicked through the channels, settling on a repeat of Top Gear. But even though pizza was the Food of Kings, and even though Danny once bet me I’d never be able to eat a whole large one to myself and I did and he paid me ten pounds, today my stomach clenched at the sight of it. I took a bite, but the more I chewed, the less hungry I got.
“Get it down you,” Dad said. “You could do with putting on a few pounds.”
I took another bite and felt Dad’s eyes on me as I gulped it down. I locked my gaze on the TV and tried to fight off the image of Mum at the football game, but I couldn’t.
“I saw her,” I said. I didn’t really want to tell him, because he had enough on his plate and I didn’t want him worrying about me. But the lemon balm had brought it all back, and I couldn’t keep it in anymore.
“Saw who?” Dad said, but as soon as the words left his mouth, he knew. “Oh . . .”
His face clouded over, and he turned to look out of the window. In the first few weeks after the Longest Day, Dad looked out of the window a lot. I don’t just mean little glances. He’d look out for ten minutes at a time, just staring and staring into the distance.
Sometimes he’d do it in the middle of conversations. He’d be saying something like, “Then I just . . .” And he’d sigh quietly, and stop, like he didn’t even know he was doing it. At first I thought it was because of his writing. Mum always said he walked around with half his mind on his stories. Dad used to laugh when she said that. Never been much of a talker, he’d say. Maybe that’s why I became a writer in the first place.
But this was different. The pauses lasted longer, and whenever he blinked them away I could tell he wasn’t thinking about stories at all.
He turned back to me now, his lips pulled tight. “I see her all the time,” he said gently. “I saw her earlier, when I was cooking dinner. She was right there in the kitchen with me. Next thing I knew, the fire alarm was going off.”
I didn’t know what to say. My mouth hung open uselessly. He was giving me that look again, the same look he had when my hamster, Spotty, died and he didn’t know how to tell me. It felt good to talk about seeing Mum, but part of me burned with shame for bringing it up. That was the first time I’d ever seen her so clearly like that, and it was probably just because the anniversary was coming up. But Dad just said he saw her all the time. At least I had football to take my mind off it. Dad . . . since he stopped writing, he had nothing.
“It’s completely normal,” Dad said finally.
“Yeah,” I said, jarred from my thoughts.
Dad shuffled closer. “Did you think you were going mad?”
“I . . . I don’t know. A bit, maybe.”
I never should have brought it up. It didn’t matter how I felt.
“Well, you’re not.” Dad was quiet for a moment, maybe picking his words carefully. “Owen, you’ve been through something that no one should have to go through. We both have. It’s normal for us to think about her. That’s all it is. Just thoughts.”
My eyes moved to the urn on the mantelpiece. The light from the TV flashed against it, turning it blue-gold.
“We’ll do it,” Dad said, following my gaze. He meant chucking Mum’s ashes out to sea. That was what she wanted us to do. It was in her will. Dad took a deep breath, and it shuddered on the way out. “We’ll do it. Just not yet, eh? Not yet.”
“Yeah,” I said. He’d been talking about scattering Mum’s ashes for months. Once I actually thought we were going to do it. We were sitting in the car, strapped in, ready to go, but as soon as the engine grumbled into life, Dad went back on the plan.
I wanted to say something to help now, but was scared of getting it wrong.
I shoved my hands in my pockets, and felt something inside them. The leaflet. Maybe if I could get Dad some help, he’d be there to cheer us on in the next round of the championships. Maybe he’d go back to cooking his usual meals instead of getting takeout every day. Maybe we really would throw Mum’s ashes out to sea.
I took the leaflet out—
“What have you got there?” Dad said. His eyes moved over the title, and suddenly he put his plate on the table and took the leaflet from my hands. “Owen . . . who gave you this? Is everything okay?” His eyes were lined with worry. “If there’s anything on your mind, you can talk to me. I know I haven’t exactly been brilliant recently, but I’ll . . . I’ll always be here. I want to help.”
“It’s okay,” I said, forcing a smile to let him know I was all right. “I don’t even know why I’ve still got it. But I thought it might be good for . . . for you.”
I looked away as soon as I said it, because the expression on Dad’s face changed from concern to shock, then something else. Something I hadn’t seen before.
“You think I need counseling?” he said.
“I just thought . . .”
But how could I say it? I just thought it might bring my old dad back. I stared at my hands, wishing I’d never brought the stupid leaflet back from the nurse’s office in the first place.
“Did your teacher give this to you? What’s she been saying? I know I’ve been a bit disconnected—God knows I do—but it’ll pass, Owen. I just need a bit of time.”
“I’m just trying to help,” I said, turning to face him again.
He’d already had time. We both had. After Mum died I had a week off school, and I felt like I never wanted to go again. But I had to. I could still remember the day I’d gone back in. Mrs. Willoughby pulled the Sad Face when she saw me. The whole class stopped talking. Their eyes followed me all the way to my desk. Everyone knew about Mum’s death. It was in the papers and everything. I guessed when a local artist died it was big news. I knew everyone was trying to make sure they didn’t upset me, but all I wanted to do was forget about it, and they just made it worse by acting so weird.
The one thing I learned was that you could never get over it. Not really. You just had to keep living your life, and eventually better memories would rise up to balance out the bad ones. But Dad . . . he didn’t keep going. He stopped. It was like he was sinking in quicksand.
“I’m not getting counseling, Owen,” he said. Then he reached out and shook my shoulder gently. “I’m all right. I promise.”
“Fine,” I said, my cheeks burning.
I didn’t feel like talking after that so left my pizza unfinished and went back upstairs to play some FIFA football. The game was just loading up when I heard the outside door bang shut. I walked over to the window and saw Dad’s dark silhouette moving in the garden.
Normally Dad stood tall, his shoulders pulled back like a robot doing an impression of a human. But sometimes, if he didn’t know I could see him, like now, he slouched as if an invisible weight was hanging off his shoulders and it was too much for him to take.
My stomach twisted. What was he up to? He loved gardening, but it was too dark for that now. He moved out of sight and, hesitating for just a second, I rushed across the landing to the bathroom window. I squinted through the gloom, trying to spot him again. Then three yellow squares lit up at the end of the garden and Dad’s silhouette appeared, hunched over in the middle of the shed. Mum’s shed.
I hadn’t been in there since the Longest Day. I didn’t think Dad had either, but I must’ve got that wrong, because he didn’t pause before he went inside, like I would have done. He walked straight in.
I closed my eyes and tried to remember what the paintings looked like. All the work Mum had started and not finished, or the stuff she didn’t want to sell. But I hadn’t seen them for so long that the memories were hazy. I couldn’t imagine them properly. It was like when you went on vacation and had an amazing time but a few years later you couldn’t remember what you did, just the feeling it gave you afterward.
I opened my eyes. Dad hadn’t moved. I watched for another minute, wondering what he was doing, then decided to give him some privacy. Maybe he was seeing Mum again, like I’d seen her at the game. I went back to my room and played FIFA until my eyelids got heavy.
I only realized I’d fallen asleep when I heard the scream.