Fragile Lies by Laura Elliot Read Free Book Online

police have no further information, no leads. The glass they found on the pier was further back from the scene of the accident so they don’t believe it’s a related incident.
    Two guards came to my apartment that night. Boys masquerading as men. I’ve heard it said that the first realisation of aging comes when policemen and doctors cease to intimidate and start to imitate our children. But those young lads did not remind me of you. They were stalwart, square of chin, solidly earthed. They’d found my address in your pocket. The words they used were careful, regulation kindness, not overtly alarming. But I knew, oh yes, even as I ran towards the hospital entrance, I knew what I would find. Tubes and machines, monitors bleeping and you, my son, clinging grimly to life. I wanted to kneel on the floor, throw back my head and howl. Old women once wisely keened their departed but nowadays we need a canyon or a cavern, not a white sterile room, to calm the fury, make the pain more bearable.
    I rang your mother from the hospital. Laura answered the phone. Your sister is only fourteen but she’s aware that late night calls come to her house for one reason only. When I asked to speak to Jean, she called her immediately. I listened to the sound of your mother’s footsteps hurrying nearer and had no idea, no earthly idea, how I would break the news to her. She hung up when she heard all she needed to hear and arrived at the hospital shortly afterwards. How shrunken she seemed, as if some vital vertebrae had been removed from her spine. Terence supported her against his chest. Laura and Duncan clung weeping to her. Your grandparents came also. A tight family circle. Nurses brought us tea and comfort, spoke in hushed nocturnal voices. A doctor with sleep grit in her eyes told us of horrendous decisions we might have to make. These are the memories I carry with me from that grief-filled night. They are memories I’ll carry to my grave.
    I can’t stop thinking about that voice on the phone. Anonymous, of course, muffled by something, probably a scarf or handkerchief, but with enough clarity to send an ambulance speeding through the night. Does she have children, I wonder? Does she worry about them at night? Has she ever felt that hand clutching her heart when the knock comes to the door and she knows the fear, the bleak, terrifying moment that nudges her awake from nightmares, is about to come true?
    At first it was impossible to imagine an hour passing, then two and three, a day, a week, months. But time is an indifferent monitor of grief and two weeks went by before Jean had the energy to come to my apartment. And when she came, she was ruthless in her need to apportion blame.
    “You got your way at last.” Her anger was a wrenching cry, far beyond my comfort. It took nineteen years, she said, but I destroyed you in the end. I promised to look after you and I failed. I threw you out on the streets when I knew how desperately you needed my help.
    “Tough love … what kind of love is that?” she demanded. “You never wanted Killian. Never! I don’t know how you can live with yourself.”
    What use is truth when it’s buried in such anguish? She placed her head in her hands as if she couldn’t bear the sight of me. Her words didn’t hurt me. They were trite accusations compared to my own self-indictment. Like me, she is unable to rest at night. There’s no closure, Killian. You were born from a careless love and it tied us both in an enduring knot. We have two stories, same source, different strands. Some day soon I’ll write our story. Once upon a time there was a young man and a young woman. They made a homeless child …
    There’s a grand stretch to the evenings. Soon it will be the longest day of the year. The cherry blossom is fading and the rooks are swirling past your window.
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    H omeless … home … less home … show way home … home on range … home sweet home … sweet Chariot … coming … carry me