My son hadnt called for three months. I kept telling myself he must be snowed under at work. Eventually, I couldnt bear it any longer and decided to visit him in Manchester without warning. But when I knocked on his door, a stranger answereda woman Id never seen before, who told me shed lived there for half a year.
If I hadnt boarded that coach to Manchester that day, I might still be living with the comforting lie that Edward was simply busy.
Thats what I used to tell myself. Work stresses, a big project, young people are just like thatlife rushes past and it slips their mind to call their mother. And, truthfully, I believed it. Until I went, and what I saw outside his flat turned my world upside down.
It all started so innocently. Usually, hed ring every Sunday, around midday, between my roast chicken and his morning tea. Sometimes Id get a text midweekasking after my blood pressure, whether Id been to the doctor, or if Mrs. Baxter from downstairs was still making a racket. Just ordinary things. Since David died, those calls had become my lifeline. The one thing I clung to.
Sixty-one years old, four years a widow, thirty-two years working in the councils planning officeand then, all at once, retirement, an empty flat, and a silence broken only by that Sunday phone call.
In May, Edward stopped calling.
At first, I didnt worry. First weekI thought hed just forgotten. I sent a text. He replied, quick: Loads on, Ill ring you later. He didnt. Second weekanother text: All fine, Mum, well chat soon. The third? Silence. I called, but he didnt answer. When messages finally came, hours later, they sounded clipped, almost as if someone else wrote them.
My friend Judith, who I know from yoga at the community centre, told me straight:
Hazel, go. Somethings not right.
Maybe hes got a girlfriend and doesnt want to talk about it, I defended him, mostly to convince myself.
All the more reason he should call, dont you think? she shrugged.
Still, I hesitated. Edward never liked surprises. When David and I once visited unannounced, the look on his face was as if wed caught him hiding something dreadful, though all it was was a mess in his kitchen. That was himhe liked his own space. I always thought I understood that. Or told myself I did.
By August I couldnt take it any longer. I bought a coach ticket from Exeter to Manchesterover three hours each way. I packed a jar of my homemade strawberry jam and a box of cheesecake, because Edward always adored my cheesecake since school. On the journey, I rehearsed what Id say: that I missed him, that he didnt have to call every day, but once a week wasnt too much. That I was his mum, not a burden.
I reached his building around three. Third floor, door to the right, brown doormat with Welcome on itthe one Id got him when he first moved in.
The doormat was gone.
In its place was a plain grey mat. I rang the bell. A woman answeredyoung, around thirty, cropped dark hair, tracksuit, a mug of tea in her hand.
Hello, Im looking for Edward Thompson, I said, as calmly as I could.
She narrowed her eyes.
No Edward here. Ive lived here six months.
I stood in the hall, clutching my cheesecake and jar of jam, struggling to breathe. Sheher name was Laura, as she later told meinvited me in, perhaps thinking I was about to pass out.
Everything was different. New furniture, different curtains, freshly painted walls. There wasnt a single thing left of my son.
Laura had rented the place through an agency, never met the owner herself, everything handled by the letting agent. She gave me their number. I called right there, sitting on her sofaEdwards old sofa only months ago.
The agent confirmed it: Edward Thompson had rented his flat out back in February. No, he hadnt left a forwarding address. Yes, rent arrived like clockwork, paid from a Barclays account.
I took the last coach home to Exeter. I didnt cry; I was simply too stunned. My sonmy only son, who clutched my hand at Davids funeral, who helped me with my tax return, who once said Mum, you can always count on mehad moved out, let his flat to a stranger, and hadnt told me a word.
For three days, I didnt call. I wanted him to call me. He never did.
On the fourth day, I texted: I was in Manchester. I know you dont live on Rowan Street. Call me.
He phoned an hour later. For the first time in months, I heard his voice, not a voicemail greeting.
Mum, I Im sorry. I should have told you.
Where are you?
Silencea deep, oppressive hush.
Im in Aberdeen. Scotland. Since March.
I sank into a kitchen chair. Outside, I saw my neighbour hanging washing on her balcony. The world looked unchanged, while mine was falling apart.
Edward spoke for a long time. He told me that after his father died, he felt smothered. That my Sunday calls, my questions about his health, the parcels of cakeall of it weighed on him. He didnt know how to tell me, afraid it would break me. So, he chose the worst wayhe ran.
I felt like if I didnt get away, Id suffocate, he said softly. Not because of you, Mum. Because I thought I had to replace Dad. Fill the space he left.
I wanted to scream. To say Id never asked that of him. But when I closed my eyes and was honest, I saw every Sunday call, every story about my day, every tiny woelike he was my husband, not my son.
But I didnt say it out loud. Not yet.
Come home for Christmas, I told him simply.
I will, Mum.
I hung up and sat in my kitchen for a long while, staring. The cheesecake Id carried to Manchester sat, untouched, on the counter. I ate a piece myself. It tasted good. It always did.
Edward came back in December. He sat opposite me at the Christmas tablein Davids old seat, but not as a stand-in, not anymore. As himself: a grown man whod done a terrible thing for reasons of his own. We didnt talk about Aberdeen at the table. Perhaps we will one day. Perhaps not.
Judith sometimes asks if Ive forgiven him. I cant answer. But I know that now, when he rings on Sundaysbecause he does, faithfullyI keep my stories shorter. I ask about him instead. It isnt much, but its a start.
Sometimes, the greatest love a mother can show her grown child is to let them goeven if no one ever taught her how.
