'It is a cliché to write a poem about your mother, but how could I not when you're all that I ever think about?'
It didn't take long for my hands to start trembling and the tears to come pouring out as I fell into the trap of reminiscing over the years I thought I had forgotten. I saw Kacey smiling, that little girl, only beginning to see the troubles the world can throw at her. I'd seen her through it all and now getting ready to leave to go to America with her mother's approval, seeing what might have happened if I had done what Stewart wanted, or if I had gone through with what I thought was right. I told Carol that she might lose everything; the way I lost my daughter. I couldn't even bare thinking now about the woman I am from what I wanted to become.
He caught me at the clinic before dragging me out into the car, I'd just been about to get changed to have the procedure. 'HOW COULD YOU WE DIDN'T EVEN GET A CHANCE TO TALK ABOUT IT?!' 'Stewart…..I didn't…..you got to me before.' I folded my arms around my waist protectively of my stomach although I wasn't keen on the idea of the living life inside. 'We both need a say in this, you don't get to decide to kill our baby and you can't just choose for the both of us, what about what I want?' 'And what about me, I have to carry the baby, I have to give birth, and we're young.' 'That doesn't matter.' He shot back. 'I….I just don't want a baby.' I cried out. 'Well I do!' he put his hands on my shoulders forcing my face to look into the deep pits of his eyes. 'Make a deal with me.' He wasn't asking, he was saying, a compromise for the both of us. I didn't move or answer, I just stared. 'Have the baby.' I stuttered and he put a finger to my lips. 'Have the baby, I'll raise it up, and you can have time to think about things, mull it over.' 'I don't need to mull things over, I know how I feel, I can't explain it, I just do.' I bit my bottom lip. The naïve, young self that was easy to swerve answered like I wasn't myself. 'Ok I'll do it.' I nodded regretting every syllable that left my mouth.
'So a little girl eh? You two are incredibly lucky.' I forced a fake smile as Stewarts arm one draped around my shoulders, the other sat on my knee as his mother sat there handing down the shawl that had been passed down the generations. I felt a bit like a pass the parcel as many hands seemed to press on my ever growing stomach that I didn't like protruding out to the point where I tried to conceal it as much. I groaned slightly as another came to poke around like they all had the right, I felt myself shy away as her made the remark 'Already tired wee lass, you won't be much better after she's born, the baby will give you many a sleepless night.' 'I'm fine. Stewart takes good care of me.' This was true, we really did love each other but with the pregnancy pushing us apart it was more like he tried to keep me comfortable to produce the life he couldn't on his own. A bit like a human incubator. I remember sitting on the edge of the bed, having a breakdown, gripping onto the covers, my hair. Catching my reflection in the mirror, maybe even slightly ashamed as to what I found.
'Come on Nik, one last push, you can do it!' Stewart's voice echoed in my ear, wiping the sweaty hair out of my forehead, luckily I had short hair anyway, a lot of it had been tied back into a makeshift ponytail in-between the contractions on this tidal wave journey. Eventually with a gush of what could be called relief, relief from the physical pain but not from the emotional pain that was always going to follow both of us; I was presented with his little girl, a screaming blood covered baby, perfectly healthy, ten fingers and ten toes. Most people say there is a moment now, a moment when you look into your babies' eyes and see and feel that everything was worth it, all the pain and regret vanished and you're left with a feeling of euphoria and excitement over this vulnerable little life. I didn't feel anything.
Eventually when I was discharged and Stewart was going to take Eve home….he named her Eve. Her wrinkled forehead creased as she rolled about in the little hospital crib, her hat a pale pink like the walls he had painted carefully checking each tin to make sure it wouldn't be toxic. Wrapped in the shawl like a precious artefact. Tears were dripping although I had done this, it would never be over. 'I know you'll take good care of her Stewart. I'm sorry.' I gave him the little bear for Eve and the instructions to say I was dead…she'd find it easier with me simply erased from her life, no child deserved to grow up feeling unwanted and Stewart wanted her so badly, he'd be the perfect father. But I had to do it my way, the only thing I knew how to do was to run.
Things seemed to fall into place after that, months into my recovery it was almost like it hadn't happened at all. I moved to Glasgow for the job, being English teacher and head of the PRU had appealed to me, with my experience from the army and bettering yourself with situations that sometimes got out of hand. I remember the time when I told Kacey I wasn't touchy feely like the others but I cared; I couldn't be a monster could I? I did want the best for the students and I did want the best for Eve, her best didn't involve me.
When Stewart asked me if I'd seen anyone. He didn't need to know about her. Lorraine. Secretly I pined over her feeling guilty then, I hadn't told anyone not even Tom my ex-best friend about Eve or Stewart as Lorraine and a lot of the staff assumed and thought I was gay. I don't know whether I was exactly, I think I went with Lorraine because she was the polar opposite and there was strictly no chance of anything to this calibre happening again. It brought out a different side to me. I remembered the kiss of her red lips against mine, my tongue fighting for dominance in hers, hands running through each other's hair, biting her bottom lip. He didn't need to know, after all what I had said or what I had thought is that someone like me, with what I'd done, seeing Eve's disappointed face, why did I deserve to be happy
When I watch the car drive away, when my eyes caught her's for the last time, it reminded me of the day she was born, it seemed to merge the time lapse. From when I first held her in my arms, breathless from the exhaustion of bring her into this cruel, sometimes unforgiving yet beautiful world, where she was to be loved…just I wouldn't be the one to give it to her. A little innocent baby that can't fend for itself, it's eyes watering out, crying for its mother, food, the need for survival and a teenage girl, more mature with the eye liner accentuating her upper lid, so beautiful just not mine or what felt like just another child in the playground. I almost wished I hadn't been so professional with her, held her in my arms and never let her go. She had made the effort to find me, wanting to know me, not believing why I had been hidden but I had crushed a young girl and all her dreams and that was unforgivable.
It is cliché to write a poem about your mother, but how can I not when you are all that I ever think about. I lie awake at night and wonder how it would be to have you tuck me in at night as a small girl, read a bed time story or now as I grow teaching me about boys and life as a grown woman. Wishes can come true and my dream is one day I'll meet you and pass on this. I've dreamt you were an angel, and we soared right up into the sky, you were my saviour, the one to save me from oppression from mankind. In the end you're my mother and you're only human, but how can I sleep knowing you're out there and wondering if you think of me too?
Maybe she'd got the talent and natural flow of English from me, the stubbornness again and the gorgeous eye's from her dad, dark hair from me. Don't flatter yourself I thought letting the car key cut into my hands enough to hurt to keep me in reality not thinking about the possibilities if I had done life differently but the reality and where I had left myself although I let it be superficial and not tear the skin. That's why when I read those words, turning to blood on the page before my eyes I couldn't do anything except cry out, dry my tears, before pulling myself together and driving away to my flat; empty and feeling more alone than ever wishing maybe just maybe time could reverse.