"Text when you're home? Call if you – need – want – to?" Eleanor looked past Caroline rather than at her, and toward the Jeep. Both women were still sore and tender with spent tension.
Caroline nodded. "Yes. Thank you." Her eyes were still rimmed with red and her expression humble. She gave Eleanor another hug, absent the words and hoping gestures might fill in, and opened the door to the Jeep. "I'll be glad to have this time – to collect myself."
The air had cleared between them while Caroline collected herself for the drive, but it had not warmed considerably. Caroline wondered if she'd let her anger, her recalcitrance, go too far. Do too much damage to their fledgling sprout of a relationship.
Eleanor nodded. "Drive safely. And - I hope it goes - as well as can be expected with William."
"Thank you."
"I - well. Just - drive safely."
Caroline closed her eyes, face in Eleanor's hair. She whispered, barely audible. "I love you."
Eleanor's chest hitched. "Love you back."
"Okay then." Caroline firmed her grasp and tensed, smiled and closed the door to the Jeep.
Eleanor nodded again. Caroline watched in the side mirror as she headed to the Land Rover, waited and waved as pulled away without a glance at the Jeep.
'What could have possibly happened? Why wouldn't he tell me? What couldn't he tell me? That Strathclyde woman mentioned a girl…'
Caroline's internal monologue continued as she ticked off logical 'girl problems' in her head and followed each to their unhappy but likely conclusions. By the time she reached Oxford she'd put together some of the most likely scenarios and begun to firm her resolve.
The sky was swirling grey and autumn was previewing in full, wind consistent and trees swaying. Leaves covered fading grass.
It was quiet, midday on a Sunday, but students still circulated and the energy of the place remained unchanged to her. The geography was eternally familiar, but time had blurred the edges in her mind. Nostalgia warmed her heart as she made her way up Woodstock and searched for a spot near William's flat.
Resigned to the fact that telling his mum the full story of spring's events was unavoidable, William felt a lifting of some of the weight he carried, even as he waited. An inevitability took hold and engendered freedom and lit an anger he'd been previously unaware of. He embraced it as a welcome change from sadness. But he smiled as he greeted her and accepted a hug so strong it was suffocating. He admitted to himself that no matter his age, perhaps a hug from his mum would always be the most comforting feeling on earth. He couldn't help but also feel that perhaps things would be okay, in the end.
"William." Caroline took him by his shoulders and examined him fully, her familiar blue eyes dissecting all aspects of his person, inside and out.
"Mum." He met her eyes for a while before looking down and turning. "Come through, then."
They made their way through a small entry and upstairs to his shared suite. The common kitchen was predictably but not excessively messy. A flat mate waved and smiled and Caroline waved back. Introductions seemed unnecessary at the moment.
William's room had a definite feel of a very recent tidy. Caroline felt sure that opening a closet door would be revelatory. William had never been overly fastidious, but mess was not his natural state. 'He's struggling.'
He'd dragged a second armchair in. Caroline unwrapped her scarf and overcoat, draped it on the chair opposite William's at the window. She sat and he followed suit. The silence was heavy.
"First of all – William – are you okay? I mean, like, as of right now, are you okay?" He would tell her everything, now that she was here.
"Yes, Mum. I think I am."
"Alright. Good. So I'll just start with what I know, and you can fill in what's missing?" Caroline was stern but certainly not unkind.
William nodded.
"To be quite honest, it's very little. But I know that something requiring condolences happened with, or between, you and a girl this spring. I know that someone thought it was something that might be preferred kept secret. And I know that your summer was very, very difficult. Am I on the right track?"
He nodded again.
"So then this would be your part."
William sat back and exhaled.
"Just start at the beginning. It will get easier as you go. I promise."
He ran his hands through his hair. "Her name was – is – Annie. We'd been friends, had classes together, since we were freshers. We knew - know a lot of the same people. That is, we ended up together quite a lot, and I think that we had, you know, become good friends. We got on well."
Caroline nodded, eyes never leaving William and certainly with no intention to interrupt until he'd had a chance to expel the entire tale and the troubles that came with it.
"Last February – there was a party. It was themed, it was for Valentine's day."
'Ah.' Dominoes quickly lined up and tumbled in Caroline's head.
"I suppose, perhaps, you can see where this part of the story goes."
Caroline's pony tail swung down to her shoulder as she nodded and leaned forward, elbows on her jeans and hands clasped together as she looked at her trainers.
"Well, it was late March when she came to me." William went away for a moment.
She saw him buckle, a little, recalling what she could imagine was a very angry, sad, and shocking conversation that would change his life forever. Perhaps tucked in the corner of the noisy and oblivious dining hall. Perhaps under blossoms on a bright spring day. Perhaps in this very room.
Caroline got up, smiled at him quickly, grabbed a box of tissues from the desk. She offered one to him and he accepted, before sitting back down with the box. She blew her nose and swiped at her eyes, nodding for him to continue.
"It's alright William. Really. I'm sorry to be a mess already."
"It's okay, Mum." He snuffled and blew his own nose. "So, she came to me in March. She was pregnant. She'd done a test. A few tests." He looked out the window. "We were both dazed. In a shock, you know. For a few days. We didn't say much to each other, just kept turning up together and sitting in silence. Like if we waited it might all of it go away. Or something."
"No such luck." Caroline could not help her sharp tongue, but her tone was soft.
"Yeah. So we talked about things. You know, options. She wasn't sure if she wanted to keep it. I wasn't sure – what I wanted, you know, or wanted for her. But that didn't really matter, it was her decision in the end. But I – I. Ummm, it's not that I don't want to be a father. But mum, you know, not now. I couldn't. It was overwhelming. I felt like my head was full of cotton. It was all I could think about, but the more I thought about it the more I couldn't think about it clearly at all. I was just paralyzed."
He blew his nose again and was clearly catching momentum in his tale as the relief of telling, the act of saying the words always giving perspective to a magnitude of pain.
"So she said she wanted to tell her parents. And I said, yeah, yes, of course. You should tell them. You know, if that's what you want to do. That's the right thing. Of course."
"Why didn't you tell me?" Caroline's posture tensed by a millimeter and she tried not to plead with her eyes. Possibly to no real success.
William nodded vigorously. "Well I was going to, you know, after she spoke to her parents. I suppose, you know, that I didn't want to. I really didn't want to. I knew you'd be disappointed. So disappointed. That was the worst of it. I mean, I knew you'd understand, at the end of it all, but I just knew how disappointed you'd be. And sad, mum. You've had enough sadness. I thought I could handle it. Like a man, you know, a real man. Not like dad. Not like some sod who came and laid all his troubles at your door and waited for you to fix them all. And I was - handling it. I am handling it."
"Oh William. I feel as if I've really, really let you down. It's my job. It's my main job, it's my biggest responsibility, to be here for you. Always. No matter what happens, no matter how old you are, no matter what's happening on my end." 'Just handling it all himself. Just like his mum. Won't ask for help, no matter what.'
He nodded again. "Well she told her parents. And they were livid. Just, like, completely livid. They're first generation from India and they hadn't wanted her at Oxford in the first place – they're – like – religious. Anyway, this was almost April, now, nearing end of term. But they pulled her out of University. They didn't really give her a choice, just told her it was home or nothing. And we both, I mean, neither of us was ready for that. To make a go of it together. We – it's not as if we were in love." He looked down, clearly ashamed.
"Okay. I mean I get it. I totally get it. I might've done the same, in their shoes."
"Yeah, probably." William worried his tissue and studied the floor. "So she left. She was gone. One day she was here, you know, and then she was gone." His voice become rough and he trailed off.
"I'm sorry." Caroline was becoming increasingly anxious about the outcome. Whether there was a little William running around she'd no idea even existed. Joy and terror were at loggerheads.
"Well it was for the best. That she went home, I suppose. Because, ummm. Because about three weeks later." William was struggling visibly now, as the story came to a close and his emotions peaked. "Because she lost the baby. It wasn't, umm, it wasn't because anything, really. She lost it, was all. I guess that happens."
He took a ragged breath and continued. "At least you know that's what she said happened. And I believe her. I mean, there's no reason she'd lie. So that was that. And it was over. And then term was over. And I just didn't even know what to do with all of it. It all happened, and then all of a sudden it was as if it had never happened. It was unreal but there was still this aftershock. And then I came home. I – I didn't know what to say. Or where to start. I just, I thought it would get better on its own. But it didn't. And the more time that passed, the harder it was to say something."
Caroline nodded as her son's actions, his approach to those closest to him, again echoed her own. Carrying something that you desperately wanted to share but had no idea how to unload on the people you loved. 'You never stop seeing yourself in them, do you?'
"We can do this together, William." She blew her nose a final time and straightened in her chair. Now she was in familiar territory – now was action and dealing with consequences and forward. "I'm glad you finally told me. I'm glad this isn't a secret between us. Because it wasn't all your dad's weakness that did me in. Because we're all of us weak, at some point. I mean, sure, yes, he was pretty spineless, when it came to it."
She smiled and gestured with her tissue. Her anger at John, and the collateral damage he continued to dish out got the better of her tongue. "But you know it was the lies. It was the lies he kept between us, that really really did it in the end. Lies, they poison things. They create great chasms between people, and sometimes they're just too big to cross. I don't want to have a chasm between us, William."
"Me neither mum." He shook his head. "I'm glad you know now. I'm so, so sorry it all happened, sorry for what I've done. And I'm sorry for Annie, most of all. Because I don't think she's going to be the same. And I don't know how to make up for that. I don't know how to make it right. Because I'm just going to keep going, and I don't know, I don't know how I'm going to be at the end of it all. But I think it's harder on her. And I wish it weren't. That's not fair. I don't know what my responsibility is here, my atonement."
Caroline stood as tears she thought she'd finished renewed. She opened her arms, because she needed to hold her son as much as she instinctively knew he needed to be held.
"Oh my good, good, strong boy. Where in the world did we go right with you? How did you go so right? How am I so lucky?"
William sobbed. Sometimes kindnesses cut sharpest at the shame. "I love you mum. I'm so sorry. I love you. I'm sorry."
"William I love you so much. From the day you were born until the day I die, you will be the thing I love the most, and the most amazing thing I've ever done."
He nodded, face in her shoulder, and held on to her more tightly.