YOU NEED TO HEAR MY STORY

By SemperAmare

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Below is a new tale from SemperAmare, the writing name we, being Vandemonium1 and CreativityTakesCourage, use when we co-author a story. We hope you will sit back, relax, maybe have a drink, and enjoy a little escapism with us.

If you didn’t like Van1’s ‘This is Madness’ or CTC’s ‘If You Truly Love Me’, probably best you give this cautionary tale a miss.

Please Note: Some of the content of this story may evoke strong reactions.

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WENDY LOOKED AROUND the room at all the old familiar faces, trying to find some inner peace. That place that made her feel safe, but it was proving elusive.

Understandable, she thought. Today was crusade day. Improve-the-world-just-a-little-day. Prod-the-anthill-that-is-my-memory-day. She shuddered but braced herself.

Suddenly, she became aware of the weight of the two tiny steel balls in her hand. Automatically, with practiced ease, she began manoeuvring them around each other in her palm.

It was while she was focused on the smooth rolling action of the balls that her friend Pam entered the room, bustling as always. Wendy made eye contact and beckoned her over. Pamela finished what she was doing and walked over, smiling warmly.

“Hi, Wendy. Is there anything I can get you?”

“No, Pam. Today is the day I do something for you. I need about half-an-hour of your time, not work related, somewhere quiet. Can we do that?”

“Of course, Wendy. But not today. There’s a staff meeting later when I’d normally have my break. How about tomorrow?”

A look of disappointment suffused Wendy’s face. She’d had to psyche herself up for this conversation. It had taken days and hence she’d hardly slept a wink the last few nights. The idea of another sleepless night was traumatic. She ground the worry balls in her hand and made a decision, a look of determination replacing that of disappointment.

“It’s important, Pam. It’s about the man I saw you kissing outside the back door last week. He’s far too young to be your husband.”

The simple words made Pamela freeze. She remembered the day her friend Wendy was talking about. She’d been very careful to kiss Randall, one of the chefs, where no one from the ground floor could see them. She hadn’t realised they were visible from the upper floors. The revelation was embarrassing, and very, very dangerous. If word filtered back to her husband, then she could lose the idyllic family life she’d striven so hard to build. Still, it really wasn’t any of Wendy’s business.

“Um, what I have with Randall isn’t that serious, Wendy. It’s just a little fun when…”

“Shut up, Pam! We need to talk. Urgently! Today!”

Shocked at Wendy’s demanding tone, Pamela looked at her friend as if seeing her for the first time. She had to fight the reflex to tell Wendy to butt out and mind her business. In Wendy’s hand, the balls ground together loudly.

With an expression of extreme anguish, Wendy spoke again. “Please, Pam. You need to hear what you’re risking. You need to hear my story.”

Bullshit, thought Pam. More like YOU need to tell me your story. Get something off your chest. Regardless, she decided to play it safe.

“Okay, Wendy. Let’s go to the sunroom; it should be quiet there at this time of day. I’ll just arrange some coverage then I’ll meet you there in ten or so minutes. All right?”

Wendy nodded and watched Pam bustle away before making her way to the rendezvous point.

Pamela found Wendy there at the appointed time, stress balls grinding away and a look of tension on her face. Pam was annoyed. Randall was just a bit of fun, a harmless distraction who took nothing away from Jake and the boys. She sat beside Wendy, prepared to defend her actions, but Wendy beat her to it.

“I don’t want to know if you’ve slept with the guy yet, it doesn’t matter. I can only imagine the bullshit rationalisations you’ve told yourself… probably similar to the ones I told myself.”

The remark was so out of character for Wendy that Pam was shocked to silence.

“I…I cheated on my husband and it cost me… everything.”

Pamela watched as Wendy’s eyes misted over and became unfocused. Wendy’s right hand was grinding the worry balls furiously and automatically. Being a nurse, Pam knew the balls were a distractive device, probably recommended by a counsellor or psychiatrist.  

She didn’t really want to listen to what Wendy had to say, it was hardly relevant to her. She’d been really careful with Randall, and, besides, they hadn’t gone all the way. If they did, and it was still a big if, what was the worst that could happen? She’d have to soothe some ruffled ego feathers. Maybe, eat some humble pie for a while. She couldn’t see her husband divorcing her; he would never risk losing access to his kids.

But where was the harm in hearing Wendy out? She obviously needed to unburden her soul. Pam waited, patiently.

“I don’t make a big thing of it, but I used to be a doctor. I-no, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning. I met my husband-to-be just after I finished my internship after graduating medical school. I wanted to stay in the big city so the only job I could get was in the casualty department of City General. Ronnie, the man I married, was brought in one night after sustaining a football injury. Well, I won’t bore you with the details of our courtship, but, suffice it to say, within two years we were married, I was twenty-eight by then, and within a year of that we were parents of a son…”

It didn’t need Pamela to be a world class psychologist to see Wendy was having big problems saying the name of her firstborn. Wendy was so agitated she dropped the worry balls from her hand and had to chase them around the floor. Pamela helped, picking up one. She’d never actually seen Wendy’s before, or, more truthfully, never so close up. Their appearance was unlike others she’d seen but she couldn’t place why. As soon as they were back in Wendy’s hand, she calmed noticeably.

“We decided I’d become a stay-at-home mum because Ronnie’s business was taking off and, frankly, the hours in the ER were insane. Certainly not conducive to having a family and we always wanted two children, so when my eldest was only a year-and-a-half, we had another son and I went on the pill.”

Again, the names of the children were conspicuously absent from the monologue.

“I stayed at home until our youngest was five and going to school, then someone pointed out that if I didn’t return to practicing soon I’d lose my registration. So, it was back to the ER for me. Ronnie was very supportive, and thankfully his business was doing so well he was able to change his hours so he could be there when the boys came home from school. We also hired a live-in nanny as a fall back for the times he just couldn’t be there and to help with the preparing of meals. Ronnie was an orphan and both my parents were gone by then.

“About that time, we lost a few doctors from the hospital and things just got stupidly busy. I was exhausted all the time, it was horrible.”

Wendy paused, looking anguished, and Pamela recognised they were getting to a part of the story that troubled her conscience greatly. She waited.

“I don’t know why it started and I won’t insult your intelligence by listing all the bullshit excuses I gave myself. I realised they were complete twaddle after… after it all happened.”

At this point, Wendy bowed her head but not before Pamela caught sight of the tears streaming, not just dripping, from Wendy’s eyes. It was uncomfortable for Pam to witness that much pain. She wondered how Wendy could survive such a depth of agony. How could the pain still be so powerful and raw?

Pam wanted to hug her friend but that was against the rules. She waited. Finally, Wendy continued in a very small voice. Pam had to lean in to hear her properly.

“He was a new intern in the ER and I was appointed as his mentor, my… my lover.”

Another long pause. More tears. More grinding of the stress balls. Pam surreptitiously looked at her watch, alarmed at how long this was taking. Worried at what would happen if she interrupted, she chose to remain silent and wait.

“At first we only did it at the hospital, a quickie to relieve the stress every few days. But then, stupidly, I started going to his apartment after our shift was finished. It was simple to hide it from my family, my hours were so erratic. Ronnie didn’t suspect a thing.

“I was a fool, Pam, just like you’re being with your chef toy boy. I was addicted to the sex, I think. I could do all the things with my lover that I was too afraid to ask my husband. ‘Nice girls’ just didn’t do some of the things we did.”

She stopped and shook her head, turning her tormented gaze toward Pam. Pam tensed, trying to suppress a shudder. She wanted to look away; Wendy’s stare was too intense. Too tortured. The lines of strain at the corners of her eyes, the lips thinned with pain. It was too much. She didn’t want to know any more of Wendy’s story. Every sentence now made her feel like she was intruding on something too personal to share. And worse was to come. She sensed it.

“I… I got pregnant again. I don’t know how. Just one of those things, I suppose.”

Wendy was sobbing heavily by now. Pam just couldn’t hold back her thoughts.

“It was your lover’s child?”

Wendy, too busy weeping to answer verbally, just shook her head, spraying tears onto Pam’s arm. She flinched, fancying they burned. Wendy finally got herself under control.

“I was terrified it was. And he certainly tried to get me to have an abortion, but if there was even a one in a million chance it was Ronnie’s then I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. It drove a wedge between my lover and I and I broke off with him. I… I never knew who the father was. I was still having sex with my husband occasionally: it could just as easily have been his child.

“The pregnancy was different this time. My first two were trouble free but by six months into this one I was hospitalised. The placenta had detached from the wall of the uterus and was interfering with the baby’s supply of oxygen and nutrients. She wasn’t growing so I had to have total bedrest until it was safe to induce labour.  

“Poor Ronnie, with the help of the live-in, had to do everything for our sons. They were scared and fretting so he had to cut back his hours to be with them more. It was such a stressful time for us all. The boys would want to climb all over me when they visited and cling when it was time for them to leave. The only positive out of the whole situation was it strengthened an already strong bond between Ronnie and the boys.

“That, and it made the boys beyond protective of the baby. We had to tell them again and again to be careful with Mummy because the baby in Mummy’s tummy was sick. She was special. They really took it to heart. When she was finally born they didn’t want to let anyone near her.

“She was an angel. A really good baby. I guess she knew how much she was loved from the moment she popped out. She was immediately the apple of my and Ronnie’s eye and her brothers saw themselves as her little protectors. Her knights. She took after me; there were no outward signs she was Ron’s or my lover’s, and I didn’t want to know. As far as I was concerned, she was Ronnie’s. He certainly had no clue he possibly wasn’t the father.”

Again, Wendy stopped and stared into infinity. Pam had known Wendy for five years and this was the first she’d heard of her having a husband, two sons, and a daughter. As far as she knew, she was the only person Wendy was close to. She herself was close to her mother and couldn’t see how she could go even a week without seeing her.

By the waterworks she surmised it had to be more than just Ronnie finally getting some DNA work done and absconding with the sons and daughter. The courts always supported the mother, however evil she was. Pam made an educated guess that this must have occurred when Wendy was in her mid-thirties. To still have this amount of pain and remorse, something very powerful must have happened and she knew she had to tread carefully. She didn’t want to exacerbate Wendy’s pain but, at the same time, Pamela had to get back to work.

“So, how did Ronnie find out, Wendy? How did he find out his daughter wasn’t really his?”

Wendy responded quickly and resolutely. “He didn’t.”

“Then what happened? Did he find out you’d had a lover? Did you tell him?”

The tears were all gone now. The well was obviously dry. Not that the cessation of tears lessened the look of agony on Wendy’s face. On the contrary, she now looked like all life had been sucked out of her. Like a dried-up husk. Pamela couldn’t decide which was worse.

“No, I didn’t tell him… the police did.”

WTF!

“After I did something really stupid.”

The words were tumbling from Wendy’s mouth now like a horse on the homeward straight. If Pam was any judge, Wendy was following the rip-band-aid-off-quickly principle.

“When… my daughter was about six months old, my old lover contacted me again. He was working in a different hospital by then and I hadn’t seen him for over a year. I stupidly met him and, weakling that I am, I fell into his bed again. I took to leaving the child with the old nanny we now used as a babysitter for half a day a week so I could ostensibly have some time for myself.”

‘Oh no,’ thought Pamela, ‘the stupid cow finally got sloppy and hubby found out.’ But it turned out to be far worse than that.

“That went on for about three months but my conscience was really giving me trouble. Ronnie had been so supportive during my last pregnancy, it brought us closer together. It was like I fell in love with my husband all over again. He was wonderful. He even volunteered to have a vasectomy so I never had to go through a horror pregnancy like that again. I felt as bad as it is possible to feel.

“I tried to break it off several times but I just couldn’t. If I’d been stronger I… I… I might still have a husband and children. I went one final time to my lover’s apartment determined to stick to my guns and break it off with him. He gave me a big sob story about how he loved me and begged me for one more roll in the sack.”

Wendy snorted, her look scathing. Pam saw in the look the level of Wendy’s self-loathing.

“If I’d known that was the last time I would ever have sex, I may have tried to enjoy it more. My lover had been begging me to try anal sex. I was curious and knew I would never have the opportunity again, so I gave in. He was patient and took his time, almost an hour, I think, but I never really warmed to it.”

Wendy stopped abruptly and stared at nothing. Pamela was stunned at Wendy’s revelation of how long she’d gone without sex. She herself had cut off her husband for three weeks once, when she was pissed at something he’d done, but in the end it had been her who had gone crawling back to his bed, not Jake pursuing her.

The next sequence of events happened so fast; Pamela saw them as a blur. Wendy, with a determined look on her face, carefully put the worry balls in her lap before ramming her face into the solid tabletop, not once but twice. Blood flew everywhere, spattering Pamela.

By the time Pamela reacted, Wendy’s body had slumped sideways and fallen to the ground, her head making a soft thud sound on the carpet. The muted sound did nothing to minimise the horror of the situation. Wendy’s whole body had relaxed in her unconscious state but blood continued to pour steadily from her heavily damaged face, staining the carpet.

Years of training kicked in, enabling Pamela to push her personal feelings of shock and dismay aside and raise the alarm. She didn’t allow herself to feel as she cleared Wendy’s airway of blood and a damaged denture with practiced efficiency until other nurses came to help and ambulance personnel arrived to take Wendy away.

With the crisis over, Pamela, feeling somewhat deflated by the morning’s events, went about the more mundane tasks associated with an emergency such as righting the furniture.

She picked up Wendy’s bag and headed toward the admin office, then, as an afterthought, returned to the sunroom to retrieve the worry balls from the where they had rolled. As she studied them, checking for blood spatter, she suddenly realised what it was about them that was strange. Normally, stress balls were shiny and approximately an inch in diameter. Wendy’s, however, were tiny, less than half an inch and all scuffed. Clearly, they were being ‘worried’ into oblivion. The thought made Pamela sad. Wendy, for all her failings, had always been kind and friendly to her. Pam didn’t like seeing another human being suffer. It was her desire to lessen suffering that had led her to nursing in the first place.

She put the balls in the handbag and turned once again in the direction of the admin block, passing two of the maintenance crew heading in the opposite direction. She smiled at them, glad a colleague had relieved her of the necessity of organising the cleaning.

Pamela glanced at her watch. What a morning. She wondered if there was any word on Wendy’s condition yet. Hopefully, a broken nose and damaged denture would be the extent of her injuries. Pamela could still scarcely believe Wendy’s actions. They had been out of character. She certainly hadn’t foreseen them when the Wendy had demanded a chat.

Pamela picked up her pace, wanting to offload Wendy’s bag with the administration staff as entry to residents’ rooms was strictly prohibited while they weren’t in attendance.

As she rounded the last corner before Admin, she was accosted by Dr. Parsons, the facility’s Chief Medical Officer.

“Aah, Nurse Dalrymple, just the person I was looking for. They tell me you witnessed quite a traumatic event. Please, come into my office and let’s do a bit of a debrief, shall we?”

Pamela followed the good doctor into his office, behind the main reception desk. He quickly and expertly dragged what had unfolded in the sunroom from her. Pamela felt obligated to reveal the details of Wendy’s confession in case she was at risk of making another attempt at self-harming.

Pamela felt slightly ashamed of her curiosity regarding the final chapter in Wendy’s story. She wouldn’t describe herself as someone who was a gossip hound or who revelled in the misfortune of others, but she couldn’t deny a morbid desire to know more about Wendy. What could possibly have happened to destroy her so completely? Many people had affairs and divorced. Rightly or wrongly, most went on to remarry and lead happy lives. They certainly didn’t become celibate the way Wendy had. Or self-harm.

Dr. Parsons tilted his head to the side and Pamela blushed under his keen and assessing gaze. Being caught out in her badly concealed curiosity, she felt like a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

“It’s all right, Pamela. It’s natural to want to know the end of the story and considering the extent of Mrs Harrison’s confession, I feel confident that had her guilt, shame, and remorse not gotten the better of her she would have told you the rest herself. We had hoped her days of self-harming were behind her.

“Mrs. Harrison has clearly formed an attachment to you and so I have come to the decision to show you the section of her file dealing with psychological factors that may affect her health. I think it will assist you in her future care. I warn you, it’s not a pretty story. In fact, it’s tragic. Please speak up now if you think you’re not strong enough to hear the truth.”

Pamela nodded for him to continue.  

“What I’m about to tell you has been taken directly from Mrs. Harrison discussions with me since being a resident here. Okay, where to begin?”

Dr. Parson looked down at the file open before him, his brow furrowed.

“Aah, yes. I’ll pick up the story from where Mrs. Harrison left off. The day that she went to see her lover to break up with him, the babysitter pulled out at short notice, something about a sick child at home. Anyway, Mrs. Harrison decided to take her nine-month-old daughter to her lover’s house with her.

“According to Mrs. Harrison the child was asleep in the pram when Mrs. Harrison and her lover went to the bedroom to engage in sex. Fire investigators never decided exactly what happened but they think that in all probability the baby woke and managed to crawl out of her pram. They think she may have knocked over one of the candles or a scented oil lamp the lover had lit for his seduction. Apparently, he had them all over his apartment as he knew Mrs. Harrison was partial to them. As an aside, Mrs. Harrison has hated scented candles ever since.

“Whatever, by the time the pair noticed smoke coming under the bedroom door, the apartment was well alight. According to Mrs. Harrison when she opened the door she was met with a wall of flames. She says her lover shoved her out of the window and jumped out after her. She tried to climb back in to save her daughter but the lover stopped her, and when she begged him to go back in and save her daughter he refused. The child’s body was found in the ashes. The only blessing was she died of smoke inhalation before being burnt.”

Dr. Parsons paused to let the horror of the story sink in. Pamela swallowed several times; fearful she was about to throw up on the doctor’s desk. Wendy’s story was so much worse than she had imagined. Tragic was an understatement. Wendy’s baby, her poor, innocent little girl had died. Nine months old. She couldn’t even begin to understand the guilt and devastation Wendy would have felt.

“It was the next day that the police informed her husband of the child’s fate and the circumstances of it. The husband blamed her for everything, of course, divorced her for adultery, and was awarded custody of the boys.”

At Pamela’s raised eyebrows, the doctor elaborated. “Mrs. Harrison lost custody of her sons as she’d already attempted suicide by then thus proving herself unstable and therefore unfit to care for two young boys. The two sons, who, as I’m sure Mrs. Harrison confided in you earlier, were extremely protective of their little sister, never contacted her ever again. She hasn’t engaged in any type of sexual interaction since because the mere thought of it triggers her PTSD. As you know, she was having sex while her baby was dying. Despite all our efforts, we’ve never cured her of her disorder.”

At that point his phone rang. Pamela was relieved. Despite having given him assurance she was strong enough to hear Wendy’s tale in its entirety, she wasn’t certain she could take any more. It was just too awful. She wanted to go away and digest all that she’d learned.  

Dr. Parsons stood, asking the person on the other end to wait before quietly telling Pamela he had to take the call and asking her to see him the next day. He grabbed from his in-tray what she recognised as an authorisation form and handed it to her. It gave Pam permission to enter Wendy’s room to return the handbag and make sure everything was fit to be left, perhaps for a long time.   

He let her out of his office, but before she could head in the direction of Wendy’s room the safety officer for the facility waylaid her, asking her to complete the preliminary incident report from the afternoon’s events. Pamela sighed. She just wanted to be alone to absorb all that she’d heard.

Even though she omitted details about the topic of her chat with Wendy prior to her self-harming incident, having to write the simple words, ‘Mrs. Harrison became upset over memories of her past’ was enough to bring on flashes of Wendy’s anguished words and her face. Pamela didn’t think she’d ever forget the level of pain she’d seen in Wendy’s face.

She placed the report in the manilla envelope the safety officer provided. She closed the folder in preparation of handing it over when she noticed it had already been labelled with Wendy’s details.  Even before Wendy’s confession she’d been curious as to Wendy’s age and the date of birth was right there, on the front cover of the file, so Pamela made a mental note of it.

Finally finished with all the protocols that Wendy’s self-harming incident set in motion, Pamela went straight to Wendy’s room and let herself in with a master key.

She closed the door behind her and leaned against it, surveying the room with a new, more knowledgeable eye. Being part of a facility, the rooms themselves were quite generic, though Pamela had seen a few residents personalise their space, making them more homey. Many attended the craft workshops and made things to decorate their rooms with. Wendy had done little to hers. It looked like a motel room with nice but forgettable watercolour still lifes on the wall and tasteful but equally forgettable cushions and rugs. Pamela had been in Wendy’s room on prior occasions but it struck her for the first time the lack of personal effects on display. No photos or mementos were to be found.

The room was open plan with the kitchenette, dining, and lounge all in the one area. She deposited the handbag on the kitchen counter, washed a dirty cup, tipped some milk from a carton in the little bar fridge and generally tidied up the little living area.

Resting on the kitchen bench was an A4 envelope which had been opened. The edges were torn, like a puppy had attacked it. That detail surprised Pamela; Wendy was always such an elegant and fastidious person. She looked like someone who would use a letter opener to open her mail. The envelope made the bench look untidy but Pamela wasn’t sure where to put it and so she left it where it was for the time being. She wondered as to its contents. Was it Wendy’s last will and testament? Some legal documents? Pamela’s curiosity was aroused but she resisted the temptation to look inside.

With the living area tidy, Pamela opened the door into the bedroom. It was the first time she’d been inside Wendy’s bedroom. Wendy normally kept the door to it closed. It was a generous sized room and the bed was neatly made, but it was the walls that drew Pamela’s attention.

Lining each and every wall were photographs mounted in simple black frames of various sizes. Pamela wondered why Wendy didn’t display them in her living area. A closer examination told Pamela they were arranged in chronological order, commencing from right-hand side of the bed.

The first was a black-and-white photograph of a radiant young woman, in a wedding dress, standing next to a tall, handsome man, their arms entwined, standing in front of a car with tins and boots tied to the back. Wendy had looked lovely, Pamela thought, with her delicate features and large eyes. The epitome of the radiant bride.

The next set of photos were obviously school photographs of two smiling boys in uniforms, hats, and ties. Pamela smiled at their gap-toothed grins. She could see a bit of Wendy in the younger one, and a lot of the man in the wedding photograph in the elder boy. Clearly, they were Wendy’s sons. Pamela wondered what their names were.

Beside the school photos was a picture taken outside a church. Obviously the same man as in the first wedding picture, but a different bride and they weren’t looking at the camera. The husband remarrying, Pam guessed. She wondered who had taken the photograph and shared it with Wendy. A friend perhaps? How hard it must be for Wendy to see her former husband’s happiness. To see him move on. Pamela knew it would kill her if she ever lost Jake.

A quick glance around the remaining photos revealed that the school photos of Wendy’s sons were the last of the posed photographs.

One photo on the first wall caught Pamela’s attention because no people were captured in a moment in time. Rather, it was a sad shot of a solitary headstone. The headstone was quite striking, made from black granite with a beautiful carving of an angel and flowers down one side of the front face. Pamela stepped closer to read the inscription. Sophie Harrison. So that was Wendy’s daughter’s name. Pamela’s heart gave a little clench at the inscription, ‘Tread softly, an angel lies buried here.’ She heard again Wendy’s voice describing her little girl as an angel and ached again for Wendy’s loss.

Swallowing the lump in her throat, Pamela moved to the next two photographs. They were taken from a distance, zoom shots of two graduations by the looks of it. Wendy’s sons?

Just to the right of that, another two wedding shots, taken outside two churches with two different brides and grooms. ‘Wendy’s sons again,’ thought Pamela.

Pamela turned toward the next wall. There were two collections showing various children. Pamela couldn’t help smiling. The photos captured the children in action. There was smiling, sweaty faces running on slender legs down a soccer field, lovely little ballerinas, and determined faces, a bat resting ready to whack a ball out of the park. Wendy’s grandkids were cute and wonderful. They made Pamela think of her two tearaways. They too loved their soccer and baseball.

Yet, collectively, deep down, the photos told a horrendous story of isolation. In none of the photographs was the child looking at the camera that had captured for all eternity that moment of time in their lives. Not one photo showed the child smiling directly at the camera, at the taker of the photo. It had the effect of excluding the viewer from the captured scene.

Pamela continued her slow journey around the room. Each series of photos showed both landmark and family outings.

Her circuit of the room complete, Pamela moved to the centre and slowly swivelled. Her eyes took in all of the photographs and the horror they spoke of. A wave of desolation swept through her. No wonder there always lingered about Wendy a look of melancholy. No wonder that even her smiles looked sad.

On a hunch, Pamela returned to the living area and picked up the A4 envelope. She gave it a little shake and two sheets slid out and onto the benchtop. One sheet was yet another photograph. Pamela held it up. It was of a small child, maybe around eighteen-months-old, Pamela judged. He was cute with his blond curls and big smile. Pamela could almost hear his laughter as a smiling old man pushed him on a swing while an older lady stood by at the man’s shoulder laughing. The man might be older and greyer, his shoulders not quite so broad and straight, but he was still recognisable as being Ronnie Harrison, Wendy’s husband.

The other sheet, with the header of a private investigation company, was simply a report.

Dear Mrs. Harrison,

Please find enclosed a photograph of your latest Great Grandchild, as requested. We believe they named him Joshua. The man pushing him on the swing has been identified as one Ronald Harrison. The woman, Jennifer Harrison.

Please contact us again if we can be of further assistance.

Pamela picked up the photo again. She knew exactly what she had to do with it. She hunted around in Wendy’s drawers and found some pins. Ceremoniously, she walked into the bedroom with the photo and pinned it above the bed. The only place left if she wanted to follow the sequence of photographs of husband, children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. It wasn’t framed like the others, but something told Pamela it was important to add it to Wendy’s collection.

Again, she surveyed the room. It was all so wretchedly tragic. Each photo evidence of a life lived remotely by a woman that had never seen her descendants in the actual flesh, just through an investigator’s lens. Wendy had paid a high price for her bad choices, her selfishness and stupidity.

Pamela knew she should leave but somehow she couldn’t quite make herself go. Feeling drawn, she moved to stand before the first photograph, the one of Wendy’s and Ronnie’s wedding.

Pamela admired the car the couple were standing behind. Her husband was a car nut and always dragging her to vintage car rallies. She recognised it as a 1946 Triumph 1800 Roadster. She did a quick calculation in her head. Based on the date of birth she’d glimpsed on Wendy’s file, 13^th August, 1930, the car would have been about twelve years old in the photograph. She smiled. Jake would give his right arm to own a car like that.

Still smiling, she studied Wendy’s face. She looked so happy. Radiant. Smiling up at Ronnie, her face suffused with love. An expression Pamela had never seen on her 91-year-old friend’s face. How had a woman who so clearly loved her husband lost sight of that love? How had she betrayed it?

Something, an awareness, a truth, broke free from its cage in Pamela’s mind. This room could be hers. This future could be hers. This could be her life. A life lived via someone else’s telescopic lens.

Wendy had been right after all. She did need to hear Wendy’s story.  

With a last glance back at a completely wasted life, Pamela sent Randall a text telling him to never speak to her again. Relief flooded her. She felt as if she’d managed to walk away from a car wreck unscathed.

She couldn’t wait to go home and hug her two sons. She felt an overpowering need to hold them close and never let them go. She needed to hold her husband and tell him how much she loved and appreciated him. She needed them to know they were her world, now and always. Of course, by the morning she’d want to strangle them all for having left their dirty laundry all over the floors of their respective bedrooms but she couldn’t think of three other people she’d love to hug and strangle at the same time more.

THE END

NOW A JOKE OR TWO TO LIGHTEN THE MOOD AND EASE YOU BACK TO REALITY!

CTC’s JOKE

Vandemonium1’s annual performance review of CreativityTakesCourage said she lacks “passion and intensity.”

Clearly, he’s never seen her alone with a block of chocolate.

AND VAN1’s

I was in the pub with CTC last night and I said, “I love you.”

She said, “That was the beer talking.”

I replied, “I was talking to the beer.”