Just Say It

“You still blame me don't you.
Ater all these years you still think it was my fault and that if I'd closed the gate Betsy would still be alive.”
I couldn't speak . The effort of trying to deny it paralysed me and words wouldn't come.
“ It was forty seven years ago and I was only six years old Godammit.”
He was getting angry now and still words couldn't find their way out of my mouth
“Why don't you just say it mum
YOU BLAME ME FOR EVERYTHING.”
He turned to go, but suddenly like a volcano erupting a string of sentences escaped from where they had been trapped for so long:
“I blame myself, not you. Not you Michael. You were a child. It was me. It was my fault.Please don't go. Please”
“Michael turned and looked at me, tears glistening from his eyes. A mix of love and hatred. Need and disappointment. Anger and compassion all stared back at me. Now it was he who couldn't speak.
“See you next week ” he finally said and closed the door behind him.
The tea he had brought me had gone cold and the birthday present lay unopened on my bed. How it was that I had reached eighty I couldn't fathom. Neither could I remember how long I had lived in this room. It wasn't home I knew that and I knew that there was a garden at the back because a girl came and wheeled me out there when the sun shone and wheeled me back in when it turned cold.
I lived in a cottage once. Thatched roof and roses around the porch. An AGA in the kitchen and chickens in the back yard. The children loved to collect the eggs. Still warm they were sometimes, freshly laid. Little miracles.
Michael wanted to be a farmer. He announced it one morning aged four and a half. In his wellington boots, with straw in his hair he already looked the part. Made Stan smile, which was something I can tell you.
It was the war that changed him from the bright cheery lad I had married into a silent unreachable man I tried to please and to understand. The only real joy in his life was Betsy. Blonde hair, blue eyes and a chuckle that filled the cottage with music.

She was two years younger than Michael. Followed him everywhere from the time she could walk until the time she..........

She drowned.

Four years old and we had to bury her in the churchyard and leave her there. We buried Stan in the same place five weeks later. He hung himself. Couldn't live without Betsy his note said.

Hard on Michael that was. Hard because in spite of everything he loved his father. He knew Betsy was his joy, but when Stan had a good day and said 'Well done lad. You'll grow into quite a man' Michael would puff out his chest and walk around the cottage with pride and happiness radiating from his eyes.

We left the cottage shortly after Stans death. Couldn't afford to stay. Broke both our hearts and yet it was probably for the best. Too many memories.

We stayed local so Michael didn't have to change schools. I got a job in the grocers and we muddled through. He never did become a farmer though. Went into banking. Don't know why.

Funny how I can remember things from so long ago and yet not what day it is.
Oh yes it's my birthday.

I reached for the present Michael had left me and grappled with the floral wrapping paper Chocolates.

I smiled, but not with any pleasure.

Every birthday and every Christmas he bought me the same box of chocolates.

I put them back on the bed and lookd again at the photos on my little sideboard.

Betsy was smiling at me as she did every day.

Betsy who had followed Michael out into the lane because he hadn't shut the gate properly.

Betsy who had fallen into the stream and drowned.

Betsy who had been conceived
while Stan was away …...

No I didn't blame Michael.