Songs For Your Mother

and TSP clasps her hands in front of her body and like that we quietly pass fifteen minutes or so. I didn’t know this would be the moment. Now that it’s arrived I know that it is. I brought Will’s ring with me. The engagement ring he bought TSP. I thought before we left today that I might give it to her, and now that I am here I know the time is right. It’s fitting and makes a sad kind of sense. I take the dark red velvet box containing the ring from my pocket, and I half turn to TSP and hold it out.
‘Will would have wanted you to have this,’ I say.
TSP nods, and she isn’t in any way surprised. She holds the box in her hand as if weighing it before she opens it.
‘It’s beautiful. Will had great taste,’ she says and smiles. It’s such a gloomy smile, and she is crying, and it is heart-breaking to watch. It makes me question again if I am doing the right thing. I worry that it’s something else that will drag TSP down, anchor her to the past and stop her from moving on. In the end, I know it’s what Will would have wanted, although I’m not sure if that makes it better or worse for TSP. I don’t know what you do with an engagement ring from a dead man.
‘Thank you,’ TSP says.
TSP takes the ring from the box and places the ring on her right hand. She looks down at it, shows it to me.
‘Perfect fit,’ I say.
‘It’s lovely. It would have been a good wedding, wouldn’t it?’
‘It would have been the best,’ I say.
The two of us stand and linger a while longer, and then we are done. We say goodbye to Will and head back to the car. We don’t talk much on the way back to London. The radio plays, and the Stone Roses song ‘Waterfall’ comes on. I never used to know what this song is about, but today I get it. It is about a woman who keeps on going no matter what. I think it’s about this.
As we drive, I find my eye caught every now and then by the cluster of diamonds sparkling in the sunlight. It’s a piece of Will right there, and this provides a sliver of comfort, I hope, to us both.
We pull up outside my flat, and I thank TSP for taking time off work and driving us today. Anytime, she says, and then she makes a small confession. Even though she knows it’s strange, and probably unhealthy, she tells me she’s been driving herself to see Will at least once a week for months now. I’d no idea she went so often.
‘I don’t tell anyone. I don’t stay for very long. Sometimes I walk over and lay some fresh flowers. Say hello and tell Will what kind of week it’s been. I know it’s probably odd, but I have to go,’ she says.
‘It isn’t odd,’ I say.
‘The thing is, I worry about not going, about forgetting Will and about leaving him behind,’ TSP says.
I feel uneasy when she says this. I know it’s partly guilt and partly that her comments strike a similar chord in me. I worry about forgetting Will and leaving him behind as well. It isn’t even slightly fair because I know that we will get to a point where he is not days and months behind us but years. He will not, as they say, ‘grow old as we grow old’. And there will come a time when we don’t go to see him much at all. Maybe once a year, a special day of remembrance; and it’s not enough. I know that moment might be distant now, but it’s out there, and it already feels like a betrayal when I know it probably isn’t. The living owe the dead something, and we have to work out how to pay that debt in our own way. I don’t know what the answer is.
‘If you ever want company, call me. I’m not exactly doing a lot,’ I say.
‘And about that, I have something for you,’ she says.
TSP takes an envelope from the car’s side pocket on the door and hands it to me. Inside she has printed out a BA airline eticket to San Francisco. The ticket is for the following week, and for a few moments I feel as if I am in heaven. This is my chance to be reunited with Lauren. I can find her and maybe we can still make this work, as despite everything I cannot escape the feeling that I have to go back for her. If there is such a thing as ‘the one’, then Lauren is it.
I hardly know what to say, as I am smiling so hard. I also know that if TSP hadn’t bought these tickets, I might not have worked up the courage to buy them myself. I was far too scared. I have been scared from the very moment I woke up, and I am still scared now. So much so that I have had trouble making any decision, but now TSP has made one for me.
‘This is incredibly generous, thank you so much. I owe you,’ I say.
‘You don’t owe me anything. Just get on the plane and go and find that girl. I want to know what happens next.’

Chapter 8
September, almost six years later
The buzzer to the flat jolts me awake like I’m strapped to a table and undergoing electric shock treatment. I lie there for a second or two in recovery mode. I have to get rid of that buzzer. I tell myself that if it doesn’t go again, I can stay in bed. It’s Saturday, it’s early, and it’s highly likely that the person at the door will be trying to persuade me that their electricity/gas/religion offer will suit my needs better than anyone else’s. At least thirty seconds pass and I start