Songs For Your Mother Gordon MacMillan (good books for 7th graders .txt) 📖

‘Seriously? Your first instinct is to take him to a fast-food restaurant and give him a burger. I know he’s American, still, that’s distressing,’ Rachel says.

‘We’re all Americans now, that’s what freedom from Europe means. Deal with it,’ I say.

Rachel huffs her vegetarian displeasure at this. I’m going to take him to the Shakespeare Café. It’s not bad, and it’s not McDonald’s. Besides, he wants a cheeseburger. I don’t know much but I do know that denying small children leads to loud expressions of displeasure followed by tantrums and tears. With the kind of morning this has been so far, I’d like to avoid this at least until I have a plan.

‘Come on, Luke, breakfast awaits, let’s go,’ I say.

We walk out of the flat and down the stairs and then we are back where it all started less than half an hour ago: outside the front door where Luke arrived. It already feels like much longer. Josie was here and then she wasn’t. She could not bear to stay a minute longer than she had to. When we get to the end of the path, and are standing awkwardly together on the street, for a moment I think Rachel is about to kiss me. Instead she misses my face as she gives me a hug. She holds me for about two seconds before releasing herself.

Rachel bends down, so that she is on Luke’s level, and gives his hand a small squeeze.

‘Luke, it was nice to meet you,’ she says, and to me: ‘Good luck, JC, and I mean that.’

Rachel gives us both a wave and moves to leave and then she turns back and looks at the two of us standing on the pavement. I am wildly optimistic for a moment, and think she has reconsidered, and has decided to stay and help me.

‘You know, he looks like you, I can see it. It’s funny. I can see him when I look at you. He’s definitely yours.’

I glance at Luke, and again I’m not sure. I’m trying to work out what it is that Rachel sees in Luke that I don’t.

‘Really?’ I say.

‘Oh definitely, yeah. Luke, you look like your daddy,’ Rachel says.

Luke looks at Rachel and me, and he doesn’t say anything. He looks confused, we both do.

‘Rachel,’ I say.

‘Sorry, it’s true, and you’d better get used to it. I’ll see you around,’ Rachel says in that way that people do when they do not plan to see each other again any time soon. ‘Bye Luke,’ Rachel says, and she turns and starts walking down the street towards Finsbury Park station and freedom.

‘Where is the naked lady going?’ Luke asks.

I shake my head. ‘She wasn’t naked she had clothes on,’ I remind Luke, to make sure we are clear on this point should this later come up at a child services hearing. ‘Besides, I don’t think she likes cheeseburgers, Luke. She’s more a plant-based-burger girl.’

Luke shrugs at this information, which seems like the appropriate response, and with that the two of us walk on down the road. As we walk, I’m thinking about vegetarians again, and about how Lauren, when I met her, was working in a vegetarian restaurant. I can picture Lauren. I can see her sitting there, and I can remember her apartment building, her bedroom and her guitar. The words though aren’t all there. We talked about a lot of stuff that night, and I don’t remember all of it. The music though, that’s still all there and I can hear her playing that song, ‘Fleeting Memories’, which remains as persistent as ever.

I also think about the songs I have been slowly writing in the years that have passed since I first met and then lost Lauren. I look down at Luke as I’m thinking this, and wonder again how I got here?

I know the answer in terms of the hard-cold facts. The history, biology and geography that led to this moment, however, that alone, doesn’t answer the question. Or at least it doesn’t do so satisfactorily. There has to be something more to it, and I think it is something like the unknowable human connection, the magic of the universe, which brings people together and makes life what it is.

Chapter 10

Luke and I wander slowly along the street. As we walk, he holds his hand out to me. I’m slow and not immediately sure what he wants. He continues to keep it there like it is waiting to grab something from the air. Then I get it, he wants me to hold his hand, and so I take it as he clutches his toy to his chest with the other.

As we walk, I call Susan. She lives up the street from me, and the Shakespeare Café is one of our regular meeting points. If I had an emergency contact number written down anywhere it would be hers. She is often my first call when something happens or goes disastrously wrong. Luke’s arrival this morning definitely falls within those two stools. Something has definitely happened, and it might be a disaster. Susan is never going to believe this.

I hit Susan’s name in my recently dialled, and she answers almost immediately. This tells me she was probably reading the sidebar of shame on her iPhone or looking at Twitter.

‘It’s early for you on a Saturday to be calling, isn’t it?’ Susan says.

‘True, and I bet you’ve been to yoga or done a run or something ridiculously healthy.’

‘I haven’t been anywhere, I’m only just up. I was at a party last night, and it was late and I’m feeling sorry for myself.’

‘A party, where was my invite?’

‘I couldn’t take you. The party tickets were in short supply. Besides, you were otherwise engaged with Ms Darkness herself last night, having commitment-free fun with vampire girl. But, weirdly, you want the commitment, don’t you? You know you only want it because you can’t have it? It’s hilarious. I should thank you more often for keeping