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

unscrew the lid for him. He turns it upside down and starts to shake until a great dollop hits the centre of his pile of fries. He then hands me back the bottle. I put the lid back on and watch him as he picks up his burger and takes a bite. He starts to chew and nod.

‘Good,’ he says.

I smile and take a bite of my toast, and the two of us sit and eat. I check my phone, WhatsApp, Twitter and Instagram, and hope Susan arrives soon. Her latte arrives a minute later and, as I look over my shoulder, I can see her coming through the door. She is slim with long dark hair to her shoulders, which is tied back, and she is wearing jeans and a white blouse and a black linen jacket with a scarf. After she walks in, she immediately stops before slowly walking over to the table and slides in next to me as she looks at Luke. Her mouth opens. She appears to be about to speak. For a moment, however, she doesn’t say anything. Susan shakes her head, and I know that she can’t quite comprehend what she’s seeing. This makes total sense. I can’t believe it either.

‘I thought somehow when I got here it would be a bizarre prank, that there wouldn’t be any child, as that seemed more likely than this,’ Susan says.

‘Tell me about it,’ I say. ‘Luke, say hello to Susan.’

‘I’m Luke, and I’m five.’

‘You’re five?’

‘I’ll be six next year.’

‘Lucky you, so will I,’ Susan says.

Luke looks unsurprisingly confused by this, which is fair enough as Susan hasn’t been six for a very long time.

‘It’s okay, Luke, Susan’s joking, she’ll be thirty-two. She can’t count very well.’

‘I can count,’ Luke says, and he starts to count loudly.

Susan and I sit there and look at Luke as he counts away. Heads turn, and I do what I have seen other parents do and stare straight ahead. I almost think about joining in. Luke counts very slowly and precisely. Maybe all children count at this speed. Perhaps it’s how children or five-year-olds count. When he gets to thirty, I stop him.

‘You can count really well, Luke.’

‘I can count to a hundred,’ he says.

‘Wow, did Mommy teach you?’ I ask.

Luke nods. ‘I can count more. l learnt at school,’ he says.

‘Maybe later,’ I say. ‘We can practise our counting together.’

‘Johnny, what on earth are you going to do?’ Susan asks.

I wish Susan hadn’t put it like that. It makes it sound like I am in some desperate situation from which there’s no way out. Then it hits me. Crap. Maybe that is exactly the situation I am in. I feel myself physically deflate. Susan raises her eyebrows.

‘Luke, would you like another drink and a new straw?’

Luke nods enthusiastically at this. Susan stands and takes his hand and leads him over to the counter and the waitress. They chat for a moment before she comes back and Luke and the sad, sweet Spanish girl continue to talk.

‘I thought we could have a talk while Luke gets another drink. I don’t know what to say. It’s only that you can’t have a child. You can’t. No offence or anything, but it’s the single most ludicrous thing I’ve ever heard. I mean ever. I don’t mean that you never could… just maybe not right now. Sorry, you know I don’t mean to offend you.’

I shake my head at this. Not because I disagree. Quite the opposite: Susan’s words ring horribly true. She’s right, and I can’t bring myself to argue with anything she’s said. I can’t have a child, at least not right now… and yet here I am.

‘It’s okay, I know you don’t. Read this, it might help,’ I say, and I pull the letter and the pile of loose sheets from the envelope Josie gave me. This time a photo falls to the floor. It lands face up, and I recognise it in an instant. It’s the picture that Lauren took of me as I sat on her bed playing guitar. The one Luke mentioned. It is the only thing that links us, and it reminds me again of another life that I could have lived until my Sliding Doors moment. The photo is like an artefact, the first of many we might have taken together, but never did. It kills me that this is the only picture that Lauren took, and that it was all Luke had.

I pick up the photograph. She must have printed it out. It looks old and is faded by the sun. She must have stuck it somewhere and kept it as a record. I realise how it all happened, how Lauren and Josie tracked me down. I was sitting on her bed, and I mentioned how ‘Wild Horses’ had been a favourite song in our house growing up. I’d given her my name. She had my picture and full name, I guess Google did the rest. There are plenty of pictures of me online linked to my journalism.

I hand the pages to Susan. She turns them over in her hands, examining the bundle as if she were looking for clues.

‘Did you read the letter yet?’

I shake my head. ‘Not quite.’

‘Not quite – are you serious? You have to read it,’ Susan says.

‘I read the first bit, and then I was… I don’t know, there was a lot to take in. I thought I’d wait until you got here. The point is, everything is in the letter. Will you read it for me?’

‘Well, I am curious, and this is all so bizarre so yes I will. You know I’m still expecting this to be some elaborate joke, right? You know that don’t you?’

‘I do. I was pretty much thinking the same at the beginning. Then I started reading the letter and now not so much,’ I say.

Susan pulls the letter out of the envelope and holds it in her hand. She looks to me and