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

Dear Johnny, no scratch that, I think I would probably have called you Jon by now, don’t ask me why, it’s a feeling – oh will you listen to me? I must sound nuts. I promise that I’m not as strange as this letter might suggest.

Susan makes a sound with her throat, signalling her humorous take on this, and places the letter back onto the table, tilts her head, and looks to me.

‘So, can I call you Jon too? I’ve always wanted to,’ Susan smirks.

‘No, you haven’t and don’t be mean. Read on a bit,’ I tell her, knowing what part Susan is about to hit next. That was as far as I’d got. It was then that I sank. I couldn’t read any more as I was falling through water like a man clutching a heavy weight to his chest. Susan looks down at the letter and starts to read aloud again. I find that I am holding my breath and I know exactly why. Hearing it out loud is worse, or rather it hits home harder than hearing the words in my head. It is as if the words have come alive on the page and their effect is more powerful.

That wasn’t how I wanted to start this letter. I wasn’t even sure if I could. Now that I’ve got going I hope it will be easier, maybe at least a little, as this letter is tough for me to write. Luke is your son. Well, our son. That sounds strange, it isn’t something I’ve been able to say over the last few years. He has always been my son and no one else’s, and I’ve treasured that. He is ours, though, at least in this letter, in this place if nowhere else, and it is a treasure I am now sharing with you. God, it makes me so sad to write it down and I am trying really hard not to cry my way through this.

You have to know that I absolutely wouldn’t be doing this and writing to you if I’d any other choice that made the smallest piece of sense. I would never have sent you Luke or looked for you if there was another way. There isn’t an easy way for me to tell you this. So, I’ll say it straight. I’m dying. It’s the big C, brain cancer, and I don’t know how much time I have left, only that it isn’t very much.

Susan looks up at me for a second, and huffs at me.

‘Okay, so now I feel appalling. I’m sorry. You had me making fun of,’ and she pauses and mouths her next words, ‘a dying girl who is the mother of your child. I’m now the kind of person that campaigns get started about on social media. I would be trolled for days. And I still don’t know what to say.’

‘Nor do I,’ I say. ‘It’s been that kind of day.’

‘I can’t read this. It’s too much. You should read it alone.’

I shake my head; that feels like the last thing I should do. The only thing I know for sure right now is that I need Lauren and that’s not going to happen. I urge Susan to keep reading.

‘You owe me,’ Susan says.

‘I always do,’ I say, and Susan sighs and reluctantly continues.

After everything I said about fate, and no names or numbers, it was me who tracked you down. I had your surname; you let it drop that night as we sat and played the guitar. I had your picture too, so I’m sure you can imagine with some help from Google, it wasn’t that hard. I’m sorry I left it so long. The truth is, hard as it is to say, you broke my heart when you never came back. I was so sure you would. I convinced myself it was going to happen. As the days started to pass, weeks and then the months, I knew I wasn’t going to see you again. Was it such a smart play in the end not to exchange details? I still think it was, even now. I still love the idea of scattering things to the wind and seeing where they fall. This is where they fell. I don’t think the outcome would have been that different if we had exchanged names and contact details. Not really.

I suppose I should say that I wasn’t right about everything. I thought you were coming back. It wasn’t because you said you would, it was more than that. It was everything about that night. I thought that’s what it added up to and where it was heading. That’s what made sense. I wondered for ages what happened to you after we parted company in Santa Cruz that morning outside my old apartment building. And then afterwards I wondered some more. I was always pretty generous when it came to you on that, and I told myself you probably had a good reason for not returning. I guess I’ll have to ponder on that one still. I know Josie will be much harder on you. You’ll have to forgive her for that. She’s always looking out for Luke and me. This is no different.

I toyed for ages with contacting you. I think, as I said more than five years ago, we tempted fate, which is one of the bravest things any of us can do as it takes faith, and I always wanted some of that. It didn’t turn out how I expected. I don’t know about you, I guess it didn’t turn out how you expected either.

Anyways, so here’s the deal. I know this is a huge thing to drop on someone out of nowhere. I don’t think it gets any bigger, more so when I don’t know what your life is like now or what this might do to it. You have to understand, as I said at the start of this letter, I wouldn’t do this to you