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

and I start reading the first one, which is called ‘On Friendship’. It is at the top of the pile. I’m intrigued by the title, and it looks like a good place to start.

When I look up, I can see her sitting there along from me on the bed like we did that time in Santa Cruz. I mean, I know she isn’t there; I can see her all the same. Her dark hair is to her neck like it was in the photo she sent of her and Luke, although I don’t quite see her like that. She is dressed in a medical gown, and I’m wondering if this is how she looks now? I mean this instant, in some hospital ward somewhere? And then I ask a stupid question. I ask it aloud.

‘You aren’t here, are you?’

Lauren shakes her head. ‘No, I’m in your head. Mostly there, anyway,’ she says.

‘Mostly there,’ I repeat. ‘But you’re wearing that medical gown? That’s not how I think of you,’ I say.

As I wonder why I’m imagining her like this when it’s not at all how I remember her, I can see her in my head as if she’d walked out of a hospital room. Maybe that’s where she is, and that’s why I see her this way? I try to overwrite the image in my mind. I can’t do it, not even as I hold her picture.

‘I know it’s not. You remember me with the guitar. That was another life and a long time ago,’ she says.

‘I was going to write you a long love letter,’ I say.

‘But you never did,’ she says.

‘That’s true. I’m sorry about that. I’m not sure why I never did,’ I say.

‘Yes, you are,’ she says.

I nod. Of course, I am, I can’t fool myself, and I think about that letter. The one that I never wrote and never sent. After I couldn’t bring myself to get on that plane, I sat looking at a blank page on my screen for a long time. The only word I typed was Lauren. It’s what Will said that time in the motel in Santa Cruz, bad poetry was always my go-to. It’s why I wrote the songs, a small book of them that I play to myself, and no one else. They are my reminder of Lauren, the girl who I could not let go, and the one who got away.

‘You were always on my mind,’ I say.

‘I know I was,’ she says.

It turns out there was a reason for that, as we never let each other go. This whole time, we have been living like separate states, kept apart only by a mist. We were, it turns out, always connected.

‘I’m sorry about this. I know it must be hard,’ Lauren says in her notes.

‘You said in your letter, but that’s okay. I don’t mind. At least I think I don’t. Mostly I suppose I don’t know.’

‘This is going to be tough,’ she says.

‘I’m starting to get that impression. At least you won’t get to hear about how I lost Luke within minutes of my first trip to a supermarket,’ I say.

‘There will be a lot of very tough moments along the way, and one of the hardest things you’ll have to deal with is working out who is who in your relationship with your son. With Luke,’ she says.

When I hear those words in my head, ‘my son’, I am smiling, and I feel warm inside. I could never before this moment imagine that simple words would bring such joy.

‘But I’m the new dad. The brand new, just-off-the-production-line dad and I’m going to be cool. Is that a terrible cliché?’ I ask.

Trying to be the young, cool parent is – and I’m sorry to break it to you – a terrible cliché. It’s who we are. When he was born, I made this pact with myself. I was going to be like the coolest of moms, you know, the one who had great taste in music and all the essential knowledge of pop culture references that single parenting would (obviously) require. You need that stuff, right?

I smile as I read this. I’m hoping so. Pop culture references are one of my go-to tools when it comes to social interaction. It will be a source of major disappointment to find that said knowledge is of no use whatsoever in the raising of children. I start to realise that Lauren’s note explains some kind of parent trap. I don’t even know what a parent trap is. I guess it has something to do with trying not to be your parents. I’ve no idea what kind of parent my father was as I barely got to see him and then he was gone. So, I never knew what he was like as a man. That has to count as a parental failure. My mother did a great job, I might complain about it all now and again, but I’m only ever half serious about any of it as my sister and I turned out more than all right.

‘So, we’re going to be parents, only not half as cool as we think we are. That’s disappointing although not at all surprising. By the time kids grow up, parents aren’t cool, at least not cool in the way that they used to be. They’re just, I don’t know, parents. I think it’s sinking in,’ I say.

Sure, there was plenty of laughter and wonderfully happy times, and it’s funny how much you get out of watching him grow. That first smile, first step and first word. When he got older, about two, two and a bit, the temper tantrums started, and that turned everything upside down like you would not believe. All my great parenting beliefs went out the window. I found out that the word he liked to say most was ‘no’ and he said it a lot. I swear to god that some days it was all he said. I wanted