Set Me Free Read online

I had to take a breath before I answered. “I don’t know. I don’t know if it is. Some things he said . . . I don’t know. Maybe. I hope so.”

  “I just hope that whatever happens, you’ll be happier than you’ve been in the last few years, because I know that things have been very hard for you.”

  I was too choked to reply.

  “Why don’t I come down for a couple of weeks?” she said, and I was so happy she’d offered. I didn’t want to ask because I knew she was under so much pressure running a busy coffee shop.

  “That would be wonderful. Thank you, Mum.”

  “I’ll speak to Michael and see what we can arrange for cover, okay? Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll come down soon.”

  When I put the phone down, the house didn’t seem so empty any more.

  That night, at dinner, the children didn’t notice their dad wasn’t there. He was hardly ever with us in the evenings anyway. But I felt Lara’s eyes on me, studying me. She was no doubt wondering why I was so pale and why my eyes were rimmed with red. She was quiet during dinner, and later she stood in the bathroom doorway as I bathed Leo.

  “Are you okay, Mum?”

  “Yes. Don’t worry. We’ll speak in a little while, after I put this young man to bed.” I began lathering my son’s dark hair with no-tears shampoo.

  “Okay,” she said in a small voice.

  “Nothing to worry about,” I called as she walked away, but my tone denied my words.

  Later, after Leo’s bedtime stories, it was time to share a cup of chamomile tea on Lara’s bed. It was a little ritual we’d started when she began having trouble sleeping, and it had become precious to both of us. The tea and honey helped her sleep better, but it was having some time together, alone and in peace, that made the difference for both of us. She probably felt it was a terribly uncool thing to do for a teenager and would have died if her friends knew, but they didn’t need to – when it was just the two of us, she could still be my little girl.

  Tonight, though, there would be no peace. I had to tell her about her father and me. I hesitated in front of her room and rested my forehead on the bright-yellow wooden plaque with her name painted on it. I braced myself and knocked at the door.

  “Hey.” She was on her bed, writing in her journal. Since she’d read Anne Frank’s diary a couple of years ago she’d taken to writing to “Kitty”, just like Anne had done. There was a little pile of books on her bedside table, as always, topped by her yellow iPod.

  “What are you reading?”

  “Jane Eyre. It’s brilliant. It’s part of next year’s curriculum, but Mrs Akerele gave me the reading list and I’d thought I’d start it now.”

  “That’s good,” I said, resting her steaming mug on her bedside table. She sat up cross-legged, her back against the pillows. Her dark-golden hair was up in a bun and blue-rimmed glasses framed her face. A spattering of yellow flower stickers decorated the wall behind her, still unchanged since she’d first arrived. I’d offered to refresh it for her many times, to make the decor a bit more suitable for a fourteen-year-old, but she always refused. I think her old room made her feel safe.

  “Mum, what’s wrong? Is it me? Is it me upsetting you?”

  “No, of course not, sweetheart.” Another painful breath. “Something happened between your dad and me today. We decided to take a little break from each other.”

  I felt so guilty. With all the upheaval she’d experienced in her life, I couldn’t believe we were going to unsettle her again. When we’d adopted her, we never, never thought it would come to this. I hadn’t, anyway.

  “You are separating,” she said matter-of-factly, and stirred her chamomile, gently blowing to cool it down.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I knew it would happen. I mean, I’m not blind.”

  The same thing my mum had said. It seemed like the people around me could see my life more clearly than I could.

  “I suppose we didn’t hide it very well.”

  “He’s never here. When he is, you don’t talk, apart from what you really need to say to each other, like stuff about the house or us or things to do. You don’t even look at each other sometimes,” she said.

  To hear it spelled out – the reality of it, and the fact that our daughter had been so aware of it all along – hit me hard.

  “What happened at Grandma’s . . . well, that was bound to make things worse.”

  “I’m sorry,” I repeated, too choked to say anything else. “We tried. We just don’t seem to get on, we don’t agree on anything. We just . . .” I shook my head, unable to say any more.

  “I think it’s also because of me. Because of . . . you know, the way I’ve been. The way I get angry.”

  “No, no, Lara! It’s not like that at all!” I exclaimed, putting my mug down. “Oh, please don’t think it’s your fault. None of this is your fault. Your dad hates seeing you upset. He finds it hard to see you going through this.” I would never, never tell her what he’d really said. “It’s not because of you or Leo. It’s us, it’s Dad and I. We just don’t understand each other. We haven’t understood each other for a long time now.”

  “I think that if we hadn’t come along maybe you’d still be together,” she said, and I saw her scrutinising my face, like she was frightened of what I would say and at the same time desperate for reassurance. The thing was, from Ash’s point of view she was probably right. If the children hadn’t opened this deep, deep fracture between us we would still be together, Ash unthreatened in his selfish little world of work and golf and fancy watches, in his never-ending, never-to-be satisfied quest to impress his parents and make them proud of him. He’d still have me all for himself, exclusively his. Lara’s words echoed Ash’s, in a way; they certainly echoed his thoughts.

  I looked into her eyes, and told her the truth. I told her my truth, not Ash’s.

  “I don’t even want to think about you and Leo not being in my life.”

  I saw her relaxing a little at my reply, and I stroked her face, tucking a wavy strand of hair behind her ear.

  “I’m sorry you’re upset, Mum.”

  “I’m sorry too.”

  “We’ll be fine.”

  I smiled a little. It should have been me comforting her; instead she was trying to reassure me. “Yes. We will be.”

  My mum came to London and worked her magic on all of us. She was such a positive, loving, cheerful person; it was impossible not to be happier around her. But when she left, things started going downhill again. Ash barely saw the children, and he’d started phoning less and less. Every time he did, we fought. Lara kept having night terrors and she seemed to explode for no reason. Her anger was never directed towards Leo or me, but she seemed to be falling out with all her friends. She got a few warnings in school – they were shocked, because Lara had always been a model pupil. I’d explained to them about her background and I’d told them that Lara’s dad and I had just separated, but there was only so many allowances they could make for her rages.

  One morning I got a call from Lara’s school, summoning me. I knew it would happen, sooner or later, but I was horrified all the same.

  They said that Lara had shouted at Mrs Akerele, her English teacher, in the middle of a lesson, that she’d gone into a complete rage in front of the whole class and would not calm down. They’d sent her to the head teacher’s office, but she was so distraught that she’d ended up in the nurse’s room with a cup of sugary tea. A million thoughts raced in my mind – and of those thoughts, the one that screamed the loudest was that I’d failed her. I’d seen this coming, and I’d done nothing.

  But what could I have done?

  How easy, how automatic, even, it is for mothers to take the weight of the world on their shoulders, to feel responsible for every little piece of their children’s world. As if we were omnipotent, as if somehow we should know how to shield them from everything, and we should do that all the time. And if anything goes wrong, it is our fault – we should have pred
icted it, we should have stopped it, we should have done something.

  I was flustered, my thoughts scattered like leaves to the wind as I ran up the school’s steps. I stopped for a moment and breathed as deeply as I could – three shaky breaths that didn’t quite clear my mind.

  The first thing I saw when I walked into the head teacher’s office was Lara’s back in a chair. She looked very small.

  Mr Kearns rose with a greeting I didn’t really hear and he offered me a seat. Lara kept looking down.

  I sat beside my daughter and I touched her shoulder. She turned towards me – she was very pale and looked shocked, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she’d just done. Her eyes were red behind her glasses; in her hands there was a mug that said Little Miss Smiley. For some reason, I found the combination of my daughter’s face and the cheery mug terribly sad. I wanted to hug her, but I was worried it would not be appropriate, so I just held her hand as we sat and waited for Mr Kearns to speak.

  “Mrs Ward, like I said to you on the phone, Lara’s behaviour was unacceptable. Mrs Akerele is shaken and upset, as you can imagine. She said she feared Lara would hit her.”

  My eyes widened. I looked at Lara, who in turn was gazing down at her black ballerinas. “Now, this is a bit much. I mean, she lost her temper, and that’s bad, but to say Lara was going to hit her is outrageous!”

  “Well, we were surprised ourselves. Mrs Akerele and Lara have always had a good relationship, haven’t you? She’s been teaching you for two years now, and with all the extra work you took on . . .”

  Mrs Akerele, a young, vibrant woman, had always encouraged Lara’s passion for language, and she had involved her in a few projects with more advanced classes. They seemed to have a great relationship, which made the incident all the more baffling.

  “What happened, Lara?”

  She swallowed. She looked very young and very scared. “She said she was going. She’s moving away.”

  “That’s why you shouted? You were upset that she’s moving away?”

  She shuffled in her seat. I noticed that her eyelashes were still wet. “Sam and Mosi were acting up. For a change.” She rolled her eyes. “Mrs Akerele said she was glad she was moving on, so she wouldn’t need to put up with all that any more. I . . .” Her voice trailed away.

  “What went through your mind, Lara?” I encouraged. I had a lump in my throat.

  “That it’s not fair.”

  “What’s not fair, that Mrs Akerele is going?” Mr Kearns intervened.

  “That someone ups and goes like that and leaves us because she doesn’t care enough.”

  My heart swelled for my daughter.

  “Oh, Lara . . .”

  Mr Kearns cleared his throat. “Shouting at a teacher is not acceptable, Lara. But I understand you were upset, and you have never been in trouble before. Usually for something like this I would look to suspend a student for a day, Mrs Ward . . .” I nodded, ashamed, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Lara’s head drop further. “But I spoke to Mrs Akerele and she agrees that what we’ll look for at this time is simply an apology. We’ll move on. There will be no consequences. Now, should this behaviour present itself again . . .” – he glanced at me again, and I could sense a private conversation, without Lara present, was to follow – “I won’t be able to be so lenient.”

  I nodded once more. He knew about Lara’s background and he was taking her circumstances into consideration, though of course he couldn’t have been aware of what we ourselves had just recently found out.

  “Will you apologise, Lara?” I said, clutching my bag, eager to get out of that office, out of that school, and to be alone with my daughter. There was no doubt in my mind that she would.

  “Yes. I’m sorry,” she whispered, still looking at her shoes.

  “Lara, just for you to know,” Mr Kearns said as we were about to leave his office, “Mrs Akerele is leaving here because her husband took a job in Devon. Her decision has nothing to do with you or with your class. She always enjoyed working with you.”

  Lara nodded again, like a sad marionette. I just wanted to hug her. “Is it okay if I take her home?” I didn’t want her to have to face her classmates again, not today.

  “Of course. And Mrs Ward?” I turned around and once again met Mr Kearns’ eyes. He wasn’t long for retirement, the pictures of his granddaughters hanging on the wall underneath official-looking diplomas and pupils’ achievements. He had a mellow way that I’d always liked, but I still felt somehow on trial, as guilty as my daughter. Like I was a young girl again. “Don’t worry. It’ll all be sorted,” he said. “Just give me a call in the next few days and we can have a good chat.”

  I was touched, but there was no way I would not worry. In fact, I was pretty much terrified.

  I decided to wait for Lara to open up, instead of jumping in there with a row or requests for an explanation. She was contrite. In the car, she was quiet for a bit, listening to her iPod. Then she removed her earphones and I saw her shuffling, like she was getting ready to tell me something. I held my breath.

  “Mum?”

  “Yes?”

  “What Mrs Akerele said about hitting her—”

  “I know, I know. Nonsense,” I interrupted, and I clutched the steering wheel, feeling the tension rise in my body once again.

  “I nearly did.”

  I was stunned into silence.

  My Lara. My Lara and her demons.

  “Nearly, but you didn’t,” I said firmly. Inside, I was drowning. What was happening to my daughter?

  “No,” she whispered. And then she read my mind. “I don’t know what’s happening to me. I get so angry and I can’t stop.”

  “Whatever is happening, we’ll sort it together. You don’t need to worry.”

  A short silence followed, while I tried to hide how upset I was. How exactly could we sort it? Could something like this be sorted? I was so frightened for Lara, but I could never, never show it. If only I could slay all her demons for her – if only I could protect her from everything, even from what had already happened to her but wasn’t there to prevent.

  I slipped on my sunglasses and switched the radio on.

  “Is it time to get Leo from nursery already?” Lara asked, and I knew why she was so keen to see him. Leo always seemed to comfort her, to pacify her.

  “Yes. We’ll go straight there.”

  She was glued to her brother and me for the rest of the afternoon and evening, never letting either of us out of her sight. I wasn’t surprised when later on, as I went to check on Leo just after midnight, I found her in his bed, sleeping beside him. Leo had his small arm around her waist, keeping her close.

  The incident with Mrs Akerele was just the beginning. Lara’s unhappiness and distress had come to a head. Her outbursts were sudden and explosive, and always followed by intense shame and upset. She was never hungry, and she couldn’t sleep at night either.

  “Maybe you could go back to Sheridan.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Perhaps talking about it, talking it all out, would help.”

  “It wouldn’t change anything. It happened,” she shrugged. “I don’t want to talk to a stranger about that stuff.”

  “Sheridan is not a stranger. You spoke to her before.”

  She wrung her hands. “I don’t want to, Mum. Please don’t make me.”

  “No, my love, of course not. I won’t make you. We’ll find another way. We’ll see this through, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said, and she slipped her earphones back on.

  Lara needed help. And I did too, because apart from loving her and listening to her and being there for her, I didn’t know what else to do. I was spreading myself so thin I was see-through. I was trying to be everywhere, to be everything to everybody. I went to bed at night with barely the energy to pull the blankets over me, and that’s when Lara’s nightmares would start, and I was up again. I was exhausted physically and mentally.

  I missed
my mum. I missed her wisdom, her practical help, her advice. I missed her good humour and her ability to see the best in every situation. The phone just wasn’t enough. And I desperately, desperately needed a change of scene, the chance to breathe.

  That night, during our little chamomile ritual, I decided to speak to Lara and test the waters about going to Glen Avich for the summer.

  “Lara, I was thinking,” I began carefully, “maybe it would be nice to go and see Nonna—”

  “Yes!”

  I laughed. “You didn’t need much convincing, there!”

  “I want to go, Mum. I want to go away from here and not see anybody from my school this summer. No one. I could start packing now!” she said, and it was lovely to see the enthusiasm in her eyes again. Since the incident with Mrs Akerele, she’d been so low.

  “Fine. But honestly, Lara, if the summer is too long, well, we’ll only stay a couple of weeks . . .”

  She shook her head. “No, please! Let’s go for the whole summer! I want away from here, I really do.” She shrugged and looked into her mug. “I’m fed up with everything.”

  “I know. I’m fed up, too. You wouldn’t see your dad for six weeks though, do you understand that?”

  “It’s not like I see him much anyway.” She shrugged. But I could see the hurt behind her indifference. I couldn’t bring myself to say that maybe she could spend half of the time with him, or even just a week or two – not out of selfishness, but because I was genuinely worried she would end up distressed, or rejected.

  “But do you want me to come?” she said in a small voice, looking down. I’d just asked her if it was okay for us to go, but it wasn’t quite enough for her. She always looked for reassurance, she always feared being unwanted. And every time she needed to know how loved she was, every single time she needed me to tell her, if it was once or ten times or a hundred, I would do that. I would always be the safety net for my little trapeze girl, walking on a tightrope of self-doubt and past hurt.

  “I’m not going anywhere without you.” I took the mug from her hands and dared to wrap my arms around her, breathing in her fresh, clean scent of young girl and cherry shampoo. Hugs had become rare between us: she’d outgrown them, so fast, so soon. Only yesterday she’d been my baby, falling asleep in my arms and running to me for cuddles all the time . . . She was slipping away from me, and still, she needed me so much.