‘Will she get better?’ he asks.
‘I don’t know,’ I say.
Behind us, I can hear footsteps and Josie enters the room. She steps forward and stands alongside me. She places a supportive hand on my shoulder.
‘She always looks very peaceful,’ Josie says. ‘I’m going to get a coffee and let you three have some time.’
I smile at Josie, and she leaves Luke and me in the room: the mother, the father and the son. The first time we have been together like this. I pull up a couple of chairs, lift Luke and place him next to me. He leans into my shoulder, and the two of us sit like that without speaking. I know why it is we’re like this. It’s because none of us knows what to do or say next.
For a moment, I can see the image of her standing there as I could in my flat back in London. She doesn’t say anything, and then she is gone, and there’s only Lauren in the bed, and maybe that’s all there ever was.
It’s Luke who moves, he gets up from his seat and stands by his mother’s bedside. He takes her hand. He lifts it with both hands, and he holds it close to his chest. The moment sweeps over me, and I am overcome. This time I can’t hold back tears as they slip down my face.
‘I love you, Mommy,’ Luke says, and then he looks up to me, waiting for me to say something and, it is not as hard to say this time.
‘I love you too, and I miss you,’ I say.
‘Mommy, Mommy,’ Luke says, and he is murmuring the word over. He is trying to wake her from sleep.
As Luke speaks, there is a flutter of a smile on Lauren’s lips. Her eyes remain closed, and she looks drowsy and like she is perhaps dreaming. It doesn’t matter. Those few notes of a smile were there. Luke looks up at me and gives me a big smile.
We both saw it. I don’t know what will happen next, or how long Lauren has, I only know that I would travel for as far and for as long as it takes for those two smiles. It means the whole world for the three of us to be together in the room.
I move my chair closer to the edge of the bed, and Luke folds himself against me. My hands are clasped together like a man in prayer. I am not lapsing into worship, however. Instead, I am sitting quietly and hoping that this isn’t how it ends.
Today is a long way from one evening in Santa Cruz, and we have travelled far in the years that have passed and the journeys we have taken.
On that morning, when we stood on the street and said our goodbyes, I told Lauren I was coming back. It might have taken me a long time, and in the intervening years our lives are different, and we are changed.
Right now, none of that matters, as we have come full circle, and our circle is three. I don’t know what that means. What I do know is that this is us, and whether you believe in it or not, love will find a way.
Acknowledgements
The spark for this book came before I had any children, or knew I would have them. I’m not sure I could have written it in the same way now. In that sense, it is a book I hope a lot of people will enjoy whatever their life is like.
At the time, I was in the middle of writing something else and had this idea. I put the other book aside and wrote what became Songs for Your Mother.
In my mind, it was a story that was funny and heart-breaking about what would happen if, without warning, you found yourself a parent to a five-year-old? Something you were unprepared for and hadn’t planned for or given thought to.
It only hit me after I’d written a draft that having children was something that was on my mind. I’d done that thing that Joan Didion talks about (‘I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking’) and writing the book was a way of exploring that idea, and kicking it around my head.
I want to thank the people who read this book along the way, including Katie for her encouragement and comments, Ian Wood who read an early draft, and Tom Benjamin, who read multiple drafts and always gave good feedback.
Thanks also to Pete Baber and Chris Bailey, who once went on a road trip along the Pacific Coast Highway, which inspired this story.
Music is a theme in this book, and it wouldn’t be the same without the lyrics. I owe thanks to Mark Warner for the use of his songs, namely She Sleeps in the Afternoon, Fleeting Memories, and Tangle. To Tom Benjamin (@Tombenjaminsays) for Fahrenheit. She looks like Vivien Leigh, Modern Door and Looking for You are down to me.
Thank you to Keshini and Lindsey for loving this story as much as I do and publishing this book.
Finally, I’d love to hear what you think and whether you liked the book. It makes the time spent writing Songs for Your Mother all the more worthwhile.
Gordon MacMillan
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Songs for Lauren
Tangle (Mark Warner)
Love is a long-drawn fight,
it brings tears to the eyes,
It’s a disappointing drug.
Now you’re on the phone to Susie,
To say I miss you,
And I’m sick of being in Love.
Fleeting memories (Mark Warner)
Funny how I remember, the conversations in the flowers,
The pauses that were filled, by the stream,
I admit I think of you now, someone I knew for just two hours,
Your fleeting memory, somehow persistent.
She Sleeps in the Afternoon (Mark Warner)
Insanity and sanity are in touching distance,
Just witness schizophrenia for confirmation.
Louise is reaching out, she dislikes being alone,
And allowed to think too much.
In the bedroom by the lake she sleeps in the afternoon…
Fahrenheit (Tom Benjamin)
It’s getting late, the pubs are
