Run To Me

Truth

She looked out the window as she chatted.  Tom had been away for just over two weeks, and it had felt like a year.  They'd spoken most nights, facetimed a few, but it was still hard.  Especially when she told him about the man.  Tom instantly remembered the old man from the funeral.  

"Do you think it was him, love?" he'd asked as she sat on the window ledge, enjoying the last of the evening air.  She shook her head, even though on the phone, that was pretty useless.

"I honestly don't know.  Ever since the night Rita told me, he seems to have disappeared.  I dont know what to think, love, to be honest with you.  I'm not scared, I'm just puzzled.  With no way to solve that puzzle." she sighed. "I guess I can't control everything. It's really MOST disappointing!"  she giggled, and Tom laughed along.

"Oh kitten,  I miss that so much.  They way your nose scrunches up when you giggle like that.  I wish I could have it as a GIF to brighten my days away."

"Oh, you big softie!  I don't know HOW you make it through the day without me.  You must just totter from one crisis to the next!" she teased, but inside, she was glowing.  His compliments always gave her a thrill, even now.  They always would she suspected. 

As she was standing up to go and make herself more comfortable on the sofa, she stopped dead. "Tom!" she breathed, not daring to look away from the window.  "Tom - he's here!"

"Who?"

"HIM - the man!" she started to walk to the door. "I'm on my way outside, I'm going to stay on the line, love, just in case.  If anything happens, call the police for me, ok?  Rita's at home, but I don't know if she's in a room that looks onto the street."

"Darling, PLEASE be careful.  He may be old, but old doesn't mean feeble.  PLEASE don't take any chances." Tom was worried, seriously worried.  In all the time since she'd mentioned the incident with Rita, and the longer it had been before the man resurfaced, he'd hoped he never would. Or at least not until Tom was home and could protect her.

"It's ok, there are lots of people about.  Look, I'll leave the line open, but just hold the phone in my hand. " She walked down the steps and across the road.  

The old man saw her coming.  He sat on the wall that bordered Mr James's property. He seemed worn out and weak.  Molly began to get the feeling there was something wrong with him.  Perhaps that was why he was here. Looking up old friends when time was short.

"Are you? Are you the man that I spoke to at the funeral?" she asked gently as he looked at her with sad and moist eyes. She sat a couple of feet away from him, he was definitely ill, his face was grey and his eyes yellowing. Suddenly, she felt an overwhelming compassion for this stranger, this oddly familiar stranger.

"Yes, yes, I am. I came before, but you were gone." he looked at her, and his face softened.  "You really don't remember me, do you?" he shook his head.  "It's been such a long time. There's no reason you should, really I have changed, Im sick for one.  Very sick. And you have no real reason to want to." he reached into a pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, wiping his eyes.  "I should have done this years ago, but I was afraid. So much so, it took your brother's death to make me man-up."

"Look, this isn't the place for a conversation like this." Molly said, standing up.  "I think we can safely say you're not a potential attacker, can't we." she smiled. This was code for Tom to relax.  "I think we - you - need a cup of tea, yes?"

The old man nodded, "That would be very kind, I've come such a long way and, well, I'm not so spry anymore.  Don't know when this old body hijacked my young brain." he smiled, and she felt she'd seen it somewhere but couldn't quite put her finger on it. "You really don't remember me, do you?  But I don't drink tea, I never did.  Couldn't stand the stuff." 

Suddenly, Molly began to feel odd, somewhere in her memory a glimmer of a memory. Something suppressed for nearly thirty years.  She shook her head, no.  That was just her mind playing tricks. The old man looked at her.

"I didn't like tea, but I loved hot - "

"Bovril," Molly finished automatically.  Her mind went into freefall, along with her legs.  She sat on the wall with a thump.  It couldn't be.  No.  It just . No.  "Who ARE you?" she whispered, aware the phone was still linked to Tom.  Linked to safety.

"I think you know, you just dont want to think it, betray your memories. Betray James." The old man moved closer but still out with arms' length.  He could see she was terrified.

She stared at him, growing more and more uneasy by the second. 

"Remember me, my little Mollydoodles?" he said softly.  His voice echoed in her ears along with the rushing blood as she tried not to pass out.

"Mollydoodles?" she whispered the name she hadn't heard since she was fourteen.  The pet name only one person on the entire planet ever used, no one else, not even James.  A name made up to reflect her love of scribbling little patterns and animals on anything that didn't move.

Her eyes met his, and suddenly, the years, the illness and the doubt fell away.  She was fourteen again, she was standing in the road in crop jeans and a Wham t-shirt, pink eye shadow and purple lips. 

She was yelling across to the person calling her inside.  She would be home in twenty minutes, once she'd finished mooning about with her pals over the latest album. 

She stared, trying to focus on the face now rushing away down a black tunnel filled with thunder. Her mind screamed, her heart pounded, and she thought she might be sick.

"D-Dad?" her face betrayed her shock, her body her reaction.

The last thing Tom heard was the clatter as her phone hit the ground when she fainted.