Tom passed Christine a brew, she nodded in thanks.
"You already know I was a drunk.." started Christine it was a bit like pulling a plaster off a cut. It hurt. But at the same time she hated how the memory was limited.. Tom nodded "well when Connor was about three, I met a soldier down the pub, he was an alki alright, but not nearly as bad as I was. He could stop and start whenever he wanted. He didn't feel the need to drink 24/7, and even when he was drunk, he wasn't nasty or violet or aggressive, he was a happy drunk, a functioning one. And back then, I was to, to an extent"
"Right.."
"Well we hit it off almost instantly, but he was always away with his work, but he got on with Connor too. Connor admired him, deeply. And I absolutely adored him. About six months in, me and Connor moved out of the grubby flat and into his nice 3 bed house. It was perfect. Connor was happy as anything, I'd never felt more loved, and I started to lay of the booze.. and then around a year down the line I did the most spontaneous thing i've probably ever done, and i eloped him. He had a daughter, but she was alot older than connor, she was about 13 when I married Andy, but connor also absolutly ADORED her, and she saw connor as her brother too, you see the mad thing was, I knew the girls mother quite well... Infact, you knew the girls mother quite well too, but she'd never tell you she had a daughter.. it hurts her too much to bring it up"
"who?"
"rachel.."
"Rachel Mason?"
"Rachel Mason.., but anyways, obviously andy being in the army and that he was here there and everywhere, and every known again he'd be deployed, it was usually only on short terms though, two, three months tops, and he'd be back before I knew it.. Rachels daughter often came and went, and so did Andy.., in the october half term of 2001, Andy was of duty, and Grace, Rachels daughter was obviously off. so we spontaniously decided to book a caravan, See id never took Connor on holiday before, Andy had took grace abroad a few times so it wasn't a massive deal to them.. but to me, i'll never ever forget connors face as he paddled through the water, scoffing ice creams, i dont think ive ever spent as much money on ice cream as I did that week.. but i wasn't well in the slightest. well, at least that's what I thought, about three days into my 'mysterious' illness Andy turned around to me and asked me if there was any chance I was up the duff.. and he wasn't wrong. I was. And i'd never seen him so happy, and the kids, even connor was extatic, and I was too, but you know with my luck.. it was all short lived" her eyes began to fill with tears.. but she'd started the story now.. she wasn't about to stop. "It was er, connor's sixth birthday, it was a saturday, and Andy was being sent for traning on the sunday, andy didn't think he'd be getting deployed so soon again as he'd only just got back from a two month stint, he had this tradition, before he went off to any of his traning things him and the lads would have a few cans, you know, man stuff.. he offered to not do it, you know with it being connors birthday, but i told him to still do it. we compromised, and went out for breakfast as a four, and then I took connor down to Glasgow zoo. Never in a million years did i imagine that that was the last time we'd all be together again...., connor had been desperate to go the zoo for months, he loved it there, he was always so fascinated by the animals, im suprised he didn't become a zoologist honestly, and he was having a brilliant time, it was nice for us really, to have time just the two of us, because at the time it'd been so long since i'd spent quality time with my boy, and with a baby on the way, my most important priority was for connor to know how much he was loved... it was about 5 pm, i'd just bought connor a lion teddy, and andy called, he'd gotten called in early and he'd phoned me to apologise for the mess he'd left the house in, and if it was still okay for Rachel to drop Grace off that night, i told him not to worry about it, Connor was pratically falling asleep, he was shattered anyways, and I told him i'd clean it up before Grace arrived, So you know, I took connor for dinner, Put it to bed, and began to clean up Andys mess... Me being me, only went and managed to knock a can off the side, and went to reach for the tea towel from the side, and slid in it.. I couldn't see anything, all I could hear was Connor bawling his eyes out, the next thing I know I was in a hospital bed and they were telling me my baby girl had died. They asked me if I wanted to see her. I point blank refused and discharged myself the next morning, Rachel had Connor for me, but all I wanted was to see my boy, so that's exactly what I did. I went home, took connor off Rachel and snuggled up with Connor on the sofa watching disney films all day, I wouldn't leave his side. Not because I was worried about him, because I knew the second I left his side I'd breakdown and I wasn't ready to admit any of it to myself, obviously i had no choice too face it all in the end, but. I wasn't ready then.. Rachel was worried, and eventually I completly, and I mean COMPLETELY broke down in her arms one day when connor was at school, and you know just had things began to somewhat steady my life out again, I got the worst letter any military wife could get, Andy had been shot in battle, I never told connor that part, Connor never knew, and he never will, As far as he's aware he decided to stay and help the people, he'd been hurt enough, I couldn't hurt him like that again. I was devestated but I had to carry on. For connors sake, and Graces, she was broken, as you can imagine, and to me and Rachel, we just put it down to her being destraught about her dads death, we were wrong, she had other things going on too, she wrote a suicide note to Rachel, and Rachel went into her bedroom one night and found she'd overdosed.." she couldn't tell the rest of the story it was way too painful.
"Oh Christine, I had no idea any of this had even happpened, im so sorry" he said wrapping his arms around her as she sobbed into his shoulders..
