Paper Hearts

NOW

I am not sure what it is that wakes me the next morning – perhaps the sunlight streaming across the pillow, the sound of the dustbin lorry trundling outside; or maybe the way my body seems to be singing, my very bones thrumming with a low, content tune of excitement. Only Ollie could ever make me feel this way – and that makes me remember. I turn my face into the pillow to hide my smile.

“Eden, who is this?”

I roll over, still smiling because his body is still attuned enough to mine to know when I am awake, without me having to say a word. He sits up with his back to me, and I slide up behind him to wrap my arms around his broad chest and press a kiss to his shoulder-blade.

“Who’s – “ I freeze at the sight of the photograph in his hand, the one of George on his first day of school that he must have found in my purse. He feels me tense, turns to look at me.

“Eden. Tell me the truth”

“You went through my stuff?!”

“Eden! That’s hardly the issue right now”

I pull back from him, eyes wide, “I – I was going to tell you -“

“Eden”

“Just look at him” I whisper, disarmed by the harshness in his voice, “Just look at his eyes, Ollie, you must know who he is”

“I don’t want to know. I want to hear you say it”

“He’s – he’s my son, Ollie. Our son”

The silence that falls is almost painful. I’m biting my lip so hard I can taste blood, waiting for him to say something, anything –

I’ve never seen him look so angry.

“I have a son?”

I nod, speechless. His voice is low and menacing. For the first time in my life, I’m scared of him.

“I have a SON and you didn’t tell me?!”

“It wasn’t like that – “

“Oh, really? Really? Then what was it like, Eden? Under what circumstances do you keep a man from his own son?”

“He – I – you said a clean break. You said!”

“I kind of assumed that if you ended up pregnant with my child you’d realise that agreement was null and void”

“Why would I have?! We agreed, you made me swear – you told me to pretend you’d never existed!” my own anger begins to peak, “Anyway, I did tell you! I wrote you a letter, as soon as I got that letter from Dan telling me you’d been shot! It was you who never cared enough to reply”

“What letter?! Eden, I swear to God I never got a letter from you”

“You’re calling me a liar?”

“No! No. I didn’t get it because I’d been discharged from the Army”

“What? You’ve been out of the Army all this time and you never called?”

“That may have defeated the object of me trying to get you to move on” his voice was cold, “Anyway, that’s no excuse. No excuse at all” his fists clenched; the picture got screwed up inside them as he rose to his feet, “You never even told me you were pregnant!”

“It happened that last night, I was sticking to our agreement – which is more than you did, sending me that fucking book that got my hopes up all over again – “

“I sent you that to comfort you, not to screw you up!”

“How was I supposed to forget you after that? How was I ever supposed to do that?”

“This isn’t about the fucking book, Eden, this is about the fact that you never told me you’d given birth to my fucking son!”

“Don’t you dare say it like that, don’t you dare turn this into my fault! It’s hardly been easy, you know!”

“Oh, really? Do tell me, Eden, what a struggle it’s been to keep this a secret from me”

“It wasn’t keeping it a secret, it’s not keeping it a secret if I never saw or spoke to you! I wasn’t hiding it from you, not the way you mean it! I was sticking to the agreement”

“It wasn’t a fucking contract”

“That’s how you made it sound! I was protecting you. I was protecting both of us from getting hurt all over again! You were the one who left”

“And you don’t think I would have come back if I’d known?”

“I know you wouldn’t have. God forbid you neglect your duty”

For a split second, his face was so twisted with anger that I actually thought he was going to hit me. But his fists stayed clenched at his sides.

“Regardless of any duties or agreements we had, you should have told me. I’ve missed out on – on what, five years of his life?!”

“Nearly six. And for fuck’s sake Ollie, don’t you think I wish you’d been there too? Don’t you think I wish I could have contacted you? Do you have any idea how hard it is to raise a kid on your own? Any idea at all?”

“Oh, poor little Eden! Go on, tell me how hard it was for you, how difficult it was – “

“Don’t trivialise this! It was hard!”

“Oh yeah? Like how?”

The way he’s speaking to me, like I’m a child...he’s never done this before. And it makes me see red. Because I’ve worked bloody hard to look after our son, to give him everything he could possibly want, and I will not have Ollie mock me.

“I WAS A FUCKING STRIPPER!”