Should Have Known Better

Ch 2

I should have known better than to think Mam would give me time to reconsider, or even get organised for our move to the village.

"It should only be for a few days," she had said whilst packing my half-empty milk carton into a picnic cooler bag that hadn't been used since two summers ago. Truth was that she was planning for it to be for weeks, perhaps longer. This was revealed as I pulled the laundry from the clothes rail on the balcony, folding the towels and Ollie's blankets as I went.

"Mam, I can't pay rent for a flat I'm not living in." It made sense for Chloe to have an extended stay, but not me.

"Well, hopefully someday you'll come to your senses and get out of this dump anyway." She scowled at the crayon on the walls, a work of art by my neighbours two-year old that I used to care for before her mum went back on maternity leave with her next child. Mam didn't appreciate the creativity of a child how I did, though the green scribble was hardly the work of Banksy.

"And where would I go?" I'd friends here, a job, a home. It wasn't much, but for the last twenty years it was all I knew.

"Come home, Amanda. I'm lonely without your Daddy, you know, and I'm hardly getting any younger."

I gave her a look as I passed her Ollie's blankets and bibs to pack into his backpack. Mam was only in her sixties, with honey blonde hair, a slim figure, and the fashion straight off TV. She looked like the Mam I'd always known, even if the nineties hair and clothes had gone, along with the bootcut jeans and the highlights of the mid-naughties. Mam kept up with the trends better than I did, but beneath it, she was still Mam. She was as healthy and fit as ever.

"I'm surprised you'd want me cramping your style."

"Well." Now it was my turn to have that judging eye on me. I wasn't as green as the crayon on the wall, and I liked to think I was little more cohesive too, but Mam's face left much question about that. "I do wish you'd tidy yourself up a little, Amanda."

"I don't need to tidy up just to change dirty bums, do I?" Ollie was back to sleep now, but the living room still lingered with the scent of his latest movements - as Mam would prefer to call it.

"There's more to life than the negatives of babies. Isn't it time you realised that? First Chloe, now Ollie, is your life to be nothing but child-rearing?"

"I hope not." Not that I knew what else I'd be doing if I wasn't stood here packing for my little family to move back to the sticks for a bit. I'd never had the opportunity to dream, and I wouldn't know where to start now.

"You should find yourself a nice man - though I can't fault you for failing to do so up until now, it's not like any suitable men could be found around here."

"Hey now, there's always Big Ian." I sent Mam a wink, one she clearly didn't appreciate.

Big Ian ran a local taxi service, and after breaking down once on the way here, he had picked Mam up and left her speechless with his stories and blatant flirting. He was what she called a "character", the sort I knew she would faint at the idea of me dating.

"I'm serious, Amanda."

"So am I. Mam, the last thing I need right now is the stress of a man when I've enough on my plate." It's rare for my mother to accept she's wrong, but this was one of those times where she knew she couldn't argue. Chloe had piled enough drama onto our shoulders to last a lifetime. Mam had got me thinking though, of men and what life would be like with one in it.

I'd never actually had a proper boyfriend. Seannie didn't count as he had never been anything more than a local lad I fancied, who fancied me back. His friend Eamon had been mouthing-off one night in the pub where we all gathered, underage or not. He'd been talking about kisses and what girls liked and didn't. Seannie had a drink in him, and though I'd stuck to coke the whole night how we were all supposed to, I'd the teenage confidence to accept when he'd asked if I was up for proving Eamon wrong. We'd kissed right there in front of the whole pub until my knees felt weak and his eyes had gleamed with awe. After that, we kept it to the shadows, but that didn't mean that whatever we were ever had the chance to go further than that. By the time he finally plucked up the courage to ask me on a date, he was gone.