Trying Not To Love You

Part Eighty Seven

Chapter Eighty Seven

Three weeks had passed, or was it four. Martha no longer knew, she lived day to day, managing each as best she could. After returning home in a daze that day, Michael had taken Ethan to say goodbye to Sonny, his uncle when he left the following day, Martha had stayed at home scrubbing the kitchen floor with bleach until her fingers bled from the chemicals. When they got back Ethan rushed into his bedroom to find his favourite toys to show his grandfather, leaving the two adults alone.

                “He didn’t want to go. Even now...He’d stay...”

Martha nodded avoiding his eyes, “I can’t talk about it...about him.” She didn't know where he was going or what he was planning to do. It wasn't easier that way, it was the only way. She had to look after herself and that meant avoiding all knowledge of Sonny...and Jade.  

                “He wants you to run the pub, now that he’s gone. He said you’d be perfect for it, and it would be perfect for you. I’ve talked to your father, that’s what we both want.”

She met his eyes finally, and gave a small nod, “if that’s what you all want.”

Michael had felt her sadness, she could tell, and this wasn’t easy for him, he was losing another son. But why couldn’t she be left to wallow in her own self pity and misery? Why did everyone want to fix her? No one was happy to leave her alone.

Having had such an unplanned drop into her position running the place, she took a little while to settle in, but the first day had passed hectically but uneventfully.  Ethan had stayed at the flat with Lucy, which was a godsend; it was so confusing for him and her Aunt provided the stability that he needed. As she was starting to close up for the evening, happy that her and the staff had kept things going, she looked up to see her father stood at the bar. There was hardly anyone else left it the building, thankfully, because as soon as she saw him she started to cry, three days worth of emotions, tears, sobs, the lot.  All onto his shoulder.

When she finally pulled herself together...a little, she lifted her head to see that Pam the bar maid had ushered everyone out and locked the two of them in. Her father was studying her, intently.

                “Are you ok?”

She shook her head as a few more tears escaped, “I love him Dad, more than anything.”

He smiled, “and he’s done the right thing?”

Suddenly she looked at her father in a new light, he knew what she was going through, “tell me about Mum...and Stephanie?”

The time was right for them both.

With a shot of brandy each, they sat on adjacent bar stools, “I loved your mother to distraction, I really did. When you were born life was complete. But she got post natal depression, Baby Blues they called it then, no one understood things...she was suicidal. She hated me, sometimes hated you. No one else saw her as I did, I worried people would think I was making up her symptoms.

                “Stephanie was her best friend, when she came to stay...you were maybe two, she finally saw how things were.” he sighed, “it was such a relief to know that it wasn’t me that was crazy. I spoke to doctors, health people, but as she wasn’t a danger to herself there was nothing anyone could do. So I battled on, trying to manage everything. When we opened the restaurant she got better for a while. She was happy, my wife again, and your mother.” Martha sighed, she'd had no idea. No clue. Her father had kept this hidden from her all those years both when she was living amongst both parents, but also in the decades since. How had he managed that?