Blake
By Christian Smith
She looked down at the child in her arms. The wide blue eyes stared back at her, taking in her features. The long blonde hair, the same blue eyes, a strong set jaw and raised cheekbones. So alike to the child, it would be impossible to say that she was not his mother.
'Jane, please listen to me.' The woman said from the end of the bed, 'this is the best course of action.' Jane looked at her sister desolately. A tear fell from her eye and landed on the cheek of her newborn son.
'We both know you can't look after him, you just don't have the money.'
'We could manage. I'm his mother, it'll be ok.' she pleaded, trying to convince herself as much as her sister. However, her sister did not give in. she regarded her younger sibling with a look of sympathy and responded calmly.
'It would not be right for him, for any child, to be brought up like this. In this squalor. You do understand this, don't you?' she lent in, hand on her sisters leg. Yet still composed and collected in her demeanor.
Jane, after a momentary hesitation, nodded dejectedly and held out the bundle of blankets. Slowly with the feeling of nausea rising from the pit of her stomach, she handed her one and only son to her sister.
'Please love him, Caroline. Like I love him, like I will always love him.'
Caroline drew the child to her chest and walked towards the door. The few meters between the door and the bed, at that moment, felt like a few miles. The sound of suppressed tears came from behind her as she shut the door. She stepped out onto the outside landing and proceeded to descend the cold stone staircase.
The sorrow could be heard from the ground floor.
'Blake!' the calling voice sounded across the garden, cutting through the warm spring air. 'Lunch is ready.'
A small boy lifted his head. Pushing the blonde curls out of his eyes; he turned in the direction of his mother's voice. A large smile appeared on his face as he stopped chasing the chickens. Over the fence he leapt and ran as fast as he could towards the large tree. Which, to him, towered over the garden like Big Ben did in those pictures above his mother's bookcase. Up it he climbed, like a scrambling monkey he read about in his many books. From there he jumped to the garden wall and with the precision of a mountain goat began his way towards the house. Caroline watched him do this with a quite smile; she knew she and her husband were the luckiest parents in the whole of Hertfordshire. Maybe even all of England.
As Blake jumped from the wall to the recently mown grass he heard a crack from within his short's right pocket. He felt the cold remnants of broken egg flow down his leg. A look of playful disgust ran across his face as his mother strolled towards him.
'Oh Blake. What have I told you about stealing the chicken's eggs.' She said, trying to hide her amusement. 'Now go inside get washed up. Cook has made you a very nice corned beef sandwich. Which you will eat all of, okay?' her eyebrow slightly raised as she looked at the dirty little boy in front of her.
'Okay' he replied and with that ran into the house. Making vomiting noises all the way.
Caroline looked out across the garden and again smiled to herself then she followed the little muddy footprints through the back door.
The phone was heard by Blake first as he ran from the kitchen to his bedroom on the second floor. Turning on the bottom step of the large wooden staircase he ran to the table where the phone lay and jumped to grab the receiver.
'Hello' he said tentatively. There was long silence until the caller replied slightly chokingly. 'Is this Blake Walcott?'
'Yep' he responded gleefully, delighted that the person knew his first name but also puzzled that they got the second one wrong. Suddenly at the other end of the line he heard a whimper and a noise like crying. He was about to ask why the person was crying but his mother responded instead.
'Who's on the phone, Blake?' she asked, walking into the hall. He shrugged and handed her the phone. 'Sorry, but who is this?' Caroline inquired but the person had hung up. She carefully replaced the receiver and asked her son what the person had said.
'She said my name but called me something willco or wallco''
'Walcott?' Caroline interjected, her brow furrowing now.
'Yes mother, but my name's Thomson.'
'Let's get you upstairs' she whispered and grabbed his hand.
It was about four o'clock the next day when the doorbell rang. Caroline walked slowly towards the door, seeing a figures silhouette in the clouded glass window. Opening the door she found herself looking upon a woman in a dark shawl and tattered dress. Their eyes met and Caroline began to close the door but a sound stopped her. The sound of a ten year old boy asking who the woman on the front step was.
With a cry the woman ran passed Caroline who did nothing to stop her, she couldn't her body was not responding. Blake felt the embrace tighten around him, he wanted to scream out but he didn't. This stranger's scent, it made something within him stir. He felt the warm wetness of the woman's tears fall upon his cheeks. She felt familiar.
He pulled himself away, puzzled. She fell to the floor a shivering wreck.
'Blake! Don't' I'' her sentences lost through the stifled whimpers. 'I'm your mother, Blake.' She managed 'You're my little boy.'
Blake looked up at Caroline, searching for an answer in her expression but she just stood there hand over mouth, eyes wet.
Blake then moved towards the woman and took her hand.
'I know you're not my mother.' He said warmly 'but I like you very much. Can we be friends?'
Jane stopped crying and looked at her son. Only ten years old and yet so mature. She turned to Caroline and realized that what she was doing was wrong. Caroline is a better mother than she could ever be, Blake had thrived here. This was his home and that woman there was his mother. She had no right to change that.
So Jane Walcott said the hardest words she'd ever had to utter.
'Yes, lets be friends.' |
