Page 32 of The Life She Could Have Lived

YES

While Miss Bright matched up the children with their adults, Anna held Sam’s hand, ready to pass him to the friend who’d offered to wait with him while Anna talked to his teacher.

It was the third meeting this school year.

Last year, she’d been in four times. She felt like she was probably one of those mothers the teachers talked about, rolling their eyes.

And Edward had made it clear, several times, that he thought she was overreacting.

She didn’t care. She was the one who Sam came to, achingly sad.

She was the one he asked why people didn’t like him. Who asked what was wrong with him.

‘Right, sorry about that, come in.’ Miss Bright ushered her into the brightly decorated classroom. ‘What did you want to see me about?’

Anna smiled tightly. ‘It’s about the bullying. It’s no better.’

Miss Bright sat down behind her desk on the only full-sized chair in the room.

Anna was left with the option of sitting on one of the tiny kids’ chairs and feeling stupid, or standing.

She stood. ‘We try to be very careful about how we label these kinds of incidents,’ Miss Bright said. ‘It’s only bullying if it’s sustained…’

‘And it is,’ Anna interrupted. ‘It is sustained. It’s been going on for months. Years, even.’

Before she’d had children, Anna had never been an angry person.

And she still wasn’t, on the whole. But a ball of rage had formed in her stomach along with swollen feet and fingers and milk-filled breasts.

It could sit there, still and unnoticed, for months, but it could also flare up in a second if anyone hurt either of her babies.

Miss Bright held up a hand, as if Anna was being unreasonable and she was trying to get her to calm down.

‘I keep an eye on it,’ she said. ‘I make sure I catch up with Sam once a week on his own, but he usually says things are okay.’

‘They’re not,’ Anna said, feeling close to tears, willing her voice to hold firm. ‘They’re not okay. I don’t know why he says that. But at least two or three nights a week, at bedtime, he’s in tears. You can’t play that down. That’s not okay.’

There was a clutching pain in Anna’s chest. She felt it when Sam nuzzled into her shoulder and his hot tears slid onto her skin.

She felt it when Edward dismissed it, said that all boys went through this kind of thing and Sam just needed to toughen up a bit.

She felt it now, when this woman, who was tasked with taking care of her son for thirty hours a week, didn’t seem to grasp how serious it was.

‘Is it the same boys as last time?’ Miss Bright asked, her voice softer.

‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘Jack, Billy and Harry are the names that he mentions most. Look, I know he’s not your typical boy, playing football and running around.

He likes My Little Pony and having his toenails painted.

He mostly plays with girls, as you know.

And I love all that about him; I encourage it.

But I also know it leaves him wide open for this kind of treatment.

My husband thinks we should, I don’t know, encourage him to be more of a boy’s boy. ’

Miss Bright frowned. ‘I’ve seen children picked on for all kinds of things.

Wearing glasses, being overweight, even not watching the right programmes on TV.

’ She put her hands up to make air quotes around the word ‘right’.

‘And yes, not conforming to gender norms is a big one, but we have to stand up to it. Getting Sam to change isn’t the answer. ’

In that moment, Anna’s rage retreated. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘That’s what I always say to him. This is who he is, and I think we should celebrate it.’

‘I completely agree. I’m sorry the measures we’ve put in place so far aren’t working, and I want you to know how seriously I take this.

How seriously we, as a school, take this.

I’ll talk to Sam again, tell him he needs to be honest with me for this to work.

And I’ll talk to the boys involved, too.

We’ll do some work as a class, about celebrating difference and being kind. We’ll get it sorted, I promise.’

‘Thanks,’ Anna said. She meant it. She stood up to leave, brushing away tears.

On the walk home, Sam was quiet and she left him to his thoughts. They were nearly home when he spoke.

‘Ella is having her birthday party at that trampoline place.’

‘Are you invited?’ Anna asked, silently praying that he was.

‘Yes! And not everyone is. Only ten people.’

‘What shall we buy for her?’

‘A game with a horse. She likes horses.’

Anna added that to the mental shopping list that was never finished. She was pleased he was invited, pleased he had something to be excited about.

‘How was school today, Sam?’

His hand tightened in hers. He knew she meant the bullying.

‘Harry says girls are stupid and I’m like a girl.’

And just like that, the ball of rage fired up again. Anna let it burn, but was determined not to let Sam see it.

‘You know what? Even when I was at school people said things like that. That girls are better, or boys are. It’s just nonsense.

You know that, right? Everyone is different, and has good points and bad points, things they’re good at, things they need more help with.

You can’t take a group as big as boys or girls and say that they are like this or like that. ’

Sam was looking up at her, his eyes wide. There had been a time when he’d believed everything she said, no question. But lately, he often countered things she told him with ‘But Miss Bright said…’ Where would he stand on this?

‘I think Harry is stupid and girls are brilliant,’ Sam said.

Anna squeezed his hand a little tighter. It pained her to have to correct him. ‘We don’t call anyone stupid, baby. But most people are brilliant, when you get to know them.’

Not Harry, she thought.

Sam shrugged, and then they were at their house and Anna was fishing the door key out of her pocket.

Once they were inside, Sam went straight up to his room.

Anna checked the time. Thomas would be home from football in half an hour.

She stood with her back to the kitchen counter, thinking about how Miss Bright might make some progress with Sam’s bullies but it wasn’t long until the summer holidays, and in the new school year Anna would have to start all over again with a new teacher.

It was exhausting. Why Sam? Why her funny, brilliant and loving son ?

When Thomas arrived home, he was monosyllabic.

He slunk off upstairs and Anna was making a start on dinner when she heard a thud and some shouting.

She ran up the stairs and found the boys in Sam’s room.

They were caught in a tussle that looked like the playfighting they’d always done but that Anna knew, in an instant, was something different.

She shouted Thomas’s name and he turned to look at her, and Sam used his distraction as an opportunity to get the upper hand.

He pulled back his fist and slammed it into his brother’s cheek, and Anna was so shocked she just stood there, watching.

After a moment, it was like she came back to life. Thomas was lying on the floor, clutching the side of his face and crying, and Sam was standing over him, looking a mixture of scared and triumphant.

‘Sam! What did you do?’

Anna fell to her knees beside her eldest son, gently prised his hand away so she could see if there was any damage. There was no blood. There would be bruising, she was sure, but for now, he looked okay. Still, she could see that he was hurt and it made her ache.

‘It was him!’ Sam shouted. ‘I hate him! He’s worse than the boys at school!’

Thomas sat up and Anna could see that he was checking his teeth with his tongue.

‘Are you okay?’ she asked him, and when he nodded, ‘What did you say to him?’

‘What the hell?’ Thomas asked, standing up. ‘He punches me in the face and you’re still on his side? Are you joking?’

He left the room, slamming the door behind him. Anna made eye contact with Sam, who looked sad and sorry.

‘What happened?’ she asked .

‘He said I’m weird because I don’t like football,’ Sam said quietly.

Anna nodded. She wanted to pull him towards her for a hug.

‘I’ll talk to him,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell him he needs to be kind. But you cannot punch people, or hurt people at all, Sam. You know that.’

Sam’s shoulders sagged. ‘You don’t know what it’s like. Those boys are so horrible to me at school and I can’t wait to get home, and then…’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I know.’

And when he came to her, she wrapped him in her arms and let him cry.

When they were little, Thomas three and Sam a baby, Thomas had sung Sam to sleep, held him with a look of complete wonder, and Anna had felt like this was the best bit of all of it.

Not creating these two people, but enabling this relationship to exist. It was so pure, so full of love.

She remembered Sam at two or three, saying he wanted to marry his brother, Thomas agreeing, her having to gently explain that you couldn’t marry someone in your family.

Thomas saying he would marry the neighbour’s dog instead, then. It all seemed like so long ago.

Anna knocked on Thomas’s door. He was lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling.

‘You always take his side,’ he said.

‘I don’t mean to.’

‘Well, you do.’

Anna sat down by his feet. ‘The truth is, I worry about him more than you. He’s always found things more difficult, making friends and that kind of thing.’

‘That’s not my fault.’

‘No, of course it isn’t. But is there anyone in your class who gets picked on all the time? ’

Thomas turned on his side, looked at her. ‘Kind of.’

Please let him not be involved in that , she thought. Having a child who was bullied was awful, but she suspected having a child who was a bully would feel worse.

‘Well, that’s what school is like for Sam. Every day. And when he gets home, he needs to feel safe and loved. I know you love him, Thomas…’

Thomas snorted.

‘You’re cross with him right now, and rightly so. But I know you wouldn’t want him to be sad.’

‘Sometimes it feels like he’s your favourite,’ Thomas said, and there were tears in his eyes.

Anna reached out a hand, pulled him up to sitting, and hugged him tight.

There weren’t as many opportunities to do this these days, and she relished it.

She thought of the times when it had just been her and Thomas, before Sam was born.

How she’d fallen in love with him, how he’d shown her how to be a mum.

‘I couldn’t love either of you any more than I do,’ she said.

Thomas didn’t say anything. But he didn’t let her go for a long time.

Edward arrived home just as she was tucking Sam into bed. Thomas was reading a Harry Potter book to himself. Anna told him she’d come back to turn off his light in half an hour and kissed his forehead.

‘All okay?’ Edward asked when she went into the kitchen.

‘Tough day,’ she said.

‘At work? ’

‘No, here. I went to see Miss Bright about Sam and the bullying…’

Edward raised his eyebrows. ‘Again?’

‘Yes, again, because that’s what you do when a problem isn’t getting solved,’ she said, trying to keep her voice level. ‘Anyway, I went to talk to Miss Bright about it, and she seems to get it, to be taking it seriously. So we’ll see.’

Anna’s ‘unlike you’ was unspoken but she knew it was clear.

‘Okay,’ Edward said.

‘And then the boys had a fight. Sam punched Thomas in the face.’

Edward looked shocked. ‘Is he all right? Thomas?’

‘Yes, he’s fine. But I just feel pulled apart. Both of them hurt, you know?’

They were standing at either side of the kitchen counter and Edward shook his head slightly. ‘They’re okay, Anna. They’re both okay.’

She wanted to scream. Perhaps this was why he had always felt he had the capacity to have another one, and she didn’t.

The small things that happened to them, that made up their childhood days, didn’t seem to affect him the way they affected her.

She went to the fridge and opened it, more for something to do than anything else, but when she saw a half-full bottle of wine in the door, she pulled it out.

‘Wine?’ she asked, reaching up for glasses.

‘Why not? It’s a celebration, after all.’

Anna didn’t turn back to face him. She poured the wine slowly, trying to work out what he meant. And then the song he’d put on started, those familiar notes that took her back in time, and she realised that it was their anniversary, and she counted the years. Thirteen.

‘I haven’t got you a card,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, it’s just… ’

‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘I haven’t got one either. But we should acknowledge it, right?’ He took a glass from her and held it up, and she chinked hers against it and looked in his eyes.

‘Dance?’

She shook her head, feeling strangely self-conscious. Edward looked slightly hurt, so she stepped towards him, went up on tiptoes to kiss him.

‘To us,’ he said. ‘To the future.’

‘To the future,’ she repeated.

She wondered, as she did sometimes, who they would be when this long, hard job of parenting was over.

She could imagine how they would age, the way their hair would grey and they would put on some weight.

But she wasn’t as sure of what would be left of them.

It felt like all their conversations these days were about the boys.

And there were so many years of parenting ahead, she knew.

But at the end of it all, when the boys were grown and gone, what then?