Page 42 of The Second Chance Bus Stop

London

She has started doing that increasingly, like an attention-seeking pet. She moves to the sink—Edith follows. She goes across

still be outside when she emerges. She opens the door and yep, she’s there. She starts talking immediately.

‘I think I might have been a bad mother.’

‘Oh.’

Zara realises this is a sitting-down conversation and so she closes the bathroom door and ushers Edith into the living room

and gestures to her to sit down.

‘You are a wonderful mother,’ she says.

‘Blade is scared of me.’

‘He’s scared for you. That’s very different.’

‘Is it? The fear is the same. Of, for, they’re irrelevant here. I’ve made my child full of fear. I’ve always asked too much

of him.’

‘Lots of people our age are scared. It’s a generational thing.’

‘Some days all I remember are the bad days. When I raised my voice at him. Or missed a school play. When I let him watch TV for a full day so I could have some peace. That’s all there is in my brain.’

‘Everyone has those bad days.’

‘But they have the good moments too. Mine start to disappear, to fragment and blur around the edges, then move out of reach.

I’m left with my mistakes and flaws.’

Zara tries to imagine for a moment being only her flaws, being the time she lost her shit and yelled at her sister or when

she didn’t quite tell a friend the truth and never owned up because she got away with it.

‘I came out of the shower and all the good memories had gone. It’s empty,’ Edith clarifies.

Zara glances at the time, realising lost memories will take more than the fifteen minutes she has. Screw it. You stick up for your girlfriends—and Edith needs her.

‘So we make new memories. Right now.’ Edith’s brows pull together, confused.

Zara gets her phone and feels a pang of guilt but then picks herself up. She messages Eliza, her beautiful date who is kind

enough to bring cupcakes to her friend and who she thinks—hopes—will understand.

Can I make a last minute change to our date venue? Elm’s Terrace. There’s wine and me and Edith. Turns out I can’t leave her

after all. Emergency memory-making needed. Sorry x

As soon as Eliza is inside the little terraced house Zara is able to relax and abolish the nerves that had inconveniently built up.

She doesn’t check herself in the mirror frantically or wonder if her laugh sounds rather loud and off-putting.

She has given her date the task of choosing a game from the shelf in the far corner of the living room, whilst she prepares a plate of snacks, and Eliza goes for a simple pack of Uno.

‘I used to think it was all about a man, a man called Uno, that perhaps it was the inventor’s name,’ Eliza admits. ‘Now I

know it means one in Italian.’

They attempt a round, soon realising there is no way around Edith showing her cards, and instead spread them out on the table

in front of her, letting her pick with them on full display. It’s a bit like playing with a child, Zara thinks and ponders

how wisdom and naivety can live in the same body to such degree. Humans are just a mix of emotions and thoughts and it’s a

wonder anyone is all right at all, thinking about it.

‘I am in awe of you for looking after Edith, even if it’s just temporary,’ Eliza says as Zara fills Edith’s wine into a colourful

cup, to just the right level for it to not spill when it’s drunk.

They let her win, Edith. Then they put the game away and before they have to think of something to talk about, Edith has picked

a topic.

‘One day I didn’t leave bed at all. Today you’d just call it a duvet day and argue that kids need it, but in my day there

was no iPad and no excuse for a mum who couldn’t face the world.’

‘We do need duvet days, Edith,’ Eliza offers.

‘Let’s find some pictures of good days.’ Zara gets up from the sofa and Eliza’s eyes follow her. The photo album is thick

and brown, and the leather has peeled off in patches. Zara opens a page at random. Edith and Blade on a beach.

‘Remember this?’

‘I look like a good mum there.’

‘You are a good mum.’

‘I don’t know if I can trust pictures. There’s this one photo I don’t know what to make of.’

‘Which one?’ Eliza asks.

‘I’m not sure where it’s gone. I’ll show you if I find it,’ Edith says.

Zara has moved on, flicking the pages, looking for the most joyous moments.

‘Someone’s birthday party,’ she says, showing them what looks like a dinner party in this house. Oversized nineties shirts

and plastic earrings.

‘Do you go to many parties?’ Zara asks gently.

‘You mean like this one? I’ve been known to host the odd tea party, yes.’ Eliza smiles at her.

Oh Zara is in luck. A woman who thinks a party means tea and that everyone deserves good memories.

It’s only ten o’clock but Zara knows Edith by now. She’s calmed enough to not have that anxious empty stare, grounded by pictures

and images she recognises. She wouldn’t follow Zara around any longer, but she’s still not in charge of her memories and only

sleep can restore them.

‘I’ll take Edith up to bed,’ she tells Eliza.

Eliza starts assembling her belongings into a pile and drains the contents of her glass in order to bring it to the kitchen.

Zara quickly stops her.

‘Will you not stay for a while? Finish the bottle of wine?’

The wine glass swiftly returns to the table, and Eliza’s hands let go of the phone and sweater she was about to put in her

bag.

‘Of course. Would love to.’

‘Right, I’ll only be a minute or two. Make sure she’s all tucked up and happy. Then I’ll be right down again. I feel like there are still some memories to be made tonight,’ Zara says.

Upstairs, after watching Edith brush her teeth and get changed and before going downstairs to the living room where a very

sweet, very spell-binding estate agent waits for her, Zara hovers, hoping Edith will collect her memories whilst she sleeps.

Every last one.

‘Edith,’ she whispers into the dark. ‘Remember—it’s just your memories that are gone. Blade still has them all. The good memories.

And I’m sure you made enough of those.’