Free The Charm Bracelet by Melissa Hill

name to mine, but I need to ask why?’
    ‘Because Dad is never here,’ Danny said angrily. ‘How is it fair that he gets to have me walking around with his name when he’s done nothing to deserve it?’ He started to get flushed and stopped abruptly.
    Holly nodded. ‘That’s a good point.’ He was obviously still sore that his dad hadn’t shown up at his birthday. Double digits were important in the grammar school set. ‘But, he is your father, and nothing you can do will change that. You can try changing your name, your looks, – ’ Danny looked just like his dad – ‘whatever you like, but he is your father. He may not have given you much—’
    Her son rolled his eyes. ‘You think?’
    Holly smiled. ‘He may not have given you much besides his name or that Nintendo last Christmas,’ she added jokingly ‘but it is something. It’s a part of who you are, and you can’t dismiss it. And your dad is part of you, whether he is around all the time or not.’
    Danny was looking sourly into his mug.
    Holly touched his arm. ‘Look, I know he’s not the best dad in the world, but it’s up to you to take what he gives you and make it into something better. If you feel all he has given you is his name, then embrace it. Take the name and make it the best name in the world.’
    He looked up at her, his eyes full of thought.
    ‘You and I, we have something special – we are together all the time, we know what it’s like to be a family, yes?’
    He nodded appreciatively.
    ‘So take the name, and spin it into gold, OK?’ She hugged him. ‘You think I need you to have the same last name as me? You are too silly … what next, matching outfits?’
    Danny shoved her away playfully. ‘Oh Mom!’
    She laughed and pulled him tighter. ‘You were born Daniel Joseph Mestas, my son. So don’t ever change it.’
    He hugged her back. ‘OK.’
    ‘Now go to bed!’
    He groaned and shuffled off to his room, but seemed happier.
    Holly listened as he creaked into bed and shut off his light. That was certainly a conversation she didn’t want to have again anytime soon. Putting her head on the pillow, she lay there for a long time, wondering where she went wrong and where she went right.
    The discussion had thrown her for a loop. She knew it would only be a matter of time before Danny started to feel bitter towards Nick – as it was, she’d needed ten years to calm down herself. She looked at the picture on her bedside table, of Danny the night he was born.
    She blinked back tears. She had vowed not to obsess about Nick and had told herself that the father and son relationship was their relationship, autonomous from hers.
    But it was hard; hard when Danny was hurting because of Nick, because it brought back memories of when she was hurting because of him too. She ached for Danny, she wanted him to be happy and well adjusted, but who was she kidding? She was a single mom and Nick for the most part, an absentee Dad.
    She toyed with her charm bracelet. ‘Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another’ Seamus always used to say, and her father was right.
    Holly switched out the light and prayed for sleep, which did not come easily. She tucked her arm under her head and gazed out through the window across from her bed.
    Her flimsy curtains only barely concealed the goings-on in the rest of the building. She could glimpse people’s shadows as they turned lights off and on; she knew who watched too much TV and who was single. Much as they probably knew about her, she thought.
    Holly watched through the curtains as a blurry couple across the way entered their apartment. She watched them turning on the lights, settling in, tossing coats and looking in the fridge, then shutting lights out on their way to the bedroom, where, Holly imagined, wonderful unseen things would probably take place. She sighed and turned to the wall instead. She wished she could shut her brain off and go to sleep, instead of finding new things to worry