Free The Other Side of the Bridge by Mary Lawson Page A

hindsight he could see that his mother was unhappy, but he’d thought that was just how she was, her natural state. He had taken it for granted that they loved each other; he’d assumed it the same way that he’d assumed they loved him. Now, suddenly, it came to him that that must be in doubt as well. Surely his mother wouldn’t do this if she loved him.
    They’d been saying something and again he hadn’t heard it. His mother’s voice had risen almost to a shout. There was a short silence, and then his father said, “Excuse me,” and got up and left the room.
    Ian’s mother stayed where she was, the tears shining on her cheeks. She was staring at the serving dish. After a minute she took a deep breath and said, “That is typical. His leaving the room at a time like this is typical. But I am glad, because I have other things to say to you. He knows about them—your father knows about them—but I wanted to tell you privately, by ourselves.”
    She went on to say them, these other things. She said she hadn’t fully realized how little she’d had in life until she fell in love with a man who was in love with her. Genuinely in love. A man who was prepared to give things up for her. She said she and Robert Patterson were in love and were going to get married as soon as their respective divorces came through. In the meantime, they were leaving Struan as soon as possible. Robert had already identified a teaching job in Toronto.
    Here she looked up; Ian didn’t look at her but he could feel her gaze. She said, “I want you to come with us, of course. Robert will be happy to have you; he thinks you’re a very fine boy. His children will stay with their mother, but we hope you will come with us. Will you? Will you come with us to Toronto?”
    Robert Patterson taught geography at the high school. Ian was in his class. He was a newcomer to Struan, having come from somewhere down south three or four years ago. He had a wife and two young children. He was tall and thin and had wire-rimmed glasses and a sarcastic manner. There was no way anyone could love him.
    Ian’s mother said, “I am sorry to give you so little time, but we wanted to have everything settled, Robert and I, before telling you. I know it will be hard for you at first, leaving your friends and so on. But we’ll be able to give you so much more. You know what Toronto is like.”
    His incredulity and confusion were so great he was unable to think. He struggled to find some order within himself, some coherent thought. After a few minutes, during which his mother waited silently, it came to him that there was one question he needed the answer to straight away. Maybe there were other questions, but they were unimportant compared to this one. He tried to assemble it in his mind, to think how to phrase it, but when at last he managed to gather together the words and tried to voice them, he found he couldn’t speak. His jaws felt wired together with tension. Finally he managed. He said, aiming the words at the tablecloth because he could not look at her, “If I won’t go, will you go anyway?”
    There was more silence, during which he tried to breathe normally. When she finally spoke, what she said was, “Ian, I want you to come with me. With us.”
    Which was not the answer to his question, so he asked it again. He weighed out the words to make sure that she would understand, and that he himself would understand, their full meaning, now and forever.
    “If I won’t go with you, will you go anyway? Will you go without me?”
    This time, struggling with the shaking of her voice, she said, “Darling, you do not know what it has been like, all these years.”
    By which he understood, finally, that he was not important to her. Not that important.
    Afterward he was impressed by his response—how calm it sounded. How polite. He said, “I’ll stay here with Dad, if that’s all right. But thank you for asking me.”
    And then he excused himself and left the