Someone to Watch Over Me

In the course of anyone’s life, there are sweet, precious memories that stretch longer than the roads ahead. There are memories that don’t matter in the morning light, memories that are too painful to remember but also memories that are remembered no matter how much they hurt, when it all comes down to it, that’s all they are: memories. If you forget them, misplace them, or lose them you won’t get them back. You won’t get a second chance. So you’ve got to hold onto them with every thought you create.

Of course, Jamie Harrison knows this better than anyone else. She grips to her memories like a sweet salvation for her, constantly replaying them over in her mind like a movie at the theatre. Sometimes the memories fade, get fuzzy or burn out, and this upsets Jamie. Because if anything, it’s just a piece of her dying and she’s not ready to burn out.

Those memories have a special place in her heart, and she needs them more than ever as she greets one of the hardest days in her life: her father’s death. Her father was a hero… a legend… and everyone knows legends live on. Legends are remembered.

And Jamie remembers him plain as day.

He was a jolly man. Ever since she can remember him, she had always seen him as a free spirit, even if he wasn’t. Robert Harrison always had a dream, ever since he was a young lad; he wanted to become a famous writer, of being in a tux promoting his latest novel. Yet, he was tied down.

Tied down by marriage. Tied down by a child; her.

Not a day goes by when Jamie doesn’t give herself grief for ruining her father’s career.

“He could have been happy” she whispers into the empty kitchen. But no matter how much Jamie whispers in the dead of night or talks to the stars, she can’t help feel blessed and happy her father was tied down by her.

“Everyone left” her mother said taking a seat before her daughter, the older woman was aware of her sorrow and that’s why she didn’t ask Jamie to be around too many people. “Everyone said nice things; you should’ve heard the wonderful things that the Abbot twins said about him. Tom was here too” the mention of her childhood friend made Jamie pay attention to her mother. “He recalled the day you two skipped school to have lunch at Gee’s your father caught you and was so upset, he forbade Tom to see you in a week, poor boy he was going mad to see you. Do you remember?”

Jamie nodded, of course she did. It would be embarrassing to admit how many times she had thought about Tom coming back to town, and now that he was in town she didn’t even get to see him. But it didn’t matter, nothing really mattered to her more than the hollow feeling she got by being in that house, where her father was missing.

“I’m moving to London” the girl blurted out before rising from her seat and going straight to her room, her mother following close behind.

“Jamie, you can’t be serious!” her mother insists when Jamie opens the drawer’s chest to take out her clothes.

“I have to do this”

“You won’t get yourself any piece of mind over his death!” Mrs Harrison shakes her head. She’s a tired and worn-out woman with a few more years on her face than there should be, and the ghost of a once-pretty woman found in her greying brown hair and sad green eyes. “Jamie, he would love you no matter what you did with your life” she crosses over and cups her daughter’s face in her hands, “Baby you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

“Mam, I have to do this” Jamie repeats, just as determined as she was once as a child.

“But London is so far away” Louise Harrison sighs.

Jamie rolls her eyes, it wasn’t that far from Oxford but she knows that her mother doesn’t want her to leave; she knows they’ll miss each other very much, and she knows that her mother has the right to tell her how to live her life. But Jaime wants to be her own spotlight, her own shining star (for her father’s sake), so she will refuse her mother’s nagging.

“Where will you live?”

“I’ve been approved to have my own flat near the college. It’s all taken care of, I promise you.”

“Don’t promise anything, God knows how depressing it is for you when you can’t keep your promises. Just call me once a week because I know how busy you’ll be.”

Jamie stares at her mother, who looks sadder than her father would have wanted as she slumps herself into the sofa, staring at the wall with a blank face. She takes the seat beside her mother and throws an arm around the woman.

“Mommy, I’ll visit you I promise. It’s just school, after all. Not forever.”

Louise shakes her head again; probably feeling lost and stuck in her own memories. “No, Jamie, it’s not just school. In order to become a writer you have to be away forever. Why do you think your father never wrote anything longer than a page?” Jamie then remembered her father having some of his famous writing time in the backyard, he merely wrote a short story to then go back in the house and forget about it.

There is an eerie silence in the rom as Jamie adjusts to what her mother just told her, seeing as she just ruined the persona Jamie has painted of her father: a great man tied down to the family and career he refuses to leave. Now he is a man who would’ve just left his family in the blink of an eye if he had actually chased his dream.

Damned if he did, damned if he didn’t.

For a moment he is no longer the man Jamie had always looked up to. The man who would always take her out to the backyard to look at the stars, to wish on gives her hope, love and peace of mind when she needed it most. But Jamie needed to believe that her father would never write something worth reading, because he wanted to stay with his girl, his little star.

Louise obviously senses the change in her daughter, so she gives her a pat on the arm. “Why don’t you check your packing? Wouldn’t want to leave anything behind, would you?”

Jamie gives a whole-hearted smile and checks twice if all her belonging worth taking were there. As she checks for the third time, she glances at the letter her father gave her before his death. Jamie refuses to open this letter and keeps it for the day when she might feel the need to.

She just can’t face it yet, it’s too soon.

“He could have been happy” Jamie whispers solemnly, finishing her packing as she prepares to leave a home that no longer feels like it, even her own father was miserable there.

“If you have trouble using the tube, check the maps and don’t be lazy and take a taxi instead, those beggars will steal from you” her mother was nervous, watching as her daughter placed the last of her luggage on her car’s boot. Louise started the engine and drove away from her house, glancing ever so often to her only child, her short brown hair looking lighter with the sun’s gleam. “I almost forgot!” the woman took out of her pocket a piece of paper and handed it to her daughter, “This is Tom’s phone number, in case you’re feeling lonely and can’t come home, you can always give him a ring”

Jamie had almost forgotten that her childhood mate lived now in the big city; it would be nice to see him at least. Maybe she would give him a ring, what harm would it do.