What He Left Behind

It’s strange. I’ve always been told that school is meant to prepare us for life, that the things we’re taught are meant to help us handle everything life could possibly throw at us. The truth is, I’ve been thrown a hell of a lot of curveballs in my life, and school has not helped me handle a single one of them. In fact, I haven’t felt the slightest bit prepared for many things in my life. I felt unprepared when Austin developed a drug problem. I felt unprepared when I had to deal with the crippling pain of losing the only person who understood me. I felt unprepared when I had to balance that crippling pain with caring for my depressed mother. I felt more unprepared than ever when Rena dropped the bombshell that my late brother had a child. Then again, is there any way you can prepare someone for hearing the news that their late brother had a child?

“No,” I murmur, “My brother doesn’t have a kid.” My eyebrows furrow together as I try to make sense of everything. I carefully think back about dates and timings, and about anything Austin said to me that could possibly have suggested that Rena’s telling the truth. I try to process everything but it’s impossible because my brain has shut down. Frustrated, I drop my head in my hands.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Rena reach into her bag and take something out. She places something down on the table in front of me. It takes a second for my eyes to focus – and for me to muster up the courage to look down, but when I do, I see a photograph of smiling baby with big brown eyes and a wide smile.

“That’s him,” she informs me, “Jacob Austin Rosenberg.” I stare intently at the photo for a second, looking for a resemblance between the baby and my brother, just to ensure that this isn’t some sick wind up.

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” I ask. Rena takes another photo from her bag. It’s of her and Austin. I inhale sharply, caught off-guard; I usually have to psyche myself up a bit before I look at pictures of Austin.

“I promise you it’s Austin’s. He was my first love, and quite possibly my last. I’ve never been with anyone else,” Rena explains, the sincerity in her voice making it impossible not to believe her.
I look closely at the picture. Austin looks painfully ill, so I know the photo must have been taken only a short while before his death. His eyes are shining though, with such brightness that there is no doubting he was truly happy in the moment. Rena is sat by his side, her lips pressed to his cheek. They look like the happiest couple in the world, and I wonder how such a seemingly perfect relationship was allowed to be destroyed so mercilessly and without cause.

“Austin never told me he had a girlfriend,” I whisper, “He told me everything.”
Rena sighs, glancing down at her hands and sucking her lips together. “He wanted to tell you Noelle. He really did and I’m not just saying that. He wanted to tell you more than anyone and we really considered it sometimes, but he was scared.”

“Why?”

“We’d been through some shitty stuff before we met. When we found each other, it was the best feeling in the world,” she grins, her whole face lighting up at the memory, “No one else was interested in me once they discovered I was an addict, but Austin understood. He was patient and he loved me unconditionally and he made me so fucking happy. We knew we were blessed to have each other. But we were scared. We were scared to death that it was too good to be true, and we didn’t want to put a foot wrong, in case it all got taken away from us. It sounds silly but I guess we wanted it to be our secret. There was no way we could have been torn apart if no one knew. At least that’s what we thought.”

I don’t know what it is about Rena’s words, but they make my heart swell with love for Charlie as I realise just how lucky I am to have him and that he hasn’t been taken away from me – not yet anyway.

“I got pregnant around June time,” Rena continues, “But I didn’t find out until a few weeks after Austin died.” Whilst there’s no mistaking the sorrow in Rena’s eyes or the pure adoration in her voice when she talks about Austin, I notice she’s holding it together extremely well. It’s like she’s accepted it. She’s come to terms with it.

“How old is Jacob now?”

“He was born 3 months premature, so he’s nearly a year old. He’s crazy. He’s constantly full of energy and he’s crawling at the moment, so you can imagine what that’s like. You literally can’t take your eyes off of him for a second or he’ll be getting himself into some sort of mischief, just like his dad really. He’s at that stage where he’s just starting to talk, but it sounds more like gibberish than anything I can understand. I talk to him about Austin a lot. Obviously he’s too young to understand but I swear, there’s no way he’ll grow up not knowing how great his dad was.”

“Austin would have been a dad,” I state, struggling to get my head around the whole idea.

“Noelle, you’re an aunt,” Rena says gently.

“Oh my god,” I gasp, suddenly feeling hot and like there isn’t enough oxygen in the room. “I need some air,” I announce, getting to my feet and walking out of the restaurant and into the hotel parking lot. I walk around the side of the building and collapse against the wall, my head a mess of unintelligible thoughts.

I’m so overwhelmed with shock that I don’t have time to be upset with Austin for not telling me or angry with Rena for appearing out of the blue and dropping such a bombshell. Instead, I stand completely frozen, trying to make sense of everything and figure out what to do, because now is not the time to fall apart. Now it is more important than ever to hold it together.

After a while, Charlie appears. “Are you okay?” he asks. By the time I have processed what he has said, he is standing so close to me that I have to look up to see his face.

“I don’t know,” I admit, my voice barely above a whisper. I tuck my arms around his waist and Charlie holds me tightly, rocking me gently in his arms as he rests his chin on my head. I’m so glad he came with me. I wouldn’t have been able to do this without him. I’m not sure I’d handle many things as well as I do without Charlie. He looks after me like Austin used to.

“You handled everything really well in there, you know. I’m really proud of you,” Charlie tells me, still holding me close to him. I love his hugs. His broad shoulders and muscular arms mean I’m completely cocooned in his chest and the fact he has a few inches on me means he can rest his head comfortably on mine, shielding me from all my surroundings. His hugs are like an escape. Every time I need a minute to collect my thoughts or to be sheltered from everything, having him there is a blessing.

“Thank you Charlie.”

“What do you want to do now?”

“I don’t know. What do you think I should do? You always know what to do.”

Charlie lets out a blunt laugh. “Tell me how you’re feeling.”

“Weird. I feel weird. I haven’t taken it in yet.”

“Right, you’ve got two options then. We can either go home and you can have some time to take it in and think this all over, or we can go back inside and talk. Rena said she’s happy to answer anything at all that you want to know. I think she’s more nervous that she’s letting on.” I take a deep breath, inhaling his scent which is familiar and calming and good.

“I want to go back inside,” I decide.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, there’s a lot I want to know. I need answers.”

“Okay,” he agrees, planting a kiss on the top of my head before releasing me from his arms. We walk back to the entrance and Charlie places his hand to the small of my back, letting me go inside first.

“Sorry about that,” I say quietly as we sit back down at the table with Rena.

“Don’t be. You took it better than I thought you would,” she recognises.

“How do you mean?”

She laughs lightly and then says, “Austin told me what you’re like. I thought you’d be angry.”

“You and me both,” Charlie smirks, “Attack now, think later. That’s generally how she works.”

“That’s rich coming from you,” I tease, glaring at Charlie. I feel happy, because I’m glad that Austin talked to Rena about me. “What else did he tell you about me?”

“Oh gosh, let’s see,” she says, thinking, “He said that you were crazy and impulsive, and that you didn’t let anyone mess you around. He said that you always looked after him and got him out of trouble whenever he got himself into it. He said that you were into photography.”

“He told you that?”

“Yeah, I’m the same. I love taking pictures. He said we had a lot in common.”

“What photography do you do?” I ask, not just in an attempt to lighten the topic of conversation, but also because I’m genuinely interested.

“At the time, it wasn’t anything serious. I was just taking photos of your brother and a lot of landscape stuff. Shortly after I moved to California, I got talking to this guy who’s got a name for himself in the business. He does wedding photography and I talked him into letting me come along and be a second photographer. We got on well and he liked my flair so he offered me a permanent job. It went from there really and now we co-run the company.”

I’m stunned, albeit envious. There aren’t many people from Marietta that manage to do so well for themselves, especially not young ex-addict single parents. Rena must be extremely good at what she does.

“So you live here then?” I ask.

“I live in LA,” she informs me, “I spend quite a bit of time here though for work.”

“When did you move to LA?”

“As soon as I found out I was pregnant,” she tells me. She sighs nervously before continuing, “I worked in a bar back in Marietta and that’s how I met Austin. He always used to hang out there with his friends. They were all addicts and you could tell that a mile off. Obviously, I used to be an addict myself, so when I ran into him at a party around Christmas time, we…got high and spent the night together. I thought it would just be a one night thing, but it wasn’t that easy. When we woke up the next morning, we were talking and there was a connection. Things went from there and we became official January of the year he died. We were as stupid and reckless as each other and both of our addictions were spiralling out of control but we didn’t care. All we could think about was each other and how we were going to get our next fix. But then Austin died, and then I found out I was pregnant, and that was the last straw. It was a wakeup call and I knew I had to get clean for the sake of the baby, but I also knew that I couldn’t do that in Marietta. All my friends were addicts, and anyone that wasn’t an addict avoided me, because I was an addict. There was nothing for me in that town and I’d always dreamed of moving to California anyway, so I thought, what better time?”

“So you just packed up and left?”

“Yep. I packed my bags that night and used the money I’d saved from working to get a plane ticket. I moved into a hostel and quit drugs cold turkey. I took on as much work as I could, because I knew I’d need the money once the baby arrived. I did bar work and waitressing and filing and whatever else I could find, and then I got the gig as a photographer.”

“How did you have the guts to just leave?”

“I think it was more desperation than guts. I needed to get away from the grief and break out of the vicious circle I was stuck in. I knew that the baby was all I had and that it depended on me. I had to sort my life out for him. So I did.”