What He Left Behind

“This was the night I moved to Los Angeles,” Rena tells me, pointing to another picture in the scrapbook, “I’d arrived at LAX about an hour before and it was so late and I had no money and nowhere to live, so I just walked around and explored the city.”

“Then what did you do?” I ask.

“I was at the soup kitchen the next day, and I got talking to the woman who was serving the food. She was called Julie. By this point I was having pretty severe withdrawals and I was absolutely dying for a fix but I knew I couldn’t risk hurting the baby, not that I could afford anything anyway. Julie said she hadn’t seen me around before so I told her that I was new to town. We talked for a little while and I told her I was pregnant. She said that the streets were no place for a pregnant woman, and that she runs a hostel for recovering addicts, just outside of the city. Usually there was a waiting list, but she said that she’d make an exception.”

“Because you were pregnant?”

“And because she could see that my withdrawals were excruciating. Heroin was what I was hooked on, and the withdrawals begin after about twelve hours but they hit their peak at 3-4 days. Julie knew I would give in if I didn’t get professional help, plus it’s really dangerous to quit on your own,” she explains before flipping to the next page and pointing to a picture of her with a forty-something year old woman with long dark hair and a beaming smile.

“That’s Julie. She was so good to me. She’s good to everyone really, but she got on with me very well. She liked that I was so determined to stay off the drugs and get my life back on track and bring up the baby right. The hostel offered drug counselling and support and I also got referred to a support group for single mums. That’s where I met these two,” she continues, pointing to another picture. It’s of Rena and two other women of a similar age, all of them sporting baby bumps. One has a small face and a cropped pixie cut and the other has dark hair almost as long as Rena’s. The three of them are sat side by side on the floor of an apartment, laughing and holding up various baby toys and supplies.

“That one’s Alice,” she says, pointing to the one with the pixie cut, “And that’s Lorelle who Jacob stayed with last night. They’re my best friends and my lifelines. They both had difficult pasts of their own but we supported each other through everything. They were both with me at Jacob’s birth and I was with them through the birth of their children. Obviously I didn’t used to be particularly affluent and they’re not either, so we needed to go back to work as soon as possible after the birth. Childminders and nurseries are so expensive, so we all look after each other’s kids to save money. It works out so well. God knows what I’d have done without them because back when I was at the hostel, I’d never have been able to afford childcare.”

“How did you get to move here?” I ask.

“A few weeks after I’d moved into the hostel, I was settled and had the withdrawals under control and decided I needed to start earning. Living in a hostel and having no qualifications whatsoever, I couldn’t apply for jobs in the conventional way. But luckily, I knew the right people. Obviously I had Lorelle and Alice, and I knew people through the hostel and the soup kitchen and the counselling sessions. I’m quite chatty I guess and I talk to everyone I meet, so that helped me establish a lot of contacts. With their help, I picked up whatever work I could. I’d serve breakfasts in cafés and wait tables in restaurants and pulled pints in bars. I saved every penny and through a mutual friend, I met this guy called Stephen who’s the photographer I said about. Photography’s always been my passion and my dream and I knew that, whilst I had to put Jacob first, it didn’t mean I should miss out doing what I’ve always wanted to do. Besides, I knew that the hours I was working and the money I was earning wouldn’t cut it long term. Photography’s difficult to get into though as you probably know, especially without any qualifications or practical experience. But thankfully I knew how to sweet talk people, so I persuaded Stephen to let me come along to weddings with him once a week and act as a second photographer, unpaid of course, but that was okay because I just wanted to get experience.” She shows me pictures of her with Stephen and her with various members of wedding parties, and I realise just how good she is at making friends wherever she goes. She’s so chatty and approachable and easy to talk to and has this way with everyone.

Charlie’s like that too, although not in the way Rena is. Charlie can talk naïve girls into sleeping with him and dodgy barmen into serving him and backstreet artists into tattooing him. The way Charlie does it is hardly moral or safe. He’s tossed aside without a second thought the naïve girls he’s slept with, he’s developed an addiction because of the dodgy barmen that have served him, and it’s a miracle he hasn’t caught a disease because of the backstreet artists that have tattooed him. Even I’m not so enamoured of him that I can’t see that.

With Rena it’s different though. She talks people into things because that’s the only way to survive. She knew she had no qualifications and no money, but she was smart enough to be able to talk people into helping her. There are no mind games or stretching the truth or deceiving people or putting herself in additional danger. Even when she was grieving and homeless and fighting a drug addiction, even when she had absolutely no one but the child growing inside of her, she was still honest and hopeful and hardworking, and I have the utmost respect for her for that.

“I went into labour a couple of months before my due date and I was so scared that something would go wrong but honestly, things couldn’t have gone any better. Given that I was a heavy heroin user for the first few months of the pregnancy, it’s a miracle that Jacob was so healthy. There were no major complications. I was worried about money too, but it turns out that at the restaurant I’d been working at, they’d secretly been collecting money for the baby. My manager came round and gave me $500 from the co-workers and customers which was the best thing in the world and I’m still so grateful for that. I got given hampers of baby supplies from the other places where I did work. Julie arranged a hamper for me aswell and it all made me really how lucky I am and how kind people are. Shit’s happened but the fact is that I went through a bad time, not a bad life.”

I smile, in awe of Rena and her attitude and her outlook on life. I flick through the next few pages which are filled with pictures of the first few months of Jacob’s life; they may have been spent in a hostel but to me, it looks like the most loving, if somewhat unconventional, family home there ever was.

“I took a bit of time off work to be with Jacob and to recover, but in March of this year I started working again, and I carried on doing the work with Stephen. He realised just how serious I was about photography. I got on well with the clients, I got on well with him, and he liked my work, so he offered me a proper paid job with him. I built up my clientele really quite quickly and within a month I was taking bookings of my own. Soon after that, I stopped doing all the other work I was doing and started looking at moving out of the hostel. The problem is that around this way, real estate is extortionate. Stephen and I were close friends at this point so I talked to him about it, and he said that he didn’t want me having to move out of town and offered to buy me a place until I could pay him back.”

“No way,” I gasped, “So he owns this?”

“No. I couldn’t accept his offer. He’d done so much for me already and it wasn’t fair, but we came to an agreement. Coming from the background I do, I have a serious talent in saving money and getting good bargains, so I’d managed to save up a serious amount while I was in the hostel. Stephen helped me work out that financially, I’d be able to get a mortgage and cover the monthly payments, and still have enough to provide for myself and for Jacob. The problem was, with my background, it was difficult to get a mortgage. Stephen however has an excellent credit history, so he offered to be my mortgage guarantor, which basically means that if I fall behind on the payments, he would step in. Thankfully that hasn’t happened so far and at the moment work is really going well, so fingers crossed, it won’t happen anytime soon. I’m just in complete disbelief at how this has worked out. To think that just over a year ago I arrived in Los Angeles unemployed, broke and alone, with a nasty heroin addiction and a baby on the way, and now I’m here. I’ve been so lucky.”

“It’s not so much luck as the fact you worked hard.” Rena laughs a little and pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, thinking.

“It’s thanks to Jacob. I’d never have done any of this if it wasn’t for him. God knows where I’d be if I hadn’t have gotten pregnant. The kid’s not even a year old and he’s effectively saved my life.”

“And you’ve created a bloody good life for him. He’s lucky to have a mum like you, you know.”

“You think so?”

“Definitely. You’ve turned your life around for him. You’ve worked yourself silly and overcome a drug addiction so that you can be the best mum possible. I have so much respect for you.” Rena wraps her arms around my neck and pulls me into a hug, tucking her head in the crook of my neck.

“Thank you,” she whispers, “Thank you so much.” I hold her tightly, in genuine admiration of how wonderful she is, feeling completely satisfied that, despite losing his dad before he was even born, Jacob will have the best upbringing possible. When Rena pulls away from the hug, I notice that she is crying. She laughs a little and wipes under her eyes.

“Sorry,” she mutters, “I don’t usually get emotional like this.”

“It’s okay. It’s good to let it all out.”

“I’m just so happy that this has all sorted itself out, and I’m so happy that you’re here.”

“That I’m here?”

“Yeah, I’ve wanted to talk to you for so long. Even when Austin was still alive, I thought about it a lot. When he was getting really bad, I thought about reaching out to you because he always talked about how close you were, but I kept wimping out. It’s stupid because I’m so confident about everything else but I loved Austin so much and I wanted his family to like me, especially you. Then he died and I had the counselling and everything which really helped me grieve, but I wanted to talk to you because you’re the only person who knew him like I did,” she cries, and by now, I’m on the verge of crying too. “I was worried you’d be angry that we didn’t tell you or upset about Jacob or just that you wouldn’t like me, but you’re here and you’re great, you’re even greater than Austin said you were, and I’m so so happy.”

“I’m glad,” I say, smiling, “You deserve it.”