‘His name is Robin Timothy Whittington. He was born 27 October.’
‘Mary,’ Mum gasped. ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’
‘Honestly? I’m an unemployed single mother living in a cottage with a leaky roof in the middle of nowhere. I’ve had a lot to deal with lately and couldn’t face yet more of your disapproval on top of everything else.’
‘We could have… I don’t know. We could have helped.’
‘What, got one of your charities to send a care package?’
I was possibly being unfair, but if my parents had taken any interest in my life, had asked how I was, what I’d been up to, at any point in this past year, I would have told them. Mum clearly had no clue how to respond to such brutal honesty from her daughter. Truthfully, I didn’t know how to handle it – I was alarming myself. It appeared as though motherhood had opened the door to a heap of ugly feelings previously locked safely away in my brain’s deepest basement.
‘Are you both all right? I mean, healthy? Are… are you coping? Shay and Kieran must be supporting you.’
‘I haven’t seen Shay and Kieran since I left ShayKi. But we’re doing fine.’
I realised, with a flicker of surprise, that, for the first time in almost a year, this was mostly true.
‘Right. Okay. That’s good. Obviously, I have questions, but I won’t bombard you now. I’ve a meeting in two minutes. Can we talk properly, another time? How about we fly back to Sheffield for New Year, and you come and join us? Both of you?’
‘Both of us? As opposed to leaving my baby by himself?’
‘Mary.’ A hint of steel broke through Mum’s fluster. ‘You’ve dropped a monumental bombshell. You can’t blame me for requiring a moment to rally my thoughts.’
‘Sorry.’ I hated sounding like a bitter teenager. This was supposed to be a calm, composed conversation. If only the very sound of Mum’s voice didn’t make my nerves screech in protest. I took a deep breath and tried again.
‘I don’t want to come to Sheffield for New Year. Please don’t change your plans. Not… not because I don’t want to see you.’ Or rather, not only because of that. ‘A lot happened there before I left. I want Bob’s first Christmas to be about making new, happy memories, not confronting old, painful ones. I hope that makes sense.’
Mum sighed. ‘Yes. It does. And to be honest, cancelling everything now would mean letting down a lot of people. Let me speak to your dad and see if we can work out some other dates. We’ve a lot to get done, with never enough time to do it, but no one can begrudge us rejigging the schedule to meet our grandson. Robert, did you say?’
‘Robin, but I’m calling him Bob.’
‘Your great-grandfather was Robin. He did some excellent work on behalf of ex-servicemen after the war.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘Of course you do. Right, well. I’ll be in touch. Oh – and you said Shay would be the best person to speak to about the donation? If you send me her number I can take it from there.’
No request for a photo of their grandson, or an address. Whether there was anything Bob needed, or ideas for a gift.
Shay and Kieran had spent a long time convincing me that my dysfunctional family was not my fault. I’d been the child, and as parents it was up to them to love me unconditionally, support my perfectly acceptable choices and champion my not insignificant successes. When they consistently – and, even worse, intentionally – led me to believe I wasn’t good enough, dismissed my choices as selfish and my success as shallow, the only way to protect myself from being crushed by the weight of their criticism was to establish firm boundaries.
Today, with no friends insisting I remembered this, it was impossible not to feel the sting of guilt about the distance I’d deliberately created between us.
Even worse, as I spent yet another night pacing the floor with my fractious son, I couldn’t help wondering that if I’d listened to them more, maybe I wouldn’t have found myself living in the disaster zone of my own making.
For the five years the ShayKi founders lived in that first, terraced house, we ploughed almost everything into the business, setting aside a modest amount on top of living expenses for our sacrosanct fun-fund. While I worked in the background, crunching numbers, dealing with suppliers, keeping us legal, Shay and Kieran networked, charmed and were downright pushy, until an influencer took a shine to our bags, and things exploded. We soon learned that hiring more staff meant rethinking our entire way of operating, as we brought in a branding expert, created marketing and sales teams, logistics and HR, and eventually opened up a trendy office and flagship store in the city centre.
We made a ton of mistakes, almost lost everything one year, then scraped it back again. Yet, through it all we stuck together. Shay and Kieran revelled in the kind of blazing rows that involved drinks tossed in faces and sample fabrics ripped in two, but I was always there to broker the peace deal and bring some much-needed perspective.
I continued to wonder if behind this passion lay more than a lifelong friendship. However, Shay remained resolutely determined to stay single. She would go on dates, but the moment things started to turn serious, she’d end it, citing her commitment to the business as the reason. Kieran carried on with a string of relationships, mostly lasting a few months, the longest ending up with two years living together while Shay and I bought our own newbuild apartment with amazing views across the city. The one thing Kieran’s girlfriends had in common was that they were the kind of women Shay couldn’t stand – fawning, opinionless, requiring minimal effort. There were days I dreamed about holding the two of them hostage in a register office until they’d signed the marriage papers and put all three of us out of our misery, but as the years went by and we crossed into our thirties, I eventually let it go.
Meanwhile, my parents didn’t try especially hard to hide their consternation that their daughter was continuing in a commercial career. Our recycled products, ethical suppliers and generous employment packages couldn’t outweigh me dedicating myself to making money from people, rather than helping them.
‘Lifestyle porn’, they called it. Not to my face, but in a message meant for my brother but accidentally sent to our family group chat, shortly before I removed myself from it. One year, I persuaded them along to our annual awards evening, where we showcased our partnerships with local charities and our latest innovations to achieve sustainability. They stood stiff limbed amongst the unashamed shimmer of a room of people who loved expressing themselves through fashion, and any hope that they might finally realise what we’d achieved was crushed beneath their disdain.
I told myself that I didn’t need them to feel proud of me. I was proud of myself, and how my input into ShayKi was not only making it into something my parents should have been proud of, but causing ripples across the whole industry.
I was lying. My whole life I’d failed to impress my impressive family, and it still hurt.
