The love's still there

The man sat in his car in the dark, drumming his fingers on the wheel and chewing his lower lip. The car was silent, and had been for the twenty minutes that he had been sat there, the popping of the engine cooling having long ago finished. Evening had fallen while he’d waited and the street lights had buzzed on over head, throwing shadows across the dashboard and tainting the car with their warm amber hue.

A dozen times or more he had reached for the keys, to start up the car and drive away and forget all of this. But every time his hand had just rested on them for a while, before moving back to the wheel and drumming again. So many different, competing emotions tossed around his head and his heart. His stomach hadn't stopped spinning for the entire journey, and it hadn’t stopped since either. The car was too hot and stuffy, and he felt sick, and dizzy and just done with all of this. He could drive away and no-one would ever now.

“I'll know”, he thought. “I'll know I didn't go in, but I'll never know what he would’ve said.”

Letting the breath out through his teeth he thudded his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes. He took deep breaths, in through the nose and out through the mouth. It was a desperate attempt to clear his mind and push all the emotions away, just for a while, but as usual it didn’t work.

There was a noise out on the street, the sound of another car, and the man jumped. Someone else had just pulled up, the low whir of their engine lost as background noise, and now they were getting out and locking up. With a skip of a heartbeat the man watching recognised the figure. All the doubts and the worries were magnified now, now they had an image to coalesce on. Arguements, fights, betrayals and abandonments surfaced their heads again deep from within his memory. The only thing that stopped him from turning the key and driving off there and then was the knowledge that the noise would get the other man’s attention. If someone else saw him, then he’d never be able to deny that he had been there.

Sure enough the newcomer was oblivious to the fact he was being watched, and had a spring in his step as he walked up to one of the houses. While he was still fumbling in his pocket for the keys the door was thrown open.

“Daddy!” called a young voice, with a delighted squeak, as the beam of the hallway light haloed the person on the doorstep. Laughing and teasing he picked the child up and carried them back in.

The door closed, and the street fell silent once more.

The other man was happy, settled and stable, everything sorted out in life. So it wouldn’t matter if the man in the car just drove away, would it? The other man wasn’t missing anything from his life. All that could be achieved by going over there would be to ruin that happiness. His fingers found the ignition once more.

And yet…

Now there was a yearning in the bottom of the man’s stomach. That little sight, that sliver of a glimpse into someone else’s life wasn’t enough. It was tormenting, to be so close but to know nothing about them. What had they all accomplished, what did they dream for, what did they fear? What was their favourite takeaways, what did they think of the latest TV series, what did they listen to on the radio? A dozen, stupid little questions, the insignificant things that bit by bit make up a person.

“And if I leave now I’ll never know them,” he thought. The rest of his life, it would just be that one image, the pair of them silhouetted in the front door. A perfect metaphor really; ready to either turn and accept him, or slam the door in his face, if he just made himself known.

“Go”, he said out loud, shattering the piece of the car. Keeping his mind blank, not thinking of ifs or maybes, he pulled the keys out of the ignition and got out. As he locked the door his hands were shaking so badly that he almost dropped the keys, but he ignored it and kept moving, trying to pretend that he was just going to his own house. He didn't think about what he was doing, he just took the movements that he knew that he had to. Across the road, up the garden path and now he was ringing the doorbell and waiting. Now it was too late to turn back, but that hadn’t calmed him down at all. His legs started shaking as well, and even though he could hear noises inside he still thought about leaving, about running and not looking back. But then there was a movement behind the glass. It was too late, he’d never escape in time. The moment of truth.

The door opened, and his brother stood there. The man on the step opened his mouth to speak, but for all the times he’d thought this moment through he still hadn’t planned out what to say. He didn't know where to start, not after so long, so much silence, and so much fault, on both sides.

Without a word his brother stepped out into the night and embraced him. Slowly, carefully, he wrapped his arms around his brother as well. Sad, but hopeful, he smiled into his brother's shoulder.

The love was still there.

His brother stepped back and gestured him inside, to where the child was peering around the door frame from the front room. Pictures lined the walls, and the scent of dinner wafted out into the night. There was also a hint of aftershave, the same aftershave that his brother had used as a teen, and now the nostalgia was comforting. Like an old blanket, rather than the suffocating net that he’d thought it’d be.

“We've got a lot to catch up on,” his brother said, with tears in his eyes and a hand on the back, to guide his baby brother back into his life.