I met Alan in 1993. With a friend I visited his house. At the time he was living with a woman and they had a child together, Phillipa. He never spoke to me only glanced up briefly to say 'hi'.
Two years later I was in my garden one Spring evening when a car pulled up. The driver asked me if I remembered him. I didn't but I was polite and civil. He then proceeded to tell me that he had split up with his missus and was now looking to revive his old friendships. I was totally baffled and gobsmacked by this person talking to me as though we had known each other for years. He told me he would be back later for a coffee. He was, he explained who he was and the fact that he now found himself single with a house all to himself and fighting for contact to his daughter in the courts. I felt very sympathetic towards his cause, he genuinely felt he had been wronged by this mad woman he had lived with for 8 years. I was horrified when he told me that she actually had an abortion because he would not marry her!
Alan started to visit on a regular basis and I enjoyed his company. I met his daughter and I could see that he doted on her. I invited Alan around one night and told him to bring a bottle of vodka I desperately needed to get drunk to get my mind off the fact that my mother was in the last stages of life. The cancer had eaten everything including her sanity and dignity, it wasn't nice to see such a vibrant woman fade to nothing within such a short time. As far as I was concerned I considered my mam to already be dead the woman lying in that bed with a tube out of every orifice was not the person who loved me unconditionally.
Alan came around on the evening of March 9th 1995. I got very drunk. My mother died at 3 am that morning.
The day my mother was buried there was a storm so vicious in nature that it shook the house with it's crashing. Every room lit up as though it were daylight yet the sky outside was black. I sat in the hallway on the floor with my two boys comforting them. They were terrified. I am convinced it was a warning from my mother, but I never listened to her, so many times I chose to ignore her advice.
Three weeks after my mother's death I asked Alan if he would give me a baby. It was probably grief, rebound I really don't know all I can describe it as a longing for someone to love me again. Three weeks later I was pregnant with Alex.
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