Set Me Free by Daniela Sacerdoti

just . . .” I shook my head, unable to say any more.
    â€œI think it’s also because of me. Because of . . . you know, the way I’ve been. The way I get angry.”
    â€œNo, no, Lara! It’s not like that at all!” I exclaimed, putting my mug down. “Oh, please don’t think it’s your fault. None of this is your fault. Your dad hates seeing you upset. He finds it hard to see you going through this.” I would never, never tell her what he’d really said. “It’s not because of you or Leo. It’s us, it’s Dad and I. We just don’t understand each other. We haven’t understood each other for a long time now.”
    â€œI think that if we hadn’t come along maybe you’d still be together,” she said, and I saw her scrutinising my face, like she was frightened of what I would say and at the same time desperate for reassurance. The thing was, from Ash’s point of view she was probably right. If the children hadn’t opened this deep, deep fracture between us we would still be together, Ash unthreatened in his selfish little world of work and golf and fancy watches, in his never-ending, never-to-be satisfied quest to impress his parents and make them proud of him. He’d still have me all for himself, exclusively his. Lara’s words echoed Ash’s, in a way; they certainly echoed his thoughts.
    I looked into her eyes, and told her the truth. I told her my truth, not Ash’s.
    â€œI don’t even want to think about you and Leo not being in my life.”
    I saw her relaxing a little at my reply, and I stroked her face, tucking a wavy strand of hair behind her ear.
    â€œI’m sorry you’re upset, Mum.”
    â€œI’m sorry too.”
    â€œWe’ll be fine.”
    I smiled a little. It should have been me comforting her; instead she was trying to reassure me . “Yes. We will be.”
    My mum came to London and worked her magic on all of us. She was such a positive, loving, cheerful person; it was impossible not to be happier around her. But when she left, things started going downhill again. Ash barely saw the children, and he’d started phoning less and less. Every time he did, we fought. Lara kept having night terrors and she seemed to explode for no reason. Her anger was never directed towards Leo or me, but she seemed to be falling out with all her friends. She got a few warnings in school – they were shocked, because Lara had always been a model pupil. I’d explained to them about her background and I’d told them that Lara’s dad and I had just separated, but there was only so many allowances they could make for her rages.
    One morning I got a call from Lara’s school, summoning me. I knew it would happen, sooner or later, but I was horrified all the same.
    They said that Lara had shouted at Mrs Akerele, her English teacher, in the middle of a lesson, that she’d gone into a complete rage in front of the whole class and would not calm down. They’d sent her to the head teacher’s office, but she was so distraught that she’d ended up in the nurse’s room with a cup of sugary tea. A million thoughts raced in my mind – and of those thoughts, the one that screamed the loudest was that I’d failed her. I’d seen this coming, and I’d done nothing.
    But what could I have done?
    How easy, how automatic , even, it is for mothers to take the weight of the world on their shoulders, to feel responsible for every little piece of their children’s world. As if we were omnipotent, as if somehow we should know how to shield them from everything, and we should do that all the time. And if anything goes wrong, it is our fault – we should have predicted it, we should have stopped it, we should have done something .
    I was flustered, my thoughts scattered like leaves to the wind as I ran up the school’s steps. I stopped for a