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name is Casey Denton, and you are the son of Thomas Denton … that’s me. I was there when you were born, and I was the first one to hold you, after the nurse. Then I placed you tenderly into your mammy’s arms, and the two of us loved you so much, we never wanted to let you go. So, you see, it’s always been the three of us.’

      ‘So, when I was born she held me. That means she must love me, eh?’

      Tom assured him that it was so.

      Casey was unsettled, however, his mind questioning everything that Tom said. ‘But if she loved me when I was born, why doesn’t she love me now?’

      It was a difficult question for Tom. On the day when Casey was born, Ruth had held him for less than a minute, her manner cold and hard as she returned the baby to him. ‘I don’t want it! Take it back.’ The vehemence in her voice had shaken him to the core.

      Unconcerned, the nurse had taken the baby from him and placed him tenderly into the prepared cot.

      Afterwards, when he was leaving, the nurse had urged Tom not to be upset by his wife’s words. ‘I promise you, your wife is not the first to reject her newborn. She’s had a very long, painful labour and an extremely difficult birth. Rejecting the baby in the first flush is not an unusual reaction. She’ll come round. They always do.’

      After a while, Ruth appeared to have accepted the boy, and no more was said.

      Through Casey’s formative years, however, there were occasions when Ruth had shown hostility towards her son. Tom had chosen to dismiss it, but tonight, when she claimed to hate the boy, the awful truth was driven home to him. Ruth really did harbour a sense of hatred towards her son.

      ‘I don’t think she loves me at all.’ Casey’s voice startled Tom out of his thoughts. ‘Why doesn’t she love me?’

      Taking that small face between the palms of his hands, Tom gently wiped away the tears. ‘In all honesty, I don’t know what to tell you, Casey, except that I’m sure she does have feelings for you. The thing is, do any of us know what love really means? Y’see, son, it can mean different things to different people.’ He felt totally out of his depth; wanting to comfort the boy, yet not wanting to lie to him. ‘As for myself, I believe that when you love someone, you have a deep urge to protect them. You want them always to be happy, and never to get hurt, and you’ll do anything to make them safe. That’s what I personally believe love means.’

      He paused to gather his thoughts, before going on. ‘But y’see, Casey, not everyone thinks of it in the same way. Someone else might think that love means moulding a person so that he or she can learn to protect themselves and be safe from harm. They want their loved ones to be strong enough to reach their potential in life. They believe that being hard and demanding to their loved ones is the right way to be, even though it could make them appear cruel.’

      ‘But she is cruel. She never cuddles me. She likes to hurt me, and make me cry.’

      Tom was deeply saddened by the child’s words. ‘The thing is, Casey, people like your mother don’t know any other way. They think that cuddling and being soft is wrong, and that their way is best.’

      For what seemed an age, Casey remained silent. Then, looking Tom in the eye, he told him in a clear voice, ‘I don’t like her, and I don’t like that kind of love, and I don’t want her to be my mam any more.’

      ‘That’s your choice, son, and I respect that. You have every right to speak your mind. But you must never hate, because hatred is a terrible, destructive thing. It’s like I was saying, we’re all different, and we all deal differently with particular situations. I agree … some people’s kind of love is complicated. It isn’t for you and it isn’t for me either, but people can’t help the way they are, and though we might not care for their kind of love, we have to accept it. That’s just the way it is.’

      ‘So …’ in his young mind, Casey tried to make sense of it all, ‘… you’re telling me that my mam really does love me, only in a different way?’

      ‘Well, yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying.’

      ‘So, why did you take me away from her? Why did you say you never want me to live with her again?’

      Realising that Casey had heard more than he’d first thought, Tom gave him a simple explanation that he hoped would finish the conversation right there. ‘Well, the way I see it is this. You said yourself that you didn’t like her kind of love.’

      ‘I don’t!’

      ‘OK. So, if you stayed with her, you would be unhappy, is that right?’

      ‘Yes!’

      ‘And you might refuse to accept her kind of love and even fight against it, because you think she’s cruel and unkind. So, there might be arguments and fights and she would get angry and hit out. And the whole situation would escalate into a war between you. Am I right?’

      ‘Yes. I don’t want to live with her, because she’s too cruel. She tells lies, and she hit me with her fists, and she smashed up the guitar.’ Scrambling to his feet, he began to cry. ‘I don’t want her to love me any more. I’m glad you took me away because I don’t want her. I only want you and Granddad Bob.’

      ‘And that’s your final decision, is it?’ Tom was satisfied that his attempted interpretation of Ruth’s ‘love’ for Casey had somehow helped; making him realise that, his mother had proved herself to be more than capable of making his life a misery, and that it was all right for him to leave.

      It was a huge source of comfort to Tom that his boy would be out of harm’s reach, and safely settled with his granddad.

      ‘Come on then, son.’ Securing the guitar over Casey’s shoulder, he swung him into his arms. ‘We’d best go and tell Granddad Bob.’

      ‘Will you tell him how Mam smashed up your guitar?’

      ‘Oh, I’m sure he’ll see that for himself.’

      ‘He won’t be pleased.’

      ‘You’re right. He won’t.’

      ‘What else will you tell him?’ Casey remembered the man who he heard in his mother’s bedroom, and the others who had been there before him.

      Suspecting the reasoning behind this question, Tom feigned a chuckle. ‘I’ll tell him he’s got two smelly lodgers from the Blakewater, and that we both need a hot bath.’

      ‘And that we’re cold and hungry, eh?’ Casey was excited.

      ‘OK, that too.’

      ‘Yeah!’ Casey was famished. ‘If Granddad’s made a meat and potato pie, there might be some left over.’

      With that in mind, they headed for the nearest bus stop, where they sat on the wooden bench to wait.

      When, some ten minutes later, the bus arrived, the two of them climbed aboard and seated themselves on the seat furthest from the doors. ‘We’ll be far enough away from the draught here,’ Tom decided.

      Tom bought two single tickets to Preston New Road. From there, they would walk down to Addison Street, where he was born and grew up.

      Realising how much was at stake following his decision, he was deeply apprehensive. So many things to think about. So much responsibility. Of late, he had been called upon to take the most important decisions of his life. Heart-breaking decisions that would affect those he loved. He had never wished to be in this situation, but now that he was, he had to face it with hard determination, or be lost.

      There was too much to think about, too much that he did not understand. He was forced to act, and he did so after long deliberation, and with a sad heart. There was much regret and, more importantly, too much left unsaid.

      ‘Daddy!’

      Casey’s raised voice startled him. ‘Ssh! Don’t be so loud, Casey. There are other people on this bus.’

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