Mummy's Boy - J A Andrews Page 0,1

me an evil look with a glaring stare. The seventeen years that he was part of our lives have been ruined due to that one day. I’m not even sure I would recognise him now if he passed me in the street, but I hope and pray that he remembers above all else that we love him. Thomas and I are his parents, and I would never forgive myself if he had left home because of me.

The last good memory I have of my son on his birthday was four years ago, when he turned sixteen. I watched him unwrap the gaming console he so desperately wanted. I never knew how to operate modern technology like he did because in my younger years we occupied ourselves by sneaking outside to get drunk on cider or hang around bus stops trying to flirt with the local boys.

I was always envious of the girls at school because I spent most of my time alone in my bedroom. I used to practise my makeup and dream about the day I would be happy with a boy of my own. Communicating back then could only be face to face even to initiate getting someone’s phone number because social media didn’t exist. Mobile phones didn’t even have cameras attached, but we made our own fun in ways that kids would now deem old-fashioned. I wish I had been more outgoing.

I remember the hug Andrew gave me in appreciation for his console. I will never forget how happy he was. He wasn’t one for showing much affection towards me, but I told myself that boys are like that; however, that hug was warm and loving. I was proud that I had made my son happy on his special day. I can close my eyes and relive the memory; the smile on his face lit the room while that look in his eyes cemented our bond. Although now I wonder whether that very console connected him online to someone who could have manipulated him.

I don’t trust the internet.

Aside from checking my emails or looking up my medical symptoms on the internet, I have no other use for an online presence; social media confuses me. It amazes me now that so many people rely on their mobile phones. I have one, but I barely use it for anything other than calling Thomas when I need him. He’s been my rock throughout this ordeal.

Andrew did show me how his gaming console worked, even though there are days I regret shouting at him for skiving off college to play online all day. We argued a lot, but he was a teenager. All teenage sons argue with their mothers, don’t they? It was a typical adolescent insolence. My role as his mother is to provide for him, keep him safe and guide him in the right direction in life – even if he did disagree with me at times. I know he never liked to be disciplined, but if there is anything that I learnt from my mother it was to keep trying harder and harder to be good at what I wanted to be.

‘You’ll regret playing on that thing all day if you fail your coursework, Andrew,’ I remember saying while he tried to have a conversation with me about the competitiveness in online gaming.

‘It’s all about the kill streak, Mum, because it’s a double-points day. Give me a break will you. College isn’t all that important you know. I will still have to find a job somehow when it’s all over.’

‘Just remember those words when you end up working in charity shops like your mother,’ I said. ‘I only want what’s best for you. I know how hard it is to study because I used to want to be a midwife. Putting in all that effort revising for exams and having no life while my friends were out partying. Well, what friends I had back then. Look at your father: he has to work all the hours under the sun in his taxi to pay our bills.’

I miss him; I love him. I hope he is safe. I would give anything to have him back here looking entranced by the war game he seemed addicted to playing with the volume on full blast. It’s still in his bedroom, lying on the floor in the position he left it. Everything has been left untouched except for his bed, which is freshly made for when he comes home. I still believe