Writing for Fun
Patience - Sue Barker
April 2014
Joe felt the adrenaline rise from his toes to the very top of his head. There she was going up the steps to her flat, she was wearing that red top again, it was his favourite. She looked sad, was she unhappy? He didn't know, he could only wonder.
Would she notice him this time? He wasn't sure if he would be disappointed if she didn't see him or relieved that she hadn't. He couldn't count the hours he had spent dreaming about her, imagining them together, all the things they would enjoy.
There were times when he thought he was going to go mad, never before had he felt like this.
Despite being in his thirties Joe had not had a relationship with a woman. Abandoned as a baby, he came through the care system, although Joe thought of it as the didn't care system. All he had ever longed for was to find someone to love, and now he had found her.
He started to breathe more quickly as the excitement mounted, was it going to happen tonight? He had a secret plan that had been building in his mind for several weeks. He chuckled to himself, he felt lucky tonight, all it would take is one glance in his direction and he would be sure. How many more nights would he have to spend surreptitiously watching her, before he could make his move?
She did not give him a second glance, so yet again it wouldn't happen tonight. He had rehearsed what he would say, how she would react but he would have to wait. He went home to his miserable bed-sit and ate an out of date meal for one. His mood swung from optimism to the worst despair. He decided that he would return tomorrow night and he would make his move.
All day Joe was restless, his concentration was poor and he was chastised at the charity shop he worked in. Three customers had complained he had given them the wrong change. Joe was on such a short fuse he told them to stuff the job. He just wanted the day to be over so when dusk came he could walk past her flat.
He felt that if he didn't do something tonight he would explode. Finally it was dark enough for him to go out, he had got himself into a terrible state, it was the worst he had ever been. Pacing and mumbling to himself, backwards and forwards he went; unbeknown to Joe, he was beginning to draw attention to himself. A police car pulled up beside him at exactly the same moment the woman arrived home.
The policeman wanted to know what he was doing there, and Joe was finding it very difficult to explain. The woman he had been watching came over. For several weeks she had noticed Joe outside and had also wanted to know what he was there for, but didn't feel brave enough until tonight, she had contemplated calling the police herself, but for some inexplicable reason she hadn't.
Joe was so upset, he was beside himself, and this wasn't how he imagined meeting her at all. Patience invited the policeman and Joe inside. The flat was not a bit how he imagined it to be, not cosy at all, it looked like a place someone would sleep in but had given no personality to. No love or warmth, it was an unfeeling place. After a brief chat the policeman left them.
Joe thought surely his mother wouldn't live in a place like this? He started talking, and once he started he couldn't stop. Patience listened quietly to Joe as he explained he was looking for his birth mother, and he thought Patience was her. He had seen her come into the charity shop and was struck by their likeness. One day he had followed her home and had taken weeks to pluck up the courage to try to speak to her, but each time he had chickened out.
Patience was terribly moved by Joe's story but explained as gently as she could that she wasn't his long lost mother. When she was younger she would have loved to have had children but it just didn't happen, too many bad men and too little love. She too had been in care and knew the only way not to get hurt was not to let anyone get close. It turned out that they had more in common than most.
They arranged to meet again, and this became a regular thing. Slowly over time; something about Joe's vulnerability captured her heart, she felt an emotion she had never felt before but had always hoped she would. She had finally let someone into her life, he may not be her son but she loved him as much as any mother could. Joe found a mother, not his birth mother but it was more than enough for him.