About the book
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One moment, he is silent, unyielding, locked behind a screen or a slammed door. The next, he is loud and restless, filling the house with laughter and half-formed philosophies. He argues just to argue, challenges rules to test their strength. Yet, when the night is too quiet or the world sits too heavy, he still falls asleep next to me, his head resting just close enough to let me know he’s still my boy and needs my protection.
Sometimes, he is a teenager, absent even when present – scrolling, shrugging, speaking in grunts. But more often, he is a child. Some days, I see the man he’s becoming – tall, sharp-edged, with a quiet determination. Other days, I glimpse the boy he once was – curled up asleep, his face open, vulnerable. Sometimes, he walks beside me, taller than I remember, his shoulders squared like a man’s. But when he stumbles, when life hits harder than he expected, he looks at me with the same wide eyes he had when he was younger, the ones that silently ask if I still have all the answers. And though I don’t, I nod anyway, because for now, that’s what he needs to believe.
He is on the edge of adulthood, yet he is still my baby. He is the best thing that ever happened to me, my first and last thought; one half of me, he makes me whole.
He is my son. Oliver.
And he is gone.
I now move through the world like a man missing a limb, carrying an absence that aches with every step. I set the table for one less, but my hands hesitate over his empty place. My phone stays close, always charged, always waiting for a call that never comes. My love has nowhere to go, trapped inside me like a river dammed, swelling with every moment missed, every memory unmade. I write texts I never send; rehearse conversations I never have. The sound of a boy’s laughter outside my window makes my heart lurch, and just for a second, I let myself believe it’s Oliver come home.
*
When Tom looks down at the newborn baby cradled in his arms, his doubts begin to dissipate. For this – a memory in which he will seek succour in the years to come – is the moment he allows himself to believe that the child could be his.
He looks at his baby son, moments ago brought naked into the world, vulnerable and weak, sees himself reflected there, and something inside him shifts, a biological rewiring of every chip and circuit. The baby blinks back at him, and in a pact forged in blood and tears, Tom swears he’ll do whatever necessary to protect this child.
But that’s not how this story goes.
Yes, Tom’s protected Oliver from the outside world – from school bullies, bike accidents, and bee stings; and yes, he’s given every part of himself to this child. But in the end, he’s unable to protect his son from the enemy within: The mother they all fear; the mother of all fears.
Mother Fear is an edge-of-your-seat thriller about a father who loses his son then loses control.
bee | Bromley Education Enterprises Limited 