Free Finding You by Giselle Green Page A

wet. On the garage side, the tiny Kerria bush I once planted in the ground out of a plastic cup bought at the local church fete has sprouted into a huge confection of yellow flower heads. The tulips and the daffs are out, standing boldly green and red and yellow in their pots out front and I think: see, things carry on, life carries on happening it doesn’t just stand still and now, coming back here, we’re going to join back into the flow of it, too. We’ll carry on where we left off, if it is possible.
    It’s what I’d like to do.
    But coming up to the front door, I see a little pink flower pot with a solitary plastic dahlia in it that was never there before, that wasn’t put there by me, and the unexpected sight of it pulls me up. It catches me by surprise, as if I have come back to the wrong house. And I remember: the truth is that this has not been my home for such a long time, has it? The last time I came back to this place was in November. The house had been all shut up, then. By then, Charlie and I had been estranged for several months. He’d been away working in France for a while, and I hadn’t even known.  I’d come back here hoping to find him and all I’d found was a letter he’d left for me, agreeing that maybe we did ‘need our space’ away from each other. When I’d listened to the messages on the answerphone, that’s when I’d learned of Agustina’s passing away.
    I remember how Blackberry House had been so dark and shut up that last day I’d visited. I’d sat at the bottom of the stairs and caught a whiff of Lourdes’ perfume on the scarf that had still been hanging from the banisters, and it had no longer felt like the loving and welcoming home I’d always dreamed of.  The reality was, with Charlie gone and the place virtually abandoned, I’d barely even recognised the place. It had felt like a dream only barely remembered; I’d left it in order to go and find my son, and in the meantime, everything I’d once had here had turned to dust.
    I shiver, and Rafaela from the market comes back to me now: this is a time to rejoice, she’d said to me. And you are rejoicing. But there’s also a confusion,a loss; a fog like a big mist coming in over the sea ...
     Is it because coming back is never as easy as one-two-three? Because when you come back to the place you started from, you are always changed, altered in your perspective by the journey?      
     ‘Looks like your mum and step-dad must have made it after all.’ Charlie gives me a start as he nudges me now. There are no other cars on the drive, but there’s the soft glow of welcoming lights coming from various rooms. When Charlie gets the front door open, we’re greeted by the aroma of fresh coffee, a vase full of pink lilies—along with a large pile of letters—on the hall table, and a house which I am mightily grateful to see has now been cleaned and freshened for our arrival, rather than one which has been shut up for months.
    ‘Hello? Anyone there?’ he calls out.
    ‘Welcome home!’ Mum and Dick peer into the entrance hall, him with a vacuum cleaner still in his hand and Mum with her marigolds on. ‘We took the train down yesterday afternoon,’ Mum says, talking fast, the way she does when she’s excited. 
    ‘We’ve been slowly going through the rooms since. Just the main ones, mind. I managed to get most of the sheets laundered, though, and there were a few towels that I thought ...’ Mum stops now as I come up behind Charlie, immediately transfixed by the sight of Hadyn, dozing in my arms.  Her face twists in a strange way, tears coming into her eyes, which are crinkled up with joy. 
    ‘Oh. He’s grown so ... so big .’
    ‘And heavy,’ I smile ruefully. My arms are aching. ‘Sorry you’ve caught him asleep. He’s been raring to go, desperate to run up and down the aisle the entire flight.’ She comes up and touches one of his dimpled fingers with her rubbery yellow glove.  She and Dick both