didn’t believe me at first. After all, the only times my family has seen me with a girl was when someone I was briefly hooking up with was photographed in the tabloids. Announcing that I suddenly have a fiancé is, as my nan’s colorful words put it, as rare as hen’s teeth.
But she did believe it, especially as I gave the story about the ring. Which, I didn’t at all feel bad about until Valerie practically berated me in the car earlier for even suggesting it.
I know why she thought it wasn’t a wise idea. The last thing I want is for it to seem like I’m spitting on my mam’s grave, but the truth is, it would mean something to my dad. As long as he never finds out the truth, then he can die knowing I found true love and that this love pays tribute to the love between my parents.
When it comes to jinxing or cursing future love for me though, I’m not worried. Maybe it seems like crying wolf to Valerie, but I was honest with her when I said I wouldn’t be getting married to anyone. A fake engagement is enough, even though sometimes when I look at Valerie I’m hit with this feeling, deep in the seat of me, that what we have could become something more under different circumstances.
But these circumstances are what we have and she doesn’t know everything. She doesn’t know what I’m really going through and hopefully she doesn’t ever have to know. Hopefully my father won’t either.
When we’re done with our tea and my nan has warmed up to the idea that Valerie is my fiancé, she gives her a quick tour of the place and I grab our luggage from the car. She puts Valerie in the biggest bedroom upstairs, with the best view over the back gardens, cottage, mews, field, and forest. No surprise, she puts me downstairs beside Major’s bedroom.
“Well, hello young fella,” Major says as he steps out of his room and sees the three of us in the hallway. “Didn’t know you’d be by. It’s been a while.”
“And he’s staying a while this time, aren’t ye boy?” Nan says, nudging me with her sharp elbows.
“What’s that?” The Major says loudly, gesturing to his ear.
“She said I’m staying a while,” I say, raising my voice.
“Wha?”
“I’m staying a while!”
See, the Major got his name because he was a major in the army back in the day and is always sharply dressed in a suit, like he is now, even though he doesn’t go anywhere except the pub. But unlike the character in Fawlty Towers, he’s not senile, just hard of hearing, and he refuses to wear a hearing aid.
“Ah,” he says with a nod. He claps his hands together and smiles. “Good.”
We make quick, albeit loud, introductions to Valerie, then my nan takes her around the property, to the archery set-up in the walled garden and the falconry mews (an owl is the B&B’s logo, and it’s what we’re most known for).
Meanwhile, it’s time for me to say hello to my father.
I take in a deep breath and head over to the stone cottage, which is where I actually grew up.
I open the door and step inside and am hit with a wave of nostalgia. The smell of the stone in winter, the wood burning on the fire, the dust of the thick rugs and woolen throws. It’s been a few years since I’ve been back and yet I’m instantly transported back to when I was a child.
There’s two bedrooms, the toilet, the small kitchen, the dining room with the same round table, the living area, and just off of that, a tiny alcove lined with books where my mother would spend her time reading and writing poetry.
It hurts, as it often does when I come here.
The loss of her.
Such a fucking loss.
I was sixteen when it happened and I’ve never been the same since. There is a part of me that’s deeper than my heart and my soul where she resided, a part missing that I’ll never get back. It’s the infinite space that a mother takes up that becomes a black hole when she’s gone. After time, it stops spreading, it stops eating the stars within you, but it’s still there. Just this black, hungry pit that makes you ache to your bones with loss.
I imagine my father feels the same. He was never the same after, either, and our relationship collapsed under the