Page 21 of Carry Me Home

My eyes sting. ‘I found it eventually.’

‘You did.’ Her smile is small and exact. ‘Look for yourself the same way. Carefully. Without giving up.’ She squeezes my hand once more and releases it. ‘That’s all I’ve got.’

I stay with mum for the lunchtime rush, until she puts her hands on her hips and raises her brows in a way that can’t be argued with. Shouldn’t be argued with. And suddenly the timing feels right. Maybe the stars have aligned, the sun is in Jupiter, I don’t know; but it’s right.

I pack in twenty minutes. I didn’t bring much anyway – clothes, toiletries, the books I haven’t read, the journal I haven’t written in. Two bags and the backseat of my car. A whole retreat, and it fits in the boot.

Mum stands in the doorway while I load everything in, arms crossed, watching me the way she’s always watched me.

‘Call me when you get there.’

‘I will.’

‘And eat something. Real food. Not just coffee.’

‘I run a café, Mum. I know how to feed myself.’

‘You know how to feed other people. That’s not the same thing.’

She’s right, and I hug her instead of saying so – tight and brief, breathing in the Mum-ness of her, perfume and flour and the warmth that’s been the same my whole life. She holds on a beat longer than usual.

‘Drive safe.’

‘I always do.’

‘You drive like you’re being chased by wolves.’

‘Only on the A30.’

She laughs, and I get in the car before I can change my mind.

The drive takes an hour and a half. The A30 gives way to the A39, and then the dual carriageway narrows into the winding lanes that lead to the coast. The hedgerows get higher. The sky gets wider. I roll down the window as I cruise along the Atlantic Highway and the air changes – salt and cut grass and the unique scent of gorse and tilled earth that my body recognises before my brain does.

And then the village appears.

Sea Salt Bay, tucked into the curve of the coastline. The harbour, the boats, the cottages climbing the hill. I take the turn I’ve taken a thousand times, muscle memory more than thought, past Dot’s shop, past the lifeboat station, past the bench where Peter used to sit.

Used to. Two words that still have edges.

I pull up outside the café and turn off the engine, and the quiet folds around me like water. No traffic. No car alarms. Just the gulls, and the harbour, and the wind moving through the fuchsias that Dot has been watering and that do, in fact, badly need trimming.

The chalk menu in the window is still showing specials from three weeks ago. The fairy lights I never took down from Christmas. The little table by the door, empty, waiting.

I sit there with my hands on the wheel, breathing the salt air, and I don’t cry, which feels like it should count for something.

My phone buzzes. Tom. Chips would like you to know that he’s judging me for eating cereal for lunch. I maintain that cereal is a legitimate meal. Please advise.

I text back: On my way to arbitrate. Don’t drink all the milk.

Three dots. Then: You’re coming back?

Already here. Just pulled up outside the café.

The longest pause. The dots appear, disappear, appear.

Then: Stay there.

I stay.