The Backpacking Housewife. Janice Horton
Surely, it’s time you two agreed on something and made amends?’
I pondered on my own childhood. I’d been an only child, but I’d always longed for a sister.
I’d imagined a sister to be a constant and reliable forever friend who would never let you down. I’d brought up my own two boys to be good friends and allies and to support each other.
‘Not while he is as stubborn as he is ruthless.’ Ethan noted sourly.
And just at that moment my phone rang. ‘Oh, I’ll need to take this. It’s Josh.’
A feeling of something that I can only describe as pure unadulterated dread washed over me in the moment when I saw that it was Josh calling. My stomach turned over because I knew it was well after midnight in the UK. It was the middle of the night. It was so unlike him to call at this time. Unless something was wrong?
And that’s when I heard the news about my mum and my mind and my body and my whole world went into a freefall of absolute and total panic.
‘What? Josh, slow down! What did you just say?’
I looked to Ethan. ‘My mum has had a heart attack. I need to go home right now!’
And Ethan did what he always does best. He immediately sprang into action.
He hailed us a taxi and we headed straight to the airport.
At the British Airways desk, he wanted to buy two first-class tickets to London, and we argued about it for a while, but I insisted that I needed to go home alone.
‘I need time to deal with this myself. My boys don’t know anything about us yet, Ethan. This is absolutely not the right time to tell them. I’ll call you. I’ll speak to them. I promise.’
Then in my rush to get to my gate and onto the plane that was already boarding, I turned to say goodbye to him, only to realise that I’d already gone through the point of no return.
And, suddenly, Ethan was nowhere to be seen.
It’s early morning in London when I step off my overnight flight and it’s very dark outside. The temperature is reported to be well below zero degrees and everyone else has deplaned wrapped up in coats and scarfs and boots. To my embarrassment, I’m wearing a flimsy summer dress and flip-flops. I have a small backpack with me and no checked luggage because I’ve left the mainstay of my sparse belongings back in the Caribbean.
I emerge from the green zone of customs into the brightly lit bustle of the arrivals area at Gatwick airport and I’m feeling like an exile after being away for a whole year. I know I look different. I feel different. I’m also shivering violently from an assault of icy cold air that’s being sucked inside the terminal from the doors leading to the outside world. I’m chilled to the bone.
Goosebumps are doing a Mexican Wave across my entire body and it feels as if my skin, that just yesterday was warm and brown and supple in the humid tropical air, has suddenly become grey and shrunken and icy in response to the dry air on the plane and now the cold damp atmosphere in the UK. My eyes feel sore and heavy as I look around me in confusion at the faceless crowd. Then, to my relief, I hear a shout from a familiar voice.
‘Mum!’ And my heart leaps as if it’s been shocked back to life by a defibrillator.
Then I’m standing in front of Josh, my darling eldest son, who looks even taller and more handsome than I can ever recall. I throw myself into his arms before noticing he’s with someone; a pretty young woman with big dark eyes and long brown hair.
‘Mum, this is Zoey, my fiancée.’
I embrace Zoey and kiss her cheek and say how pleased I am to meet her.
‘Hello, Mrs Anderson. Wow—you are so suntanned!’ said Zoey, who was staring at me as if I’d just arrived from another planet and she’d never seen anyone quite like me before.
‘Oh, please, call me Lori.’
‘We’ve brought you a warm coat, Mum. We guessed you’d be getting off the plane in summer clothes!’ Josh was now helping me take off my small backpack, so that he could wrap a padded jacket around my shoulders, to save me from freezing to death.
‘Oh thank you! I feel so ridiculously underdressed. Oh, that feels lovely and warm!’
It smelled of a young person’s scent: light and fruity and fresh.
‘And thank you, Zoey. I assume this is your coat?’
‘Yes, but I have others, so you can keep it for as long as you need.’
Then I saw her looking down in sympathy at my stone-cold blue-tinged toes.
And I could tell she was wishing that she’d also brought me some socks and boots.
I turned to Josh for an update on my mother’s condition.
‘How is your Gran? Can we go straight to the hospital to see her?’
When I saw Josh and Zoey exchange uncomfortable glances my heart dropped like a stone.
Tears filled my eyes and I was now shaking so much I could hear my teeth rattling.
Clearly, I’d arrived too late and she was gone. I’ll never see her or speak to her or hug her ever again. There would be no joyful reunions here or in the Caribbean. I’d never be able to tell her about all my adventures and the people I’d met over the past year.
There is no time left in which to celebrate or to tell her how much I’ve missed her.
None of that was ever going to happen now. I was too damned late.
I let out a sob of grief and felt a great stab of sorrow and guilt rip through my breaking heart.
I’ve been so heartless and selfish in abandoning my family when they’d needed me here.
What had I been thinking? Taking off without a care or a thought for my loved ones?
I’d behaved appallingly. I’d thought of only myself, when one year ago I’d grabbed my handbag and my passport and ran from the house to get as far away as possible, thinking of nothing but leaving behind my adulterous husband and treacherous best friend. When, what I’d really done, is to selfishly abandon my whole family. I’d ran away and left my kids and my mother to deal with the aftermath of what happened that day and then to face the mess of divorce without me here. What must my kids think of me now?
Selfish? Indulgent? Weak?
For a whole year I’ve been travelling all over the world looking for purpose and happiness when that purpose and happiness was right here all the time – with my family. I hadn’t really needed to travel great distances or pray in golden temples or take guidance from monks in saffron robes or find ways to make a difference in the world. I’d already made a difference. I might not be a wife anymore, or a housewife, but I was still a daughter and a mother.
The full impact of this realisation and the consequences – that I’d never see my lovely mum ever again – was more than I thought I could take. I just stood there with tears streaming down my face. ‘Oh, Josh! I’m s-s-s-so very sorry!’
‘Mum. No. It’s not what you think!’ Josh responded rapidly to my deathly reaction. ‘Gran’s fine. In fact, she’s just been discharged from hospital. We feel badly now, for telling you over the phone that she’d had a heart attack, when actually it just turned out to be bad indigestion.’
I stood speechless and in shock with my mouth open for what seemed like an age.
I’m relieved, of course, that my poor mother isn’t dead or on death’s door, but part of me is