Coming Home

I'd put it off long enough; it was time for last minute checks before I left. I looked through the house, ensuring the windows and doors were locked and the taps weren't running. It seemed strange, now that I had lived here for so long, that there was little or no sign of him in my life.

When had it all gone wrong?

I felt my face flush as I thought back to my late-teenage years. There may have been a certain amount of screaming about the unfairness of it all, accompanied with the background percussion of slamming doors.

I'd thought I was so grown up. Perhaps I had been. I'd wanted, no needed, to stretch my wings, push against what I'd thought was holding me back, and find my own way. I hadn't wanted 'The Man' telling me what to do.

Mother hadn't helped. She'd always used him like the bogeyman of childhood nightmares, threatening my youthful, exuberant rebellion with the promise of the angered displeasure of the grand old patriarch. I stopped. I bit my lip to the point of almost drawing blood as I realised I was making the same age-old mistake of blaming others for my own failings.

How was it fair that I felt like I knew less and less the older I got?

There were times when I'd stumbled and I'd come running back and he'd always been there for me. But I'd never stayed long and it was rare for me to even think about him. The weekly visits - which I'd made more for form's sake than any real desire to connect with him - had soon dropped off, never to be repeated, as I'd drifted further and further away from him.

I paused at the threshold, ready to pull the door of my old life closed behind me, as I ran through a mental checklist of everything I might need. The journey I had ahead of me was a long one and I needed to be prepared. I'd almost forgotten the book! I snatched it up from the deep shelves from where it had been gathering dust.

It wasn't long before I was sitting on a train, just watching the world speed past; it always amazed me how soon the grey urban landscape surrendered to the rolling, lush green fields of the countryside.

Patience is its own reward and I arrived at my destination refreshed, rather than wearied, from my travels.

As I looked out over the bleak beauty of the moors I felt the stirring of strong, long-forgotten emotions in my chest. I'd never been in a new location and yet felt so much like I'd come home.

The sun chose that moment to reveal itself from behind the heavy, grey clouds and I closed my eyes against the blinding light as I basked in the sudden warmth.

"Father, forgive me," I prayed.

(;,;)