Finding Home

As I steered my rusted sedan over the crest of the hill that overlooked Seabrook, I could smell the ocean before I saw it, that heavy, salt-thick scent that had lived in my lungs for the first seventeen years of my life. The salt air didn’t smell like freedom anymore. To me, it smelled like a life I had tried to bury under a decade of city grime and neon lights.

As I started the decent into the main street, the Atlantic Ocean stretched out on the horizon like a sheet of hammered silver. It was beautiful, cold, and entirely too familiar. The street was dark and eerie, the flickering street lights casting shadows over the road and I could see the familiar block letters across the store windows as I drove past, bringing back memories of different time. There was the bakery with the chipped yellow paint. There was the hardware store where the old men sat on the bench out front, watching the traffic and the Bank where the same two cashiers had worked for as long as I had been alive.

“Are we there yet, Mum?”

A small voice from the back seat drew me back to the present. I glanced in the rear-view mirror, the wide, glistening eyes of my ten-year-old daughter Lily stared back at me. To her this was just another adventure, to me it felt like I was driving into a suffocating cloud of an unknown future.

“Almost my sweet.” I smiled back at her. “See those trees at the end of the road there? That’s where Mum grew up.”

“Will I like it there?” She asked.

“I’m sure you’ll love it.” I assured her. “Maybe when it gets a little warmer, I can take you swimming at the beach. It’s right behind the house.”

“Really?” I could hear the excitement in her voice. “Can we collect shells too?”

“Yes, of course we can. I promise I will take you as soon as we have settled in Lil. Mum just has a few adult things she needs to take care of first okay.”

“Okay Mum.” She pressed her forehead up to the window and squealed with delight when the ocean came into view.

I pressed my hands harder into the steering wheel, my knuckles turning white. It had been twelve years since I had been down these winding, tree lined roads, leaving home at the age of seventeen with a suitcase full of dance shoes, a scholarship and a heart full of fire, certain I would never look back. I was going to be a prima ballerina, or at least a backup dancer for the world’s biggest stars. I wasn’t going to be another girl trapped in a small town where everyone knew your business before you even did it. I had left as a young girl with so many hopes and dreams of a bright future, but was returning as a woman who knew too much about the darkness of the world, with a daughter who was the only light I had left.

The scholarship had vanished after the first year. The dancing had stopped when the music turned into a nightmare one night at a party I shouldn’t have gone to. I still had nightmares about that night. It came in flashes, a blurred face, rough hands and the putrid smell of rum and cigarettes in the air. I did my best to block it out, but there were always little things that triggered those horrid memories that I couldn’t hide from.

Then came the pregnancy, the fear, and the long, exhausting years of working shifts at a club where the men didn’t care about my talent, only my skin. I had traded my ballet slippers for high heels and a bartender’s apron, doing whatever it took to keep Lily fed and safe in a world that felt like it was constantly trying to take things away from us.

And now, I was forced to return to the small-town life I had once escaped. My mother was dying and I was all she had left. The call from the town doctor had been blunt: cancer, advanced, time was short.

That was the only reason I had returned to the town I grew up in. I came with simple intentions, help my mother get settled into her hospice, where she can live out her dying days comfortably, and then prepare my childhood home for sale. The money I made off the sale was going to go towards finding Lily and I a permanent place to live, I needed to give her stability she deserved.

I turned onto Seagull Lane. The houses here were older, tucked back behind overgrown hedges and salt-stunted trees. My mother’s house was at the very end, as I neared the end of the street, the small, blue-shingled cottage came into view. It looked smaller than I remembered. The paint was peeling in long, jagged strips, and the porch swing was hanging by a single rusted chain. The porch sagged on the left side, and the garden was a wild tangle of weeds and dead hydrangeas. It looked tired and run down, just like I felt.

I pulled into the gravel driveway and turned off the engine. The silence that followed was deafening. No sirens, no shouting neighbours, just the distant, repetitive roar of the surf.

I stepped out of the car, and the wind immediately whipped my hair across my face. The silence of the town was tranquil compared to the constant roar of the city. I moved over to the back door of the car and opened it up. As Lily slowly slid out of the car there was a slight crunch as her small feet hit the gravel. The soft glow of the streetlights lit my way as I grabbed the suitcase from the back of the car, grasped Lily’s hand and slowly led her up the wooden steps.

I pulled the key from the envelope in my handbag; I had to jiggle it a little to get it to fit into the lock. When I heard the familiar click, I took a deep breath and slowly pushed the rickety wooden door open.

The unforgettable smell was the first thing that hit me, the house smelled of peppermint tea and old paper. It was a comforting smell, but didn’t make me feel any less uneasy as we moved further inside and I gently shut the door behind me. I took a few more steps, Lily clinging to me as I went, reached up and flicked on the hallway light. It was fairly dim and barely shed any light at all, but was enough for me to see that the interior of the house was in worse shape than the exterior. I could tell straight away it was going to take a lot of work to get this place ready for sale. The wallpaper in the hallway was curling at the seams, the Persian rug lining the dilapidated floorboards was fraying and the smell of dust and dankness filled my lungs.

“Is this where Grandma lives Mum?” Lily said with a yawn.

“No Lil, Grandma is in a special home. We will go visit her first thing in the morning, I promise. But it’s been a long drive and we are both very tired so I think it’s time we went to sleep.”

“Okay Mum.” She yawned again. I placed my arm around Lily’s shoulder and we headed up the narrow staircase. When I opened the door to my old bedroom and turned on the light, I felt like I was stepping into a time capsule. Nothing had changed since I had left. There were posters of ballet dancers on the walls, their bodies arched in impossible, graceful curves. There was a trophy on the dresser from a regional talent show. A dried corsage from a high school dance sat in a dusty glass jar.

I pulled back the floral comforter making space for Lily to climb onto the bed. “It’s so pretty, Mum! Is this where you lived when you were a little girl?”

“Yes, it is.” I spoke as I pulled the blanket back over her small body and tucked her in tightly. I flicked on the bedside lamp, turned off the main light and sat down gently beside Lily’s head. I brushed the hair from her face and leant down and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead.

“Mum, do you think Grandma will like me?” She asked sleepily.

“I know she will love you.” I smiled at her. “Get some sleep my sweet.”

“Goodnight Mum, I love you.”

“To the moon and back.” I said back to her, it was something my mum used to say to me and I had been saying it to Lily from the moment she was born.As she slowly drifted off to sleep, I looked around the room. There were so many reminders of what my life used to be, the little girl I once was. The girl who loved ballet and believed in happily-ever-afters was gone. She had been broken in a way that couldn’t be fixed by a seaside breeze or childhood memories. I was a mother now, a survivor, and a woman who knew that the world was a dangerous place for people who let their guard down.

Once I could hear the soft sound of Lily’s snores, I rose from the bed and walked over to the window This was once my most favourite spot in my house. I pulled back the lace curtains and looked outside. I had spent so many hours in this spot, staring out the window and watching the waves crash along the shoreline, breathing in the sweet, salty sea air and daydreaming about what my future would hold.

I pushed the curtains back into place and sighed. Sometimes I wish I could go back to those days, when I knew nothing of the pain and heartache that being an adult would come with. Before I could settle in for what was left of the night, I had to make sure the place was secure. I had been that way ever since Lily had been born, always scared of the dangers that were lurking behind the closed doors.

I slowly made my way around the house, using my phone as a flashlight to see where I was going. I checked all the window and door locks twice; I had to be sure we were safe. I walked back over to the bed where Lily was still sleeping peacefully, pulled back the covers and laid down beside her. I placed a protective arm around her and pulled her close, nuzzled into her hair and breathed in her scents of baby shampoo and innocence.

As the sun began to rise, casting long, distorted shadows I looked around the room. I may have been back in the place I grew up, but it didn’t feel like I was home. I felt like a stranger in a ghost story, surrounded by the echoes of a life I no longer recognized. I kept glancing toward the door, half-expecting the past to come knocking, and for the first time in years, I wasn’t sure if I had the strength to keep it out.