past the outgrown bangs, the heavy mascara and the wall of defence I’d built up around me and my son. She knew I was struggling. I believe that she knew me inside out from our very first conversation.
‘We have a lot to do,’ I told her, trying my best to be polite. ‘It’s nice to meet you.’
We left her to her weeding, then Ben and I lugged our cases up the crooked pathway and turned the key in the creaky muddy green door, just the two of us, all alone in a big bad world as we took our first steps towards a new tomorrow. My hands shook as I battled with the front door key, and I bit my lip to fight back tears of absolute fear of the unknown.
‘You all right, honey?’ Mabel called, seeing how I was poking at the lock. ‘It’s been a while since that door has been opened!’
‘It’s OK, I got it!’ I called back, my voice shaking and my insides churning as I anticipated the new beginnings that lay inside.
Leave me alone old lady, I thought, even though I hadn’t the courage to say it out loud. Just get on with your gardening and leave me and my son alone.
The door creaked open and step one of our new life had begun.
2.
I’d known from the estate agent’s brochure that No. 3 Teapot Row in the village of Ballybray was a humble little home, but I also could tell that it would be safe, far away from danger or threat of the ghost of my ex-husband ever finding us again.
The sandstone exterior with cute white wooden sash windows and wisteria had caught my eye as I flicked through properties online, and I couldn’t believe my luck at the price tag. It had a small garden to the front with a little path that led to a green door – every door in the row was painted a different colour – and a back garden that had enough room for a swing and a paddling pool in summer.
We had made it this far. It was ours now, so I took a deep breath and stepped inside, trying to look at every single part of it through positive eyes.
The musty smell of the poky hallway that was just big enough for two hit me first, and I convinced myself that the tiny kitchen meant there was a lot less to clean than the house we had left behind. The living room with a circa 1970s fireplace was ‘vintage,’ rather than old, I decided. Yes, vintage was good. I could work with vintage.
‘I love it,’ I repeated to myself internally. ‘I really love it.’
Truth be told, I didn’t quite love it at first. I was absolutely petrified, but I was determined that one day I would love it with all my heart and never want to leave.
Our new home was third from the end in a row of eight semi-detached two-storey stone cottages, and I’d sealed the deal by calling up the nearest estate agent who told me my luck was in, but who also seemed baffled by my choice of destination when he heard my city accent.
I remember how I fought back tears at the enormity of it all when I walked inside and smelled the unfamiliar interior of a place I’d pledged to try to make a home for us. It was to be a brand new start, a new beginning, a place where we could be whoever we wanted to be, in a village I knew virtually nothing about and, more importantly, with people who knew nothing about me.
I would transform, I would reinvent, and most of all I would heal, because inside I was broken and Mabel knew it instantly. When the door knocked a few hours after our first meeting across the fence, Ben let Mabel in despite my efforts to ignore her, and she found me crouched in the corner of the unfamiliar living room with a face smeared in streaky tears after I’d given up unpacking clothes and given in to the terror of a future that seemed so daunting, so unfamiliar, and so utterly frightening.
‘You’re wading through treacle right now, girl,’ she told me with deep understanding, pushing back my hair and wiping my tears. ‘You’re swimming against the tide, but it won’t always be like this, do you hear me? You’re a fighter, and you’ve made the right decision coming here, I can tell. Stick with it, and