Calling

She looked silently up at the sky. Thunder and lighting buzzing all around her. She knew that the rain was not far away. She just hoped she got home before the deluge started. She had been caught in the last major rainstorm that had hit, but that had seemed many years ago, even to a harden farmer like herself. She hoped that the kids had put all the animals away. She didn’t need the rain to start and the chickens and the horses to deal with. Shrugging deeper into her spray jacket and ramming her hands into her pockets, she picked up the pace as she hurried across the paddocks towards home.

The first drops hit the tin roof like bullets had been fired as she let the dogs into the house yard. She quickly glided the chain back through the gate and latched up, before running across the yard to take shelter. The dogs circling her feet as she shook off rain drops from her long mane of hair. Normally, she it tied back in a long braid but she had been in to much of a rush to walk the dogs before the sky opened to worry about that today. She bent low to give the dogs one final flick across their fur before escaping to the relative warmth of her cocoon.

“Hey, guys,” she shouted as she closed the door silently. “Have you put the animals away?” She didn’t know where her kids were. She often didn’t when she had spent all day in the paddocks. She only hoped that like her they had read the sky and done what was needed.

She moved through the house on silent feet. She didn’t want to interrupt her love affair with the noises outside. She glanced into each room, noticing once again how messy her house was. She hoped that the rain kept up tomorrow so that she had a chance to catch up on her much neglected house. She found both her kids in their study, sitting quietly on the futon that she had installed there many years before. They were both intently reading and she was loathed to interrupt them, but she needed to know what they had done before they came in.

“Hey, guys,” she said again. “Have you put the animals away?” Two sets of beautiful eyes looked up from their books simultaneously. She loved their eyes, their windows to their souls. Dark brown, long lashed on one. Intently blue and wide on the other. She always knew what they were thinking by the look in those expressive eyes.

Her daughter nodded slowly, before her son cut in. His voice strong and clear in the silence of the room.

“Yep, before the rain started.” She smiled and for the first time realised what other people said about her kids were true, they really were fantastic and she smiled warmly at the two people she loved most in the world.

“Do you want some hot chocolate?” She didn’t normally spoil them in this way but she wanted to show them how much she appreciated what they had done. Two nodding heads met her gaze before going back to the books in their laps.

She went to her own room and quickly changed into something warmer before pulling on her slippers. She loved the cold, it meant that she got to snuggle with the ones that she loved, eating comfort food and reading trashy novels in front of the fire. All clichés, she knew but then the rest of her life was so out of the ordinary that she was allowed some clichés now and then.

As she waited for the water to boil for the kid’s hot chocolate and her own cup of tea, she reflected on what had got her to this point in her life. The tears came then and the feeling of overwhelming sadness. She knew that she would be here for the rest of her life and her heart broke just a little bit more for the person she use to be and the person that she now was.

She thought of her ex-husband. The one she was suppose to be spending the rest of her life with. She remembered the day they got married, so full of hope for the future and love for each other. Now the only thing between them was animosity and hatred. She could never understand it, yes, the divorce had been her idea but she had done it because they were no longer the people who had stood at the alter in church and pledged undying love.

The whistle of the kettle brought her out of her revive. Shaking her head vigorously, she tried desperately to get the image of her in her wedding dress out of her head. She wiped the silent tears away as she poured the hot water into the cups before her. Placing them on the kitchen table with the plate of home made cookies she let other images form in her head once more.

The kaleidoscope of images annoyed her before one became clear in her mind. She smiled slightly to herself as she remembered the moment that came with this image. Her son, beautiful and sweet, all red and screwed up as they handed him to her. The hospital staff smiling on, as she took her first glimpse of the man who would change her world. She drew a deep breathe in through her nose and tried to remember the smell of him that day. She couldn’t remember what it had been like outside, she was sure that the sun was shining, not the rain that lashed at the windows now.

He had meant a world where people would now look at her differently, wanting to impart their knowledge about all things children. She remembered how she had felt part of an exclusive club that day. Nothing about her existence would ever be just about her again. She would always have someone else to consider, someone who was going to rely on her like no one else ever had. Someone who would love her no matter what crazy ideas she thought up or what her belief about the world was.

She glanced sideways as the boy that she was just thinking about seriously walked through the door.

“Is the hot chocolate ready yet mum?” He questioned. She nodded trying once again to keep the tears at bay. She knew that he looked up to her. In some ways, she was his hero. The one that would always do crazy things, just to keep him entertained. The one that would play football with him when everyone else had gone inside to keep warm on a winter’s day. She just hoped that in the years to come she would always be that to him, nothing more and nothing less than a woman that he loved.

Sipping her tea thoughtfully she allowed her mind to wonder again. She realised that the weather had caused nostalgia in her that she rarely let into her life. She didn’t want to be caught in the reminders of the past. Her true past was to painful and just drifting there for a moment would mean that she would be feeling down for many days to come. Depression had always ruled her life and she had realised early on and after many hours with a therapist, that not thinking about the past was the thing that kept it at bay.

Her mind settled on another picture. One that held just as much love as the one before. Her daughter and the quick birth that she had allowed her. Her daughter was always like that, in a hurry to get anywhere. It didn’t matter if she was going to school or learning to ride a bike. Her daughter was always in a hurry and her birth had been no different. She remembered the blonde head that had emerged and smiled at her in those first few moments of birth. She had cried on the inside when she had realised that her second child had been a girl, but lately she could see what a blessing this had been.

Her daughter had a love for people and animals that she had never seen in anyone else. She seemed to know when people needed her just to be around them. She could sense when an animal had a problem and she seemed to know just what to do. Her daughter had grown confident and she recalled quickly how her daughter had flown the coup and taken off on her first day of kindergarten. “Bye, mum” she had said before rushing inside the school building. Her independent nature and love had touched everyone she met. Maybe that was why she was always daddy’s little girl.

At that moment her daughter fell into the chair beside her and nearly slopped tea all over her. She looked at her sternly but the hound dog face that her daughter made could only melt her heart. She felt the corners of her mouth turn up into a smile and let the joy flood her heart. Her daughter slurped at her hot chocolate and reached across her brother for a biscuit, who attempted to slap her arm away. Just sibling love she surmised, there really was nothing malice in his actions. Chomping into a biscuit her daughter mumbled something.

“What was that sweetheart?” she asked innocently, hoping that it was not another lament about not having her father there.

“Nothing,” her daughter said, “just thinking about dad.” That broke her heart. She knew that the divorce had hit both her children hard, but she knew that her daughter felt the heart break more. She glanced out the window and noticed that the rain had slowed slightly. She was just hoping that it would not stop, but would continue for the rest of the night. She needed the feed that it would put on to her property. The animals needed it and so really did her soul.

Looking at the rain become a steady stream, one more memory invaded her mind. She knew this memory well, but tried not to allow it to come to often. Like her real past it was something that could only depress her but her daughter’s comment had allowed it to come. His tear stained face came clearly into view and no amount of shaking her head could make it go away.

“I really think that this is for the best,” she heard herself say in her mind. He looked up at her and she saw his heart break just a little bit more. She knew that what she had told him had been a long time coming and that although she had meant to say it in a gentler way, when she had started talking the words had just tumbled out, over themselves and without thought, almost like an internal monologue that had yet to be thought through. He wiped the tears away slowly as she smiled up at him, he would never understand what that smile meant, but it was her own way of acknowledging that her freedom had only just began.

The tears had come then, flowing freely from his eyes like a river torrent. The tears had made her feel a little uncomfortable almost like she should feel sorry for making his life end but she couldn’t feel that way anymore. She had been through to much; she had felt too little for to long to feel sorry for the man that was sitting in front of her. He made to hug her and she moved slightly to the left. She didn’t want him to touch her. She didn’t want him to be near her. She remembered that he had started to say something to her, but she had blocked out his exact words, they were not that important anyway, at least not to her.

It wasn’t even that she was in love with someone else, it was just that she had started to love herself, and for that alone she needed to be free from this man. He grabbed her hand and she shook herself free once again not wanting to be constricted by all that he needed from her right now. She just didn’t have that to give to him anymore. She didn’t have anything left. She knew that she would remember his face for the rest of her life and she knew that in that moment she had made her first and only enemy and one that would be in her life for a very long time to come.

The phone ringing loudly brought her out of her memories. Her son jumped up followed by her daughter. They always fought over who was going to get the phone first. It was almost like they needed to have more contact with people than she did. She knew that it was unlikely to be for them, anyone who wanted to talk to them would always call on their mobile. But she let them answer the phone anyway.

“Yep, she’s here,” she heard her son say from the other room. Obviously he had won the race, she could only imagine her daughter sitting beside him sulking that she hadn’t reached the ringing phone first.

“I’ll just get her.” He walked into the room with a little skip in his step. She wondered what had made him so happy. He smiled at her slyly before handing the phone over. He mouthed something but she didn’t catch what he said. The laughter reached her eyes but did not pour forth from her mouth.

“Hello?” she questioned into the phone. The voice on the other end made her soul happy and she knew that she would not be thinking about the past again today, despite the persistent rain outside. The voice on the phone was her future and she loved him for that no matter what she told herself or other people and for now as the conversation started that was all that mattered.