Home by Penny Parkes

Author:Penny Parkes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
Published: 2021-07-08T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

Anna struggled to pull her belt free of its loops on her jeans, feeling sweaty and under scrutiny as she went through the security protocol with the burly man in uniform. Not that he was unkind, quite the contrary.

‘First time, is it, love?’ he said in a broad Midlands accent.

Anna nodded, a ball of tears already wedged in her throat and she hadn’t yet made it past the form-filling stage. She emptied her pockets and placed her mobile phone into a grey plastic tray, watching as he locked it into a pigeonhole with a bright blue door.

For a second a wild surge of laughter threatened, as Anna found herself reminded of her locker at primary school. All that was missing was her animal sticker. A for Aardvark. Not the easiest to spell, but certainly the coolest – who wanted to be Freddie the Frog?

She glanced over at Jackie, sitting in the waiting area, and wobbled for a moment.

Anna was here to listen.

That had always been her plan, but it genuinely hadn’t occurred to her until they were sitting in the car outside, that Graham Wilson would tell her anything other than the truth.

Hesitating in the doorway, as other prisoners greeted their spouses and their children, Anna couldn’t help but wonder whether Graham had made the right call.

Some of the children threw themselves into their father’s arms, laughing happily, delighted to see them and hardly drawing breath in their quest to share everything. ‘And then, Mum got my jeans out the tumble drier and the snail was still in the pocket!’

Another little boy, sensitive, quiet, and in possession of the worst haircut that Anna had seen in a very long time, clung tearfully to his mother’s arm, eyes fixed on the exit and refusing to engage with anything his father said.

It was different for everybody, it seemed, but oh how nice it would have been to be consulted.

She looked around the room, seeking out the dark glossy hair and wickedly laughing eyes that were her abiding memory. Her heart thudded into her throat – he wasn’t there.

She looked back over her shoulder for Jackie but she was three locked doors and a world away. The tears threatened to fall just as she felt the guard’s hand on her shoulder.

‘’S’a lot to take in, love, the first time. But you get used to it. Come on, I’ll walk you over.’

She opened her mouth to contradict him, to point out that even imprisoned, her feckless father had managed to stand her up, when she saw where he was pointing.

A man in a blue denim shirt and jeans stood up, his face a mask of surprise, his greying hair receding back from a pale, lined forehead. No sparkling amusement, just a tired resignation of his state. ‘That’s my dad?’ Anna said in disbelief, willing him to correct her.

Who was this man?

She waited for a connection, a memory, anything that would make this stranger morph into the man she had so missed. But there was nothing.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.