The door slams and my heart sinks. Here we go.
“Mum, where are you?”
“In here.”
Seeing them racing into the room, I have to smile as I see the excitement in the eyes of Billy and Archie, my two boys who are the spitting image of their father.
“Wow, this place is huge.”
I take a moment to gaze around with satisfaction because yes, this place is two steps up from our previous house in London. It’s got more space, more rooms and more kerb appeal than the shabby terraced house we used to live in in Streatham. I still can’t believe that we sold that house for so much money, enabling us to buy this much bigger one nearer the south coast. Luckily, Streatham house prices went through the roof when commuters decided they wanted to settle there and regenerate an area that had seen better days. We were allocated the house by the council and bought it a few years back on ‘the right to buy’ scheme and have never looked back. So, here we are in Meadow Vale, living the high life and giving our kids the best start in life.
“Can I choose my room?”
“I want to choose, why does he get to go first?”
The boys argue almost immediately and I snap, “I chose your rooms. In fact, your things are already there, so I’ll leave it up to you to find them.”
They are out of the door almost immediately, and I hear their footsteps thundering up the stairs and sigh. Boys are very challenging in a lot of ways, but I wouldn’t change them for the world. Two gorgeous mirror images of their father who need a firm hand because they’re at that age where they could go either way. It was quite a timely move because they were forming friendships with the wrong boys and I could see trouble in their future. Billy is due to start secondary school in September and the one he was allocated is one of the roughest in the area. Now they have a place at local schools they can walk to that were both rated as outstanding by Ofsted. Yes, this move came just in the nick of time and I’m determined to make it a good one. We will make sure we fit in here because it’s time to change direction and make something of our lives.
“I could murder a cup of tea.”
Lucas throws his keys on the counter and looks so tired I feel a little bad. He’s worked so hard to make this happen and I know he was against moving out of London to the country because he’s lived in Streatham all his life.
Walking over, I wrap my arms around him and whisper, “Thank you.”
As his arms fold me inside the familiar, I breathe easier. We may argue and he may annoy me most of the time, but I wouldn’t be without him. He is everything to me and I want him to know that.
“I love you, babe.”
His voice whispers the words that always mean so much, and I squeeze him a little tighter. “Me too, you know we’ve made the right decision, don’t you?”
“If you’re happy, I’m happy.”
Pulling back, I stare at the familiar face that I’ve loved since I first set eyes on it in the playground at Streatham High all those years ago and grin. “I wonder what our friends will make of this place?”
“They’ll think we’ve gone posh, sold out and joined the white-collar brigade.”
“You’re probably right, but you don’t regret it, do you?”
I feel a little anxious because I nagged him for months to move here. As soon as I had the idea, I ran like a sprinter with it. It became the most important thing in my life to move out of London to a place I thought would be safe, respectable and the sort of community you see on the television. Nothing bad ever happens in places like these and I say softly, “Listen.”
He looks up and I laugh at the puzzled frown that he wears so well, “What?”
“Silence. Lovely, blissful silence. No traffic, no sirens and no shouting.”
I look past him through the patio doors onto a garden that is double the size of our last one and my heart settles. This was the best decision we ever made and even the loud thump on the ceiling and the sound of arguing doesn’t dampen my spirits because I know we made the right decision. We are home.
“I’ll go.”
Lucas rolls his eyes as we hear the boys fighting, and we share an amused grin. They are always fighting, but I know it’s just what brothers do. They’ve always been the same, but they love each other just as fiercely. Luckily, they are close in age with just eighteen months separating them and do everything together. I just hope they don’t show me up because I want us to fit in here. I want to live the life I always thought respectable people do, and I want us to be accepted.
Lucas heads off to deal with the boys and I make them a snack. Lucas picked them up from school after dropping the van back to the rental company, and the time that took gave me a few hours to get some order to a kitchen that I only dreamed of owning. It’s not the most expensive house on the development, but was the only one we could afford. Four bedrooms and a huge open-plan kitchen diner with an ensuite that I can’t wait to experience. Our last house had three bedrooms if you can call one of them a bedroom, more like an enlarged cupboard. No, now we have a spare room for guests and my Pinterest board is full of images of exactly how this house will look just as soon as I can persuade Lucas to step up and do a spot of decorating. I can’t wait to show our family and friends just how far we’ve come, and they will be astonished at how much more we got for our money here in Meadow Vale.
By the time the boys make it downstairs, I feel as if I’ve settled in already and as we sit around the table eating the makeshift tea I hastily prepared, I try to reassure everyone that this was what we all wanted.
“So, what do you think?”
I look at the boys hopefully and Billy shrugs. “I prefer our old house.”
Archie nods. “Me too. This place is weird.”
Lucas grins as I say crossly, “Don’t be silly, this place is heaps better than our old house, you’ve got your own rooms for one thing.”
Lucas nods. “And a bigger garden. I could rig up your goals and you could play football out there.”
I stare at him in horror, “Over my dead body, there’s a playing field two minutes away, they can go there.”
“Can we have a trampoline?”
Archie looks at me hopefully and I nod. “Of course, we’ll check the Argos catalogue later, maybe they deliver.”
Lucas groans. “For god’s sake, Esme, we’ve been here two minutes and you’ve started already. Couldn’t you wait at least a week before you give me one more job to do?”
“If you think I’ve only got one job for you, you’re mistaken. The list is growing by the second.”
The boys laugh as Lucas groans and I laugh lightly. Yes, this is what I imagined. Us all sitting around the table sharing family time in a place we can grow and breathe fresh air. I knew we’d made the right decision.