by Fox Brison
Where We Belong
By
Fox Brison
Bold Fox Publishing
First Edition: May 2018
This is a work of fiction. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without the author’s express permission. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Prologue
Brianna
“Mum. Dad,” I said softly, holding a wooden box in one hand and a white envelope in the other. “Is there something you want to tell me?”
My father spilt the red wine he was pouring and my mother stopped meting out the carrots. The sudden clang of the metal spoon hitting the ceramic serving dish proved a mourning bell which rent the shocked tableau.
“Bri, we… I can explain…” she stuttered, visibly shaken.
My Dad shot her a look and she quieted. “It’s not what you think,” he hurriedly assured me.
“So you haven’t been lying to me for the last thirty three years?” I demanded.
Their stunned silence and agitated fidgeting answered the question for me. An ensuing choking sensation of claustrophobia crushed every bone, every molecule, every atom in my body.
I need air.
Turning on my heel, I ignored the strangled cries trailing me down the hall and scrambled into the winter sunshine…
But please forgive me I’m getting ahead of myself. Let us rewind one hour to twelve fifteen pm on Sunday the thirteenth of January; you’ll understand why the date and time are indelibly seared onto my brain once I explain…
Chapter 1
Brianna
Placing my hand on the door handle, I took a deep breath and stepped inside. Brown boxes dominated the spacious hall, and I stifled the sobs threatening to reduce me to snivelling wreck status.
What good would me falling apart do any of us?
“Hey, Mum, Dad, it’s me,” I called, forcing brightness into my voice.
“We’re in here, Bri.” I followed Bernadette McAteer’s distinctive Dublin accent to the kitchen – thirty four years in England hadn’t eradicated it completely, softened it maybe, but her linguistic ebullience remained a constant reminder of her heritage.
It would have been like any other Sunday (steam rose from various pots and pans on the hob and the roast beef rested on the side) if it weren’t for Mum carefully wrapping her beloved blue willow china in newspaper. Multi-tasking as usual. I shook my head because today keeping busy was probably closer to the mark. She was handling the move better than my Dad, that’s for sure. I heard the all too familiar harsh hiss of a beer can being opened.
Far better.
“How’s it going?” I asked, tracing a finger over the dainty Chinese figurine salt shaker before it too got swallowed up by the Daily Mail. We were fortunate my mother couldn’t get on with modern technology or we’d have gone broke buying packing paper for all her Delph. Another lump in the throat at the irony. Broke. Good one, Bri.
“Oh it could be worse, love,” she chirped. An eternal optimist, she owned the gift of looking on the bright side of any given situation, a knack I wished (and not for the first time in my life) I’d inherited. Sadly in this scenario I took after my father, and tended to borrow a Maersk cargo ship full of trouble when a rubber dinghy’s worth was warranted.
We were all struggling to process the carnage wrought by an unprecedented run of bad luck. It was like Mum had broken a hundred mirrors, Dad had killed a thousand black cats, and I’d walked under a million ladders. Okay the last one was probably true; being a project manager for my father’s construction firm, and thus having worked on building sites all over southern England for the last ten years, I had in fact walked under a fair few ladders in my time.
Mum placed the last of her precious china into a cardboard box before starting on the Waterford crystal glasses. Damn! It was so unfair!
The building game was a notorious house of cards. Small profit margins coupled with high loan repayments meant that when a developer McAteer Construction had just finished a housing estate for went into liquidation, the whole pyramid came crashing down.
And after barely surviving the 2008 crash, this was a bridge, or rather a bridging loan, too far.
The business my father, Noel McAteer, built up from humble beginnings when I was still a babe in arms (a small white van coupled with ads in free newspapers when we first arrived off the ferry from Dublin, to a large company tendering on council contracts) was going into receivership. It destroyed him. I watched him age decades in the eighteen months it took to hit rock bottom. He eventually filed for bankruptcy and the house was the first casualty.
“What can I do to help, Mum?” I asked resolutely. If a woman born and bred in Tallaght could manage an English stiff upper lip, then so could her daughter.
“There’s a rake of your things up in the attic and I’m not sure what you want doing with them.”
Ah yes, the detritus of a mis-spent youth. “I’ll go and take a look. Likely I’ll be getting rid of most of it, but I might find a rare Picasso in amongst my Spice Girls posters and our prayers will be answered.” We both smiled weakly.
“Wait, take this.” She handed me a floor plan of the attic.
“Thanks. If I’m not back in an hour, call mountain rescue!” I wasn’t exactly savouring the opportunity to rummage through a load of crap that should have been tossed out years ago, yet at the same time I relished the opportunity to escape to a happier time.
Climbing the stairs like an intrepid explorer, a Maglite in one hand and map in the other, I reached the top. Passing by my childhood bedroom, which was now my mother’s hobby room, a rogue and totally unexpected smile crept across my face. Drawers were overflowing with homemade cards for every occasion known to man - and then some only known to Bernie McAteer, like the one she made me when I ran a red light and had to attend a safety awareness course.
She even sent me a thank you card once – for the thank you card I’d given her!
Blowing a rasping breath
from between my lips I unlocked the hatch into the attic, waiting patiently as the ladder easily lowered and came to a gentle stop at my feet. I stared into the black hole above my head, took another deep breath, and muttered, “Once more unto the breach.”
***
Sitting on the edge of the opening, my feet tapping on the ladders third rung, I stared into the abyss. Imagine Storage Wars Texas and Extreme Hoarders hooking up on a Saturday night and having a love child - our attic would be the result. According to my mother’s map, my boxes were located in the third stack on the left next to the Christmas decorations, but before the ski wear which rarely saw the light of day, thanks to a disastrous family holiday on the slopes of Piedmont near Turin when I was fourteen. I blame the Winter Olympics. After watching the experts Dad said, ‘how hard could it be?’
Very was the answer and we soon discovered Irish people were much happier on the piss than the piste!
Besides, the clothes should have come with an advisory from the Health and Safety Executive. Warning: will cause blindness to anyone caught in their neon glare.
The enormity of the task facing me was daunting to say the very least. Where do I start? My mother, god bless her cottons, never, and I mean never, threw anything away, especially if it possessed a nanoscopic amount of emotional significance for her. She kept my first tooth, the tin man costume from my Year 7 play, the hat I wore the day I built my first snowman… if I discovered the roach from my first joint I’d know for definite she needed help. I sighed forlornly. Maybe a smoke wouldn’t have gone amiss right now, but I doubted even a baguette sized spliff would have mellowed me out today.
I was awash with a nervous anticipation I couldn’t explain even if I tried.
It was like a furnace and I wiped the sweat (which was dripping in rivulets down my temple) away with the back of my hand. A narrow corridor defined two mountain ranges and… Grinning suddenly, I regressed to my eight year old self. I forgot how much I used to love it up here... Archaeologist Brianna McAteer bravely navigated the depths of a tunnel leading to the pits of hell. She was seeking the lost treasures of Havealot, a Nintendo Gameboy and Sony Discman were rumoured to be hidden amongst the ancient columns. A movement in the darkness sent the torch flying into the yawning maw of a crevice concealing untold danger, and the cardboard stalagmite teetered perilously close…
Distracted, I barely had time to whisper a sharp, “Uh-oh,” as several boxes swayed precariously and the top one tumbled towards me. Jumping backwards, I had no other option because I was millimetres from decapitation, I groaned at the markedly messier surroundings. “Serious problem, Mum.” My eyes narrowed as I began to pick up the spilled contents strewn around my feet. “What the hell is this thing?” ‘This thing’ was a book of Celtic fairy tales.
Huh.
Well that’s weird. I couldn’t recall ever seeing it before. Concentrate, Bri, this isn’t the time for a wander down memory lane… I snorted sardonically; okay it is, but your memories, not somebody else’s! Placing the book to one side, I returned my attention to the map. However, as I carefully inched forward (despite the demise of McAteer Construction I had no wish to die) an unknown force drew me back to the embossed conundrum. Procrastination? Perhaps. Avoidance? Definitely.
I chuckled wryly at the incongruity of the circumstances. My family’s world was going to hell in a hand cart, and here I was thinking that reading the Gaelic Hansel and Gretel would solve all my problems!
I must be going doolalley.
Dust motes and a lone white feather danced in a shaft of sunlight which was breaking and entering through the small portal on the gable end, and determinedly I pushed the book underneath a blanket.
Out of sight, out of mind.
Except it wasn’t.
Less than ten seconds later I retrieved the book from its rather pathetic hiding place, and trailed my hand across the raised front cover. The gilded lettering glinted and sparkled with magical vitality, and the tips of my fingers tingled at the touch. Now I hold my hands up and freely admit to having a bit of a book fetish.
A bit of a fetish?
Ha, I was a chronic bibliophile and proudly so. I loved reading books but more than that, I also loved the smell and touch of them. I imagined it was the same sensation people experienced when they smelled a loaf of bread just out of the oven, or caught a whiff of freshly mown grass in the summer. This tome was beautiful, possibly one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. I cracked open the spine which was like new; being hidden away in a cardboard box for God knows how many years had done it no harm at all. Inside was an innocuous plain white envelope. The book was forgotten as I stared down at the words written in expansive black cursive.
Brianna, my darling daughter.
The penmanship belonged to neither of my parents. My hand began to tremble and in my mind I heard John William’s iconic Imperial March from Star Wars playing; cymbals crashing and the echoing boom, boom of drums was swiftly followed by a sinking sensation as Vader took to the screen.
Except there were no villains here to scare me, only a harmless white envelope.
Harmless? Something told me this was anything but harmless; it had the potential to be more terrifying than anything seen on the big screen.
My heart smacked against my rib cage, my breath was ragged and laboured, and although it was not something I’d suffered from in the past I recognised the beginnings of a panic attack, a panic attack brought about by the lingering memory of four simple words stabbing, repeatedly, into my brain.
Brianna, my darling daughter.
I placed the envelope back inside the book and slammed it shut, but it was too late. I had opened Pandora ’s Box and there was no going back. I stared at it for an interminable length of time, sweat building and dribbling down my back. Gingerly I reached out a hand, before just as timorously drawing it back again. My life was finally balanced on a knife edge, and my decision…
It felt like my parachute had just failed and the ground was rushing up to meet me.
Slowly re-opening the book, I examined the envelope more closely. There was nothing unusual about it, apart from who it was addressed to. I glanced down at the other items littering the floor: A carved wooden box, a little dusty, but none the worse for wear; a pair of white booties; a Babygro with a shamrock embroidered on its heart; along with one photo of a small child, I’d guess between seven and nine, in a white dress.
They demanded my attention which I duly gave because, damn, the temptation and curiosity was impossible to resist. ‘If humans weren’t curious, Bri, we’d all still be living in caves,’ was an excuse my mother often used upon hearing a particularly salacious piece of gossip.
Also I possessed the willpower of a gnat.
Brianna, my darling daughter.
Hearing the creak of the attic ladder, I quickly stuffed the envelope into my pocket an instant before my father’s head popped up through the hatch. “Lunch is ready,” he hiccoughed, having obviously been at the whiskey chasers, something he tended to do when he wanted to unwind.
He was doing a lot of unwinding since losing the business.
“I’ll be right there,” I sang out with the excessive fake buoyancy of a person desperately trying to hold their shit together, not that he noticed. Retrieving the envelope, I turned it over in my hand and frowned. The seal was still intact; in fact, it didn’t look as if it had ever been handled. I felt inordinately guilty, like I was snooping into someone else’s life and had unearthed someone else’s secret.
Someone else’s guilty secret.
Instinctively I knew that this simple piece of stationary was about take the very fabric of my being and tear it asunder, thread by thread, still I slipped a finger under the seal anyway.
I had to know the truth.
Was I adopted?
Chapter 2
Brianna
I’ll concede it was cowardly to leave my parents hanging after accusing them of lying, but so what? They’d left me hanging
for thirty-three years. Outside in the weak winter sun I shivered as a sense of unbearable loss echoed through my hollow body.
Adopted. Fuck.
My life was turning into a soap opera – although even the Brannings in a Christmas episode of Eastenders would struggle to compete with the level of drama I was experiencing. I needed time and space to process and then hopefully I could make some sense of it all.
I turned the key in the ignition of my Suzuki Swift, then slumped over the steering wheel, my arms wrapped around it like it was an anchor; I listened to the engine smoothly tick over. The sound was normal, expected and surprisingly comforting. I don’t know how long it took me to regain some poise, but it was long enough for the heaters to begin warming the car.
Well this isn’t getting you anywhere, Brianna. Straightening my back I placed the car into gear (both actions painfully deliberate) and drove. I didn’t want to go home, yet had no idea where else to go.
I figured I’d work it out on the way.
Fifteen minutes later I pulled into South Weald Country Park. I shouldn’t have been surprised. When I was younger Mum, Dad, me, and Charlie (our loopy golden Labrador) would often come here on a Sunday afternoon. The four of us walked the trails and paths that criss-crossed the woods and fields, and Charlie would run himself ragged chasing after his ball. A laugh unexpectedly bubbled up and escaped through parched lips. One summer day he returned to us as a mutated canine hulk; we were in the middle of an unexpected heatwave, and the normally glistening lake developed a thick layer of algae subsequently dyeing yellow Charlie a lurid green.
Muscle memory commandeered my feet and I began down a familiar worn path, marching back in time to halcyon days…
After hiking for miles we’d find an open piece of grass and sit in the summer sunshine on a tartan blanket eating sandwiches and slices of warm yellow Victoria sponge cake layered with jam and vanilla butter icing. On wintery days like today, our faces red, ruddy and filled with laughter, we’d huddle up on a scarred wooden bench eating rich fruit cake, and warm ourselves from the inside with a flask of hot chocolate, my mittens so chunky I struggled to hold the plastic cup!
