For three sleepless days, Margaret scrubbed every inch of her cottage as if time itself, not dust, were the enemy keeping her from her son. She woke before dawn, though the coach wasnt due in the village until afternoon. Sleep was impossible anyway. Oliver was coming home after five years in Spain. Five years of grainy video calls and rare photographsfragments of a life lived far from the Yorkshire moors where hed grown up.
In the kitchen, dough for hotcross buns rose beneath a clean tea towel. Shed prepared the beef for the Yorkshire puddings the night before, rolling them one by one until her fingers ached. The puddings had simmered for hours, filling the house with the scent of Olivers childhood. Shed baked a treacle tart toojust the way hed loved it as a boy.
Now, Margaret stood before her bedroom mirror. Shed smoothed her hair, tied a new floral scarfbought specially at the marketaround her neck. The lines at the corners of her eyes told a story: fifty-eight years of tending the garden, keeping the house, and missing her only child.
“Will he even know me?” she wondered, then scoffed at her own foolishness. She was his mother. But him? Would Spain have changed him? Would he still speak like home? Would he be ashamed of the old stone cottage, the cobbled lanes of the village?
The neighbours had drifted by all morning, pretending to fetch milk or post letters, but really, they came to gawk. “Margarets lad is coming back,” they whispered. “Made himself proper rich with the Spaniards.”
Only those whove raised children and watched them leave understand how every waiting day stretches into eternity.
By noon, she set the table in the parlourthe good room, saved for holidays. A lace tablecloth, polished silver, the fine china from the cupboard that stayed locked most of the year. In the centre, a vase of fresh-cut roses from the garden.
When everything was ready, she stepped outside and sat on the bench beneath the oak. From here, she could see the high street, could hear the coach when it rumbled into the village square. Hours yet, but shed wait. Her heart fluttered like a girls before her first dance.
How many parents like her waited in villages across England? How many mothers counted the days between visits from children whod gone chasing fortune in London or abroad? No sacrifice had been too greatbut the loneliness weighed heavy some nights.
At quarter to four, a distant horn sounded. She stood, smoothed her dress, tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. For a breath, she stayed perfectly still, as if drawing strength from the earth itself. Then she walked to the gate.
The coach pulled into the square, kicking up gravel. A few passengers stepped downan elderly woman with shopping bags, two teenagers, a middle-aged man in a waxed jacket. Then, last, a tall young man in a navy suit, one hand holding a suitcase, the other a bouquet.
Margaret froze. It was himyet not him. Taller than she remembered, leaner, his hair cropped short, his posture so polished he looked out of place against the village green. For a heartbeat, doubt gripped her.
Then the man in the suit lifted his head. His eyes lit up, his smile transforming his face. He dropped his suitcase and ran.
“Mum!” he called, voice breaking.
Suddenly, the suit didnt matter. He was her little boy racing home from school, the teenager whod helped weed the garden, the young man whod promised hed return no matter how far he roamed. In his eyes, she saw the same warmth, the same love.
When he reached her, Oliver stopped just inches away, drinking her in. Then he crushed her in an embrace so tight it stole her breath.
“Mum,” he whispered into her shoulder. “My mum.”
Tears streamed down Margarets cheeks. Words failed her. She held him as tightly as she had when he was small and she feared losing him in a crowd. He smelled differentof expensive cologne and foreign citiesbut he was still hers.
“Come home,” she finally managed, wiping her face. “Ive waited.”
Oliver pressed the bouquet into her handswhite roses. He picked up his suitcase and offered his arm. Together, they walked the cobbled lane toward the cottage, its windows thrown open, the table set for her sons return.
As they moved slowly through the golden afternoon, Margaret felt the years of loneliness melting like frost in spring sunlight. It didnt matter how long hed stay. It didnt matter if he left again. He was here now, beside her, and for this moment, the world was whole.
