Twelve year old Gilly Morris is about to journey through a summer of loss, bullies, guilt and terror. Told from her point of view, 2003 is the summer when the horrible, terrible thing happened to her and her mother. Journey's Child is the story of u...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I spent the rest of the morning sitting on the beach reading about Narnia and the adventures of Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. I think I might have had a crush on Aslan. He reminded me of Thad, whose grayish blond hair hung like a mane over his collar. Thad had been our protector when Tom scared us. Now, with him out of town for several days, Aslan took his place in my mind. I found comfort and refuge in Narnia.
When I went in for lunch, I discovered that my mother had opened all the windows and the soft breeze pushed at the curtains, making them fly into the air then lie still against the window waiting for another breeze to push at them again. She had done this in every room and the cottage smelled fresh with the sea air moving through it.
My mother was sitting at the table with her bare feet up on her chair and her glasses tipped towards the end of her nose. She was chewing on her lip as she concentrated on what she was writing. At that moment I saw just how beautiful she was and it made me feel proud that she was my mother.
"Hi," I greeted heading for the kitchen to scrounge for something to eat.
"Hey, are you getting hungry?" she asked, getting up to see what I might want for my lunch.
"I thought I'd make a cheese sandwich," I told her.
"How about a grilled cheese and lunch meat sandwich?" she asked as she pulled items from the refrigerator.
"Sure," I agreed, enjoying having my mother back. Not only had she quit drinking, but she wasn't smoking either. I wasn't sure what exactly happened, but somehow I believed it had to do with Thad. I knew they had several conversations that I wasn't part of, and I suspected that they may have talked about grown-up things. Anyway, my mom was different and so was Thad. He had after all, hung up that picture of Heather which had been hidden away for over ten years. I guess we were all changing.
I asked my mom if she would like to come with me to feed Captain his dinner. She said we would go around 5:30 and then we could have dinner at Drakes Galley in town.
I spent the rest of the afternoon stretched out on my bed listening to the radio and reading.
My mother tore herself away from her writing and by 5:30 we were heading out of the cottage to feed Captain.
"So this is how you found your way to Thad's house?" my mother asked.
"Yeah, the beach bullies told me not to come up here. They said there was a murderer who lived in a house with his mean dog at the end of the trail."
"Who told you this?"
"Oh, that's what I call Ben, Rory and Debbie."
"I knew those kids were giving you a bad time."
"They're okay now. At least Ben and Rory are. Debbie isn't friendly, but I don't like her much either."
"Well, she doesn't know what she's missing out on."
