Ella Robertson

Written age 13
Peebles High School, Scottish Borders

LOVE YOU ALWAYS?

Sarah,

I'm coming home! Two weeks they say. I can't wait to see you so that we can start planning the wedding. They say we've done our bit now and so we can come back early. There's nothing left to fight for here. Imagine it. We'll be together by Christmas and finally you'll be able to stop worrying about me. I can't tell you how much I miss you, but I haven't much time so this letter has to be shorter than usual, but I had to tell you the good news the second I knew for sure. 10th of December. 5pm at the airstrip.

Love you always,
Tom

 

I went that day. 10th December, 5pm. That's what he said in his letter. I stood there amongst the other mothers, fathers, wives, girlfriends, sons and daughters, all of us waiting for our soldier to come back to us, back home, so we could hold them and keep them safe from stray bullets. Safe. That's all any of us wanted for them. Safety. So we waited. We were barely able to believe that they were finally coming home to us. But they did. The plane landed, they came through, and one by one families collapsed into long anticipated embraces as a huge weight was hauled off their shoulders. Men came through the door and were greeted by their families, friends, and their newborn babies whom they hadn't yet met. And one by one they all left.

Then I realised. The slow trickle of uniformed men had stopped. And suddenly life as I knew it ended. He hadn't come home.

The last time I ever saw Tom I was 39. Twenty years after I received the letter from him. Twenty years since that day when I was left standing there, alone. He never did come back and I never found him no matter how I searched. They were the darkest, loneliest days of my life. It's strange to say that because not a day went by without my friends or family dropping by to 'have a catch up' and although I was surrounded by people, I felt alone because the only person in the world I really wanted wasn't there.

In the end though he became my past, not my reality. Like a dream. But you have to wake from dreams.

I was on holiday the day I saw him. Tony and I had taken the kids away on holiday to the south of France to a little place I knew from a holiday I had been on with Tom. We'd both loved it there and I always hoped to go back one day. Tony and I had been married eight years by this point. Fin was 6, Rory 4 and Anna was 7 months. The boys were the real reason we ever went into the shop. Fin said he was thirsty and then Rory joined in with his chorus, so Tony pulled in and I unloaded the kids and went into the shop.

As I walked in with Anna on my hip and Rory and Fin running ahead, I felt a chill run down my spine. Maybe a sixth sense. I don't know.

I picked up some drinks and rang the bell for assistance, swearing under my breath as Rory knocked over a biscuit display and I bent down to clear it up. I felt the chill again and then a familiar voice said, "Can I help you?" And my breath caught in my chest. I knew that voice. It was him. My Tom. No. He wasn't my Tom. At least, he wasn't mine anymore. I took a deep breath and straightened up and as I met his eyes I knew that he recognised me.

He was changed though. His face had lost the light that used to radiate from him. It was tanned with new wrinkles carved in it. It was in his eyes though that I could see what was left of my Tom. They were green like always and the same eyes that had stared out at me from the picture on my bedside table. That had, for so many years, watched over me as I slept and cried. The same eyes that now stared into the never-ending darkness from a box in my attic marked "Tom and Sarah's Things", But there was something changed even in them. Something that reflected all the things he'd seen since we parted.

"€3.50 please."

His words shocked me back to life and I rummaged in my bag for my purse and handed over the money. As I reached across the counter I saw his eyes dance over the golden band on my finger, across the three kids and finally coming to rest on Tony who was sitting waiting in the car outside for us. A sad look appeared on his face as he realised that if he had got on a plane twenty years ago it could have been him patiently waiting in the driver's seat of the car. But the look left as fast as it had appeared.

With a surge of guilt I remembered the dream I had had the day before my wedding in which Tom had turned up at the church and we had left together in search of a new life. But it was just a dream. Something I wondered about. Just my mind working things through and making up stories. Trying to finish off my and Tom's unfinished story. Trying to give it the ending I had wished for, but that he had run from. But it finished that day, it finished with a chance meeting. Just like it had started twenty-five years before in a small Scottish town.

It was too late to be angry, to shout and scream. That couldn't help us now. So I turned to leave but as I ushered Fin and Rory out of the shop and tried to quiet Anna he spoke, his voice low like he was fighting tears.

"They're beautiful kids, Sarah."

I met his eyes for what I knew would be the last time.

"Bye, Tom."

And that was it. I walked out, strapped the kids in and we drove away. But somehow as we drove away a weight lifted from me. One that all other families had had lifted from them twenty years ago when their soldier walked into that room at the airfield. But mine never left and although I didn't realise it, it had stood by me as I said my vows and held my children for the first time. The feeling of not knowing. Always the feeling of unease as I wondered. But now it was gone. I left it in the shop, alongside Tom.