Page 1 of Cherished By the BRATVA Grump

Tamsin

It feels as though nothing has changed when I walk through the front door of Mom’s house. Same scarred wood floors. Same magnolia paint on the walls. Same pictures of my foster siblings and me hanging on the walls, one a little crooked. The only difference is how tidy the house is now. Now that Mom doesn’t have three feral kids running around.

I drop my bag on the floor and drag my suitcase towards the base of the stairs.

“Mom, I’m home,” I call out, and the familiar warmth of saying it rushes through me.

I first lived here when I was five. I remember the child services worker walking me to the door with my belongings in a carrier bag, and being welcomed by a middle-aged woman with a kind smile. The house was a mess. Shoes were scattered around the hallway, which she picked up as she went by. A school bag was hanging over the end of the stairs, open with books spilling from it. Then two heads peeked around the doorway at the end of the hall, a girl and a boy, as I was led into the den with the child services worker.

“My name is Patricia, but you can call me Patty if you like,” the woman had said, pouring a glass of water from a pitcher with ice clinking in it. There were cookies laid out that I didn’t dare touch, but my tummy rumbled at the sight of them. The kind lady just pushed the plate closer to me with a wink.

The social worker spoke to the lady about me, saying words I didn’t understand at the time. Words I’d later found out meant that my parents were losing their parental rights because they weren’t sober long enough to look after me properly.

As an adult, I know it was for the best. But at five years old, I had no idea why I had been taken from my parents, even though neither of them seemed to mind.

Now I know how lucky I was to have landed with someone like Patricia Kleine. How she did nothing but love me, right from the moment I turned up on her doorstep.

“Is that my firecracker?” Her voice sing-songs from the kitchen. “I made your favorite.” Mom bustles through from the kitchen, arms spread, a tea towel thrown over her shoulder, and wraps me in her arms. She smells like peanut butter cookies and vanilla. “Tamsin,” she breathes my name like she can’t believe I’m here. “I’ve missed you, and I can’t wait to hear all about what you’ve been up to.”

She holds me at arm’s length and looks me over. “You get more beautiful each time I see you. Even when I think it’s not possible. Come on, you have to tell me all about those boats.”

With that, she ushers me into the kitchen, asking about my work, my life, and telling me about how she can’t wait to show me the new things around town.

I tell her everything. How wonderful it all was to start with. How after a while, for the first time in my life, dancing started to feel like work. Then it started to feel like a chore.

“You need a rest, honey,” she says, putting her hand over mine and rubbing her thumb over my knuckles. “A rest will do you the world of good.”

And I believe her because I want to. Because I want rest to be all I need. Because dancing has been my life since she enrolled me in classes when I was seven years old, and I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t dance.

Only there’s a prickling feeling of doubt inside me, and it’s getting harder to quiet the voice that keeps asking questions. Like, what if rest isn’t enough? What if I need something different now? What if I’m done with dancing?

I unpack my suitcase into my small bedroom. Despite being the smallest room in the house, it’s still bigger than what I’ve been used to over the last couple of years. On the cruise liner, I shared a bunk with another dancer. The bunk itself was a narrow single bed, one on top of the other. There was the same amount of space beside it, and a door that led to a wetroom-esque bathroom.

Here, I have my single bed, a wardrobe and chest of drawers, and a bookcase. But the best thing is all the memories. Posters on the walls from my teen years, trophies on the bookcase from my dancing competitions. Books scattered around that Mom would buy for me and I would pretend to read.

The window looks out onto the street where so much has changed, and yet nothing seems different.

Maybe that’s why I had such a strong urge not to renew my contract and to come home. Maybe I just needed something familiar. Somewhere I could figure out my next move without the pressures of performing every night hanging over me.

I’ve just finished unpacking when Mom knocks on my door, inching it open and popping her head around it, just like I remember.

“The new bookstore is having an opening event tonight. Nothing huge, just some locals and some cake. Would you like to come?”

I think for a moment. The urge to crawl into bed and sleep for three years is real. But it would be nice to get out with Mom and just spend some time together.

“Sure,” I say with a smile. “Just give me ten minutes to wash up and change, and I’ll be with you.”

I change into a fitted tee and long flowing skirt that is warmer than it looks, then meet Mom at the bottom of the stairs. Her lipstick is a shade of peach that went out of fashion in the “0s, but it suits her, so it became her signature look. It’s just another part of her that makes this feel like home. I swipe on some cherry-berry-pink lip gloss in the mirror beside her, and she winks to my reflection. Another little gesture that was just ours. Phoebe, my foster sister, isn’t into make-up and dress-up, so that was something I got to share with Mom all on my own.

The weather is cold as we walk the short distance to the bookshop.

“Daisy decided to take on the shop when it finally became available a couple of months back,” she says as we round the corner. “It needed a lot of work, and then she got into a car accident, but she is okay now,” she quickly adds when I spin to face her. “Just a nasty bump to the head, but she is much better now. Anyway, her and one of the Federov’s, you remember them?---” I would say no, but she doesn’t give me chance. “Well, Daisy has been seeing one of them, and he was helping with the renovation, but I’m not sure if they’re still a thing or not. Dee and Sammie, you’ll remember them from school, they run the cat café next door to the bookstore, even have a door linking the properties so people can just pop through whenever they like. Isn’t that lovely?”

“Sounds perfect,” I say, and Mom laughs at my inadvertent pun.

“Anyway, the Federov’s will likely be there tonight, as Dee, Sammie and Kimmie—she runs the new gallery—all married one. Not one Federov, one man each, obviously. Quite quick too, but who am I to judge. When you know you know!”

This makes me think of the man my Mom was married to before she took us kids in. I want to ask her if she has met anyone lately but I know the answer will be ‘no’. It’s always no.