Moving Back Into Her Mother’s House
When Helen moved back into her mother’s house at thirty-eight, she told everyone it would be for a few weeks, although she had no idea where she would go after that.
Her clothes were in two suitcases beside the wardrobe, and the rest of her belongings were in boxes at her sister’s house. She had kept the good plates from her marriage because she had chosen them herself, but she had left the dining table behind because there was nowhere to put it.
Her husband, Martin, had moved out three months earlier, following several conversations in which he said he was unhappy without being able to explain what he wanted to do about it.
Helen had suggested counselling, a holiday, and spending more time together, partly because she thought those things might help and partly because she could not bear to stop trying.
By the time he told her he had rented another place, she understood that he had been making plans while she was still looking for ways to keep them together.
She managed the flat on her own for a while, using savings to cover the difference between her wages and the bills. Eventually, she sat down with a notebook and worked out that staying would use up nearly everything she had put aside.
Her mother offered the spare room, and Helen accepted after spending a weekend pretending she was considering other options.
Living at home again was easier in some ways than she had expected, and harder in others.
Her mother was careful about giving her space, but Helen still felt embarrassed when she heard her telling a neighbour that her daughter was staying for a bit. She knew there was no criticism in it, yet she found herself listening for one whenever someone asked how she was getting on.
Her father was already unwell by then, although he continued to talk about the hospital as if the appointments were an inconvenience rather than something to worry about.
Helen took him when she could, keeping his letters in a folder and writing down questions before they went. During the drives home, he usually asked whether she had eaten and whether the traffic would be bad near the school, while she tried to decide how much of what the doctor had said she should repeat to her mother.
He died the following spring, after a winter in which the family had gradually stopped making plans more than a few days ahead.
Helen had thought that knowing he was getting worse might make his death less difficult, but afterward she kept finding things she wanted to tell him. Once, she bought the biscuits he liked without thinking and cried in the car when she saw them at the top of the shopping bag.
The Months After Her Father’s Death
For several months, she went to work, helped her mother around the house, and avoided most invitations.
Her friends continued to call, but she often let the phone ring because she did not know how to answer questions about herself. She was tired of saying she was all right, and she worried that an honest answer would make the conversation difficult for both of them.
One Sunday, her sister, Caroline, came over and found her sorting through a drawer of old receipts. They had tea in the kitchen, and Helen eventually admitted that she felt ashamed of how little she seemed able to manage.
Other people lost parents and went through divorces, she said, and somehow they still went away for weekends and knew what to cook for dinner.
Caroline listened for a while before telling her that she had ordered takeaway four nights that week and had been sleeping badly since their father died.
Helen had assumed her sister was coping because she went to work and answered messages, and it had not occurred to her that Caroline might be making the same assumption about her.
They stayed at the table until their mother came in and asked whether either of them intended to help with lunch.
Getting Back Into the Garden
By early summer, Helen had begun spending more time outside after work. The garden had been her father’s responsibility, and without him it had become overgrown enough that her mother kept the curtains partly closed to avoid looking at it.
Helen knew very little about plants, but she could recognise weeds along the path, so she started there with a pair of gloves she found in the shed.
She worked for about an hour before Joan, the neighbour, leaned over the fence and asked whether she wanted a better trowel. Joan had known the family for years and had the useful habit of offering help without turning it into a discussion about how everyone was feeling.
She came through the side gate with her tools, showed Helen which plants were worth keeping, and stayed until they had cleared enough space to fill three bags.
Over the next few weeks, they worked on the garden together whenever the weather allowed. Joan brought marigold seedlings from her greenhouse, and Helen planted them near the kitchen window where her mother would be able to see them.
She also put beans along the fence because her father had grown them there, although she had to ask Joan how far apart they should go.
Helen liked having something to do that required her attention without requiring her to explain herself. She still thought about Martin and her father while she worked, but she could carry on loosening soil or tying a plant to a cane while those thoughts came and went.
On evenings when she was too tired to do much, she watered the pots and sat outside with her mother until it was time to make dinner.
Around that time, the small building firm where Helen kept the accounts lost a regular contract and reduced her hours. She came home upset, having spent the bus journey calculating what she could afford to contribute to the household.
Her mother told her they would manage, but Helen was frightened by how quickly she had begun to feel dependent again.
Finding Work at the Community Centre
Joan mentioned a vacancy at the community centre a few days later, after Helen told her she was looking for extra work. They needed someone three mornings a week to help residents with forms, appointments, and letters they did not understand.
Helen nearly dismissed it because she had never worked in that kind of role, but Joan brought her the application form, and Caroline helped her fill it in one evening over the phone.
The first person Helen helped was a retired driver named Peter, who had brought several months of unopened post in a supermarket bag. His wife had always dealt with their bills, and since her death he had become increasingly afraid of making a mistake.
Helen asked if they could go through the letters together, then spent most of the morning sorting out which needed an answer and which could be put away.
When he returned the following week, he brought the documents they had discussed and a list of questions written on the back of an envelope.
Helen was pleased that he had come back, and she found herself thinking about what else she could prepare before their next appointment. It was the first time in months that she had been interested in work beyond simply getting through the hours she was paid for.
As she became familiar with the centre, she began staying for lunch with the staff instead of going straight home. There were ordinary disagreements about whose turn it was to buy milk and whether the heating worked, and she enjoyed being included in them.
Nobody there had known her as Martin’s wife, and she could talk about her day without having to explain what had happened to her marriage.
One Friday, she took in a few marigolds because there were more in the garden than her mother wanted to cut. A woman waiting for an appointment asked about them, and their conversation led to a discussion about growing herbs in pots. Helen mentioned it to Joan, who offered to run a small session at the centre if someone else would carry the compost and make the tea.
The sessions became a regular Saturday activity, with Helen doing the organising and Joan answering most of the gardening questions. Some people came because they wanted to grow vegetables, while others seemed happy to have somewhere to go for a couple of hours. Helen began to look forward to seeing them, especially when someone arrived with a photograph of a plant they had been certain would not survive.
There were still days when she felt she had made very little progress. Sorting out the divorce left her exhausted, and her father’s birthday was harder than she expected because she had no idea what to do with the day.
She took the afternoon off and went for a walk with Caroline, and they talked about him for as long as they wanted without trying to make each other feel better.
By the following spring, Helen had been offered more hours at the centre and had enough regular income to start saving again. She thought about renting a place nearby, then decided there was no need to rush simply because she felt she ought to be living alone. Her mother liked having her there, and they had learned to share the house without asking each other about every meal or outing.
Getting Ready for a Home of Her Own
One evening, while looking through photographs on her phone, Helen found a picture of the flat she and Martin had shared. She had taken it just after they bought the dining table, when she was pleased with how the room looked and wanted to show Caroline. She could still recall choosing the chairs and arguing good-naturedly about whether they needed six when there were only two of them.
Looking at it now made her sad, although she no longer found herself going over everything she might have done differently.
Her mother called from the kitchen to ask whether there were any potatoes left, and Helen put down the phone to help with dinner. While they peeled the vegetables, she mentioned that she had been looking at flats near the community centre. There was one above a bakery that she could afford, with a small kitchen and enough room for Caroline to stay occasionally.
Her mother asked whether she had arranged a viewing, and Helen said she was going on Thursday. They talked about the bus route and whether the stairs would be awkward when she had shopping to carry. Helen was grateful that her mother could discuss these things without making her feel that moving out meant leaving her behind.
“I’d still like to come over on Sundays, if you don’t mind,” Helen said, putting the potatoes into the saucepan.
Her mother told her she would expect help with the garden as well, especially now that Helen had persuaded her to plant so much. They spent the rest of dinner discussing what could go into pots and which plants would need to stay where they were.
Later that evening, Helen called Caroline and asked whether she could come to the viewing. She admitted that she was nervous about living alone, particularly about coming home after work with nobody there to talk to.
Caroline offered to stay for the first weekend if she took the flat, then began asking whether Helen wanted her plates back, because the boxes were still taking up half the cupboard.
After the call, Helen wrote down a few questions for the letting agent and checked what she could spend on furniture. She would need a bed and probably a second-hand table, although there was no reason to buy everything immediately.
Before going downstairs, she opened the wardrobe and took out the suitcases she had arrived with, checking that the smaller one still closed properly.
When she had first brought them into that room, she had been embarrassed to need somewhere to stay and unable to imagine what would happen next. This time, she had a viewing booked, work she wanted to continue, and people she knew she could ask for help. She left the cases beside the wardrobe and went to find her mother, who had promised to come upstairs and help her decide which curtains might fit.
