Rain droplets fell on my freckles and ran down my face, they were liberating and beautiful. I sat wondering about where they had come from and why they where here. Rain droplets reminded me that however small and insignificant something is, they can just become a cloud or rainbow and can be taken to the other end of the Earth as a whole new being, full of new experiences and old memories. I wanted to be a rain droplet. To reinvent me and to find myself in a different place, a better place. I watched the clouds pass by, waiting for a ray of sunlight to wash their imprint on the world away. To make everyone forget they were ever there.
'Come back in now darling' Hugh called from the Kitchen. I pushed myself up off the grass and daisies with a squelch and walked through the front door.
'How often do I have to tell you! You're going to catch a cold in wet clothes.' He said frustrated as he took my coat off. Hugh bustled around the kitchen grabbing plates and placing them in the cupboard in a unappealing rhythm. And after every few plates he put back he would push his glasses up the bridge of his nose and twitch slightly.
'What?' He asked, I must have been staring at him.
'Oh,nothing' I replied and walked out of the kitchen and into the hallway. He was right I was soaked. I walked up the stairs to my bedroom, walking past the corny family photos plastered with artificial smiles. Mum and Hugh's wedding photo catches my eye. I look closer. She's stood there in a beautiful white gown with her wild red hair fiercely blowing in the wind. Her pearly white teeth are showing and the creases on her cheeks and her crows feet are prominent. She looks beautiful and free as she is stood on top of the hill. I then look across to Hugh. He looks miserable. The dewy air is fogging up his glasses and his grey brown cropped curls are stuck at a weird angle. He looks out of place. But mum never saw that.
It's been four years since they got married, but Hugh only got to keep her for two. She died two years ago and he was stuck with his moody stepdaughter. He has done the best he can but I will never love him. I will never understand him. Every man wanted mum, she was gorgeous, brave and creative. But only one man could get her and that was dad. She was twenty three when she met him, she was at art school and he was in her classes. Mum always said how handsome and funny he was. They were only together for five months and them mum found out I was coming. They got married and settled down but it wasn't for mum. She needed the adventure, a new beginning another chance, but she was given too many. Nobody ever knew what she was going to next. She went to far and we couldn't stop her. She left dad when I was five. I got to see him sometimes. He was so silly and would always bring me a new stuffed animal and take me to the park but those meetings got too painful for him and he stopped seeing me. Mum could see how upset this made me so when I was eight we moved to New Zealand. She used to write fake letters she pretended were from him. I knew from the start it was a sham but I wanted to believe her. That he wanted to write to me every day. But then the money issues started. The art college mum taught at shut down and she was jobless. We lost the house and most of our things. With the only money we had left we bought a caravan.
We travelled all over the grassy mountains and went to gypsy festivals whilst living in our mobile home. I was home schooled and we made jams and colored scarves to sell on the way there. I met kids in tie dyed tops and denim jeans and a women who wore silk scarves around her heads with dozens of rings on each hand. I loved every moment of it. But once I turned twelve I needed a better education. So I started to go to school. And I couldn't make jams and scarves anymore. Nobody bought them.We lost all of most of our money, so we needed a plan. So mum met up with an accountant named Hugh Brown, he told us to sell everything and he set us up with a flat and my mum with a job. I cried every night as I missed the caravan and all of my new friends. I'd watch the rain from my bedroom window, I used to think rain was a sign that my friends missed me so I just sat and told them I missed them too. After 6 months, we were out of debt and Mr Brown asked mum on a date. They went out on a date and he began to love her. Every time they met up I hated him more. He took my life away from me.
Once They had been dating eighteen months he proposed to her and she said yes. They got married a year later on the very hill we lived on. The day of their wedding I didn't show up, I hated the thought of Mrs Miranda Brown. I was in the tent of a fortune teller chatting to her son who I hadn't seen in years. Mum was happy and I was happy. The night of the honeymoon all three of us stayed in rental teepee with a plastic window in it. Me and mum watched the stars and talked about the old times. I pretended I couldn't hear Hugh on the phone to his parents telling them how wonderful Mum was and how dirty and unpleasant the local gypsies were. Mum pretended she couldn't hear him too. But she was never good at it.
That must have been when the drugs started.
