This is a concept I came up with for the February Writing Challenge on Instagram that the amazing IseultLaBelle started! Thank you so much to all the fabulous people who proofread for me, you know who you are, it was really appreciated, thank you! This is a bit of an experimental story which was an intriguing piece to write but nonetheless, I hope you enjoy!
Chloe looks up into her Mum's eyes. Home. Not that she has ever considered that, but in twenty years when she hugs her mum goodbye before she goes off to Switzerland to fulfil her dream of becoming one of the best cardiothoracic surgeons, she will consider her mum to be home. Because Home is where her mum is: be it Glasgow, Edinburgh, London, Aberdeen, Holby. It's Home. She thinks that the house she shares with her mum in the streets of Edinburgh for the time being is home, because that's where eight year old Chloe says home is when someone asks. And before her mum got a placement in Edinburgh, the house her mum rented in Aberdeen was home. But when she's living away at university, she'll consider her mum to be home: seeing her mum will be like coming home. Wherever Ange is will be home to Chloe.
Chloe tells her mum that she wants to be a doctor like her. She wants to help people. Ange tells her that's a very sweet idea. It's a fixation for ten years: her standard grades, her highers, her advanced highers and medical school. It's her reason for putting the effort in at school- so she can become a doctor and help people. Ange says that all she wants Chloe to be happy, but Chloe tells her that she's going to be happy being a doctor so that settles that. She admittedly struggles with anxiety throughout medical school but she works with it and Ange helps her to get through it. There are times when Ange wonders if Chloe's dream of being a doctor is detrimental to her mental health, but Chloe is adamant that she should carry on. So she does and she graduates with a First. Chloe and Ange move to London for a year and that's home for a while, she misses Scotland but all the same it's nice to meet new people. Then, out of the blue, they move to Holby and that becomes home. A few months later, she finds out Dom is her brother. It breaks her at first: not the fact that she has a brother but the fact that Ange lied to her for years, but they work through it, reconcile and forgive but it takes time.
Chloe asks her mother once if she can have a sibling. She's only little then, four years old at most, but Ange shuts the conversation down and she never asks again. She's happy as an only child; she has her best friends at school and when she's slightly older, P6, she takes the younger children at school under her wing, invents games for them at lunchtime. Ange is working, a registrar when Chloe is in the older years of Primary School and Chloe goes to Ange's mum, Fiona's house when her own mother is working late. Chloe's gran hosts an afternoon tea every Thursday and Chloe helps, serving tea and scones to her gran's friends in Aberdeen and making polite conversation. In hindsight, Chloe knows that those afternoons were instrumental in making her want to become a doctor, even if she couldn't see it then. Even if she tells Fiona's friends that she wants to become a doctor because "it's what mummy does and I want to help people like she does". Chloe doesn't know it yet but in twenty years, she'll realise that becoming a doctor was what she was always meant to do.
It's funny, Chloe thinks, when she and Dom are beginning to repair their relationship, that they are both doctors. She supposes it's fate, that they are destined to meet again. A bit like Romeo and Juliet, she thinks, the play that caused so much grief as she revised it for her nationals. Ange is useless at it, she didn't study it but even if she did, as far as Chloe is aware aged fifteen, Ange paid no attention at school. Little does she know that actually Ange was off for a while after having Dom and missed months of learning. Chloe only realises that years later, when she discovers that she has a sibling. Chloe knows that actually her mum must've wanted to tell her about Dom, wanted to explain but knows that Ange couldn't. Chloe knows that she could never explain that, not given the start of Chloe's life. Ange quizzes her each morning, her thick and tired Scottish accent butchers the impossible to read Shakespearean English but Chloe knows what she means. Ange has told her snippets of tales about her own exams but they mainly focus on her highers that Chloe knows she took not long after she gave birth to her, she never really seems to mention her nationals. Of course when Chloe is much older, she'll find out why when she finds out about Dom. But in the midst of her exams, she's only thankful that Ange is there to support her.
Even after the fallout, Chloe is glad Ange told her about Dom, glad she has got to know him. In some ways it helps her to realise that she can move away, she can go to Switzerland because Ange doesn't need her in the same way as she used to, and Chloe doesn't need Ange in quite the same way. She still needs her of course, because no one will ever compare to Ange in Chloe's mind, she will never love anyone in the way that she loves Ange but she's accepted that other people love and need Ange, and that she is home for other people too.
But eight year old Chloe doesn't know this, she won't find out for another twenty years, and as far as she knows, she is Ange's only child. But she can't imagine life any other way. When people at school ask what her dad is called, she'll tell them she doesn't have a dad. And she's fine with that. She notices that her mum gets cross as soon as anyone dares to ask where her dad is. Chloe doesn't understand why, it'll be six years until she finds that out. Chloe has only ever had her mum and her gran to look after her, that's the way it is and has always been. She remembers one of her mum's boyfriends when she was seven, but she only met him once. She wasn't shy, Ange tells her that, it's a tale they repeat when they both need a laugh, because there's no bitterness between what's-his-name and Ange. Chloe was blunt, she told him that she didn't like his coat, but coming from a seven year old, it was adorable to him and Ange. When they tell Fiona the story, she laughs and tells Ange that Chloe is definitely her mother's daughter. Ange smiles but Chloe notices that she's quiet for the rest of the day, puts on a over-exaggerated smile and upbeat tone when they walk past the park. Chloe hugs her, tells her that she loves her like she does every night, and lets Ange carry her up the stairs even though she knows she's too big for that.
A few months later, they relocate to Edinburgh. Chloe helps her mum chose their new house. Home, Chloe calls it when they move in. Ange smiles at her daughter's ability to adapt. It is a few years until Chloe is asked in school "what makes a house a home". She takes the work and asks her mum that evening. Ange's answers make her think, she wonders actually if home is a place or if it's collection of emotions, things and people. Thirteen year old Chloe thinks about it for a day, but all is forgotten the next morning. It's only when she starts to think about moving to university that she begins wonder if maybe home is where Ange is, if home is not just where she lives, where her possessions are, but actually if home is where Ange is. Where she feels safe, secure and loved.
Chloe's piercing blue eyes meet those of her mother. She smiles, knowing that her mum loves her. Of course she'll fully understand that when she's older but right now, she knows she has her mum and that's what matters. Ange smiles back with only love and adoration for her daughter. She'll tell Chloe that she's safe and loved and home when she goes to sleep that night. Chloe'll be fast asleep but it's what Ange has always said and it'll only be when she's older that she'll realise what Ange means. Home isn't just a place, it's a feeling and an emotion and for Chloe, it's irreplaceable.