Chapter 13 — Recognition

Years had passed and Molly was making breakfast when her daughter came into the kitchen and hovered near the doorway in a way that told Molly she wanted to say something but hadn’t decided how yet. Molly kept moving and reached for mugs and bread. She went about doing the small things that didn’t ask for her full attention because she had learned that sometimes waiting without looking was what made it easier for other people to speak.

“Do you ever feel like you’re meant to be doing something else?” Mook said finally as she stared at the bench rather than at Molly.

Molly turned then and looked at her. She could see the way her shoulders were set and how young she still looked in the morning light.

“Something else like what?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Mook said. “I just feel like I’m missing it.”

Molly let the kettle finish boiling and poured the water before answering because she wanted to be accurate when she went to answer.

“I used to think that a lot,” she said as she sat down across from Mook. “I thought there was something I hadn’t figured out yet and once I did, everything would line up.”

“Did it?”

Molly smiled a little.

“No. I realised I hadn’t gone anywhere in the first place.”

“That doesn’t really help.”

“I know. It didn’t help me either at the time.”

Later that day, she met Sosta and they took a walk because walking had always made conversation feel less jarring. They talked about work and families and small frustrations without getting caught in them and after a while, Sosta said what she was thinking.

“You don’t feel like you’re chasing anymore?” Sosta asked.

Molly thought about that because she wasn’t all that sure what she was doing anymore.

“I think I stopped believing there was something ahead of me that I hadn’t reached yet.”

“That’s usually when you’ve come home to you.”

“You think?”

“I do,” Sosta replied.

“You know, I kept thinking I would find it,” Molly said. “Like I was meant to get back to something I’d lost.”

“And?” Sosta said.

“And it turned out I was already there,” Molly said. “I just kept listening to everything else instead.”

They walked for a while longer without talking as they watched the cars going up and down the road.

That evening, Molly stood in the backyard while her daughter played nearby. Mook was talking to herself and dragging a stick along the fence. She was absorbed in something and Molly watched what was happening.

This, she thought, is what they’re talking about when they refer to the innocence of a child. This is how we’re all supposed to be.

Her daughter looked up suddenly.

“Mum, are you watching?”

“I am,” Molly said.

Her daughter accepted that and went back to what she was doing. This was where she belonged. Outside with the natural order of the world. She loved to see the moon that never changed despite its cycles and the trees that held their roots no matter the weather.

Molly understood that nothing had been found and nothing had been restored because nothing had ever been missing. There had been no separation to heal and no return journey to complete. What had changed was where she placed her trust when things went still.

She didn’t feel finished or resolved or enlightened or detached. She felt involved and as though she wasn’t standing just outside her own life waiting for it to begin anymore. Uno hadn’t arrived at the end of anything and it hadn’t been reached through effort.

It had been there the whole time.