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Of course, when Joseph’s family found out that we were planning on moving away together, they instantly kicked up a total stink about all of it.
"You can’t just run off with her!" His mother had exclaimed, once he had managed to coax her out for dinner with me as a chance to get to know me better. Joseph held my hand under the table, soothing me, reminding me that, no matter what happened, he was there for me.
"I’m not just running off with her," he replied, as patiently as he could, though I could tell that it was taking every ounce of restraint that he had in him to stay calm and not get angry at her. He didn’t take well to people casting any aspersions on our relationship. We had already been through enough already, and the last thing he needed was his mother getting in the way of what we had.
"I’m moving out there because I got a job offer," he explained. "It’s going to be good, I’m sure of it. And I want Abigail to come with me, because-"
"Because she knows she couldn’t possibly get any work down here anymore," she replied with a sneer of distaste. I felt something jolt sharply inside of me. I wanted to tell her that she was wrong, that this industry wasn’t done with me at all, but I kept my mouth shut. Any kind of reaction would be too much. She was looking for anything, any reason to jump on me that would prove that she had been right in everything she was thinking, and I was damn sure I wasn’t going to give it to her.
"I wanted you to know before I went anywhere," he continued, calmly, ignoring what she had just said. "Because I felt like you deserved a chance to make your peace with it before we went."
"I have nothing to make peace with," she replied, shaking her head and leaning back from the table. "You can go if you want. I can’t stop you-"
"We’re going to have a family out there, Mum," he told her, and that seemed to bring her to a sharp, grinding halt in her tracks. She balked, something I had never seen someone do in real life before, but she managed to gather herself quickly and she eyed me.
"And this is her idea, I’d imagine?" She replied. "Trying to get you locked in before you know any better? Well, let me tell you, I think it’s sick-"
"It was mine," he told her, cutting her off again. "I want a family, Mum, and I want you to be a part of it."
From that moment on, it seemed like something had shifted inside of her. I knew that she was still far from happy that I was going to be basically running off with her son, but there was little that she could do about it. And she wanted to be part of the family we were planning on having, too. There were a few stop-starts, a few back-and-forths as we tried to find our way through it, but she came around to me. Mary did, too, though I knew she still sometimes found it a little strange that her brother was dating someone who’d used to teach her. She didn’t mention it, but I could see it on her face sometimes. They didn’t come to visit us all that often, but each time they did, I could have sworn that Mary and her mother were getting a little warmer towards me. The last time, Mary had even baked a cake and let us all tuck into it together, and she had smiled broadly when I had told her how delicious I thought it was. That was the good thing about having worked as a teacher for so long, I supposed, I was good at dealing with girls like that.
Not to mention the fact that they seemed to love the little home that we had put together as much as we did. I’d had no idea what to expect when we started looking at places to buy in Orkney, but I knew I wanted somewhere big, with plenty of room, somewhere that we could raise a family all of our own. We went through a half-dozen places, traveling all up and down those misty, winding, wet little roads to make it to our appointments on time, but nothing turned up – until we found that tiny little spot near the beach, the one that just spoke to us as soon as we saw it.
"Oh my God," I gasped as soon as I laid eyes on it. It was a small cottage, the kind that seemed to cling to the side of the cliff that it was at the bottom of for dear life – it looked as though one sturdy breeze would have been enough to knock it into the ocean, but for some reason, I liked that. It was made with old, uneven flagstones, and looked out onto the beach below.
"At high tide, the water gets close to the house," The estate agent, apparently one of only two on the island and very pleased indeed to be able to claim our custom for herself.
"But that just means you’ll have to keep your gardening to the side," she explained, as she guided us around the back and gestured to the little miniature paddock that would be ours right alongside this place. I beamed, and turned to look at Joseph. I could tell from the way he was looking at this place that he, too, felt the same way that I did for it.
"Could we take a look around inside?" I asked her keenly, and she gestured for me to lead on; the front door was a little warped, probably from all the cold and rain, but it reminded me that this place must have been around for so long. There was so much history here, far more so than my little flat back in Inverness.
By the time that we had made our way around the house, I knew that this was the place for us. It was small, just enough room for the two of us as well as a kid if we decided to have one, but I actually liked that – there was a coziness to it, a comforting smallness that made me feel like I would be able to get all of this under control. Joseph paused next to me in the bedroom, and I looked over at him.
"You feel it too, don’t you?" I asked him, winding my arms around his neck. "You feel it too."
"Of course I do," he agreed, and he kissed me on the cheek. "This is perfect, really. I think we should put an offer down now."
"Now?" I squeaked back. "Shouldn’t we take some more time to think about it?"
"I don’t think you need to," he pointed out with a smile. "This is where you want to live, isn’t it?”
I bit my lip and nodded. I was so grateful for him. I was grateful that he could look into my eyes and see what I wanted, see what was best for me, even when I was unsure about it. I needed someone like that, someone who was never afraid to strike out and take control and do the right thing. I loved him for this, for all the time and effort he put into understanding me, into making sure that I got every little thing that I wanted.
We put our savings together and bought the place at once, and by the time we got back to the mainland that night, I was officially the owner of my very first full-blown house. I couldn’t believe it. I missed it already, even as I lay next to Joseph that night and listened to the slow rise and fall of his breath. How could I feel so attached to somewhere that I had never even lived in before? I could already feel it calling to me, like it was trying to guide me home. I wanted to listen more than I wanted to do anything in the world. I wanted to go back there already.
The move was a bit of a pain in the arse, given everything we had to load up into the cars to get them over on the ferry; but it was worth it. Joseph kept my attitude light and bright as we went, and he wound his arms around me from behind as we looked out over the retreating mainland in the distance. Like the both of us were silently bidding farewell to the lives that we had known there, for better or for worse.
I was surprised at how quickly I found myself settling into life on the island. I had assumed that it was going to be tough at first, getting used to the pace of things out here; I knew that I had a lot to get used to, given that my normal had been being able to go out and get drinks or food or anything I wanted at any time of the day or night. These days, I had to trek out to the shop in the tiny street near the ferry port to get everything, and I soon learned that I was foolish not to take a list because there was always something that I would find some way to forget.
It had been there that I’d met Marie, one of our closer friends on Orkney; she was a woman a little older than me who ran the shop, the one who had hold of all the town gossip, it seemed, and was willing to share it with anyone who came in. It was through her that we had met Roe, when he had been looking for a new home after his owner was called back to the mainland suddenly; she set us up with a meeting with him, and as soon as I laid eyes on him, I knew that he was the dog for us.
"Oh, can we keep him?" I pleaded with Joseph playfully. He grinned at me and got down on his knees to say hello to the dog.
"I think so," he agreed. "As long as you can walk him, alright? I’m not getting up any earlier than I have to for work in the mornings."
"Of course," I agreed, and I kissed him on the cheek. He already worked so hard for the two of us, and I was so grateful for it.
And as for my own teaching career – well, okay, it turned out that there weren’t a huge amount of jobs going up in Orkney or any of the surrounding islands when I got there. But soon, I found myself settling into the pace of life just living off my savings. I thought that I belonged in the classroom beyond anything else, but now, these days, I was quite sure that there was more to my ability to share knowledge than that. Teaching in a classroom was an awesome thing, of course, but I would never look at it as the only way to pass on what I had learned.
