Lost Girl: Julie's Story Ch. 03 Pt. 01

The irony of the situation wasn't lost on me; even as I mentally floundered, a part of me found time to marvel that my aunt had been sitting and talking to Mummy-Anh even as I was discovering her 150 miles away in another city. I pulled myself together.

"Mummy, this man...the man with...Emma, what's his name, please, what does he look like?"

Mummy smiled at the question.

"He look so much like Mark it like he is your brother too; he have same eyes as you, same hair like Mark, same face, but he older. He say his name is Darryl Morgan."

My head spun like a top when she said that; Darryl! The man people had been mistaking Mark for all over Clifton. I was right, I'd been right all along, he was family! Then it struck me; the house I'd tried, where I got no answer; the nameplate on the doorbell was 'Morgan'! I'd been in the right place all along, just the wrong time. While I'd been knocking on his door, he'd been here, 150 miles away, talking to Mummy-Anh...

I realised I was shaking. I was so near, so very near, but even with all this, what would Mark say, would he even want to follow this through? He'd been as badly hurt as I had been, maybe more. Would he want to risk what we had just to try and connect with a bunch of strangers?

Mummy-Anh hugged me closer, stroking my hair as I trembled, all of this racing around in my head, but uppermost was one thought: what's Mark going to say? She seemed to pluck the thought right out of my mind, or maybe she knew me so well she could follow the way I was thinking.

"You not worry, Julie, Mark do this for you; you ask, he do anything for you, you not know this yet? He still not forgive himself for leaving you behind, he still think you hurt deep inside, so not yet forgive him for going away, he think every day he need to prove how much he love you. You mother thoughtless, and cruel, and evil, and she hurt you, put you in hospital, but she hurt Mark even more; long ago she close a door in his heart, and piece of him still lock away in there. She stop him believe in himself, she nearly drive him mad, and he still cannot believe he deserve good things. So every day, he try to deserve you, and he still not know if he do it right."

She paused to look into my eyes, her own eyes shining with unshed tears for poor, injured Mark.

"Mark my son now, I love him like all my other children, maybe more, because his heart still broken; he so tall, so handsome, so smart, but still not know how to make pain go away; she make him grow up too soon, he not have chance to learn how to be little boy, to learn how to make hurt go away before it hurt too much, so it stay inside him. All men little boy once, need to be boy before can be man, but not Mark; she take that from him, and I do not know how to give it back to him."

She paused to wipe her eyes, then once more pinned me with her gaze.

"I cannot help him, do not know how, so I love him little bit more instead, because so much taken from him, because he still hurt. But you, my daughter, you are mending his heart for him; every day, you mend it little bit more; one day soon you will learn how to open door and let little boy out again. I tell you this now. If this what you want, ask, and Mark will give it to you, because he love you, and he need you to be always happy. He is a good boy."

Mummy held me and soothed me as I cried for my sweet brother, for not seeing how injured he was, just ambling along, basking in my own happiness that he was back with me and never once stopping to consider how traumatised he was, just being happy he was back with me. Mark had looked after me, but no-one had looked after him; all he'd ever had was a lifetime of neglect and mental torture from that hell-bitch. Now I finally understood what he really needed, maybe I could find a way to put us back together properly.

Once I'd calmed down a little, she gave me a folded slip of paper with a telephone number on it.

"When you and Mark ready to call family, call me, and I be here with you, if that what you want, okay?"

I nodded, not really trusting myself to speak, so Mummy kissed me, then stood up.

"Good, now I go wake children; they sleep too much now, not sleep tonight. Come, we go for walk, it nice warm day, we take children to boating lake on Common, let them watch toy boats in water!"

I don't know what I did to deserve someone as wise as Mummy-Anh; I just hope I keep on doing it.