Melissa, Zane and Brittany seemed to all be standing like lemons waiting for their baggage to arrive on the carousel. It seemed likely as they were an early check-in, their bags would be last off the aircraft.

They had slept pretty well thanks to their fully reclining seats in Business Class. Melissa had to bite her lip when she saw the cost of the flights when her daughter showed her the preliminary booking. After a short dither, she entered her card details, and they had three seats on the flight to Manchester with a return in ten days confirmed.

The prospect of Zane and Brittany studying in England was both good and bad. Good because they were certain that they didn’t want to follow their father into the law and then into politics. Bad because if things didn’t work out between her and Jack, visiting them might be problematic. The fact that the Yorkshire Dales was just one small part of the country failed to register with her at that moment.

As they suspected, their bags were just about the last to appear from their flight. At least the queues at immigration were not that bad, and they were all granted a tourist a visa, thanks to Zane mentioning going to visit the university they wanted to attend in just over a year.

The immigration man said to ‘Melissa’,
“Back so soon?”

She’d mentally prepared herself for this sort of question.
“I visited the college on my last visit. Now it is time for my children to see the establishment where they will probably be spending at least the next four years studying for their degrees.”

He smiled.
“I wish all parents were that diligent.”
He stamped her passport without any further questions.

Out in the terminal arrivals area,
“Mom?” said Brittany.

“Darling, it was only a little lie. It was Jack’s alma-mata after all.”

Zane was laughing.
“Dad would never have done that. He’d have made a scene about being a member of Congress or something silly.”

With a stern look on her face, Melissa said,
“Don’t ever become like your father. He lives in his little DC Swamp Silo, and that’s his world.”

“I won’t…”

Their rental car was, according to Brittany, ‘so small that it hurts’. Nevertheless, all their luggage went in the back, and they were off.

“Mom! How did you do that?” asked Zane as she negotiated the way out of the airport and onto the M56.

“Do what?”
“Drive on the wrong side of the road?”

Melissa chuckled.
“I don’t know. It seemed to come naturally after about half an hour.”
She grinned and said,
“The first rotary that I came to, I nearly went the wrong way around it.”

“Where are we staying tonight?” asked Brittany as she stifled a yawn about half an hour later.

“Chester. See the signs up ahead. It is an old city with a wall around it and everything. Much like York, where I stayed for a couple of nights on my last trip. The wall mostly dates back to Roman times.”

There were blue signs above the road saying ‘Chester and North Wales’.

“How far do we have to go? To the college, I mean?” asked Brittany.

“Brits, look at the SatNav,” suggested Zane.

“Oh!” she remarked when she saw the distance and time to go values.

“Settle down, darling, and fill out the visitor form for the college on your phone. One for each of us,” suggested Melissa.

Zane, who was sitting in the front, grinned. This was his mom of old. Assertive and on the ball.

[three hours later]

“Well? What do you guys think of the place?”

“Mom, it beats some of the places that Dad has been suggesting, hands down,” said Zane.

“I loved it. The setting is brilliant. Some of the equipment in the Vet School is cutting edge, added Brittany.

“That’s why there is so much competition to get in, even from international students,” said Melissa.

“That’s mostly for the Veterinarian course. There is less competition on the courses I’m interested in,” said Zane.

Melissa looked at her son. He wasn’t gloating. That pleased her.

“Then, my dear, you need to make sure your grades are perfect,” said Melissa.
“That applies to you as well, Zane.”

“I know, Mom. The admissions process is a lot saner than back home with all those places reserved for the offspring of major donors and past alumni.”

Melissa smiled.
“That’s how your father got into law school. His grades were nowhere near good enough.”

“Yet you married him?” said Zane.

“I didn’t know that at the time. It was only when he dragged me to a school reunion when I was eight months pregnant with you, Zane. I was there as eye candy and to drive the drunk home. One of his college frat buddies let it slip that he would not have been admitted to the Frat if his father hadn’t made a large donation. He was so drunk that I vowed that night that I would never let him use me like that again. After that, I had you to look after, so I insisted that he book a cab both ways.”

Melissa sighed as she navigated the car towards Chester.

[later that evening]

“That was an interesting walk,” said Brittany as they returned to their hotel.
“The walls… to think that some parts were constructed almost two thousand years ago. They certainly knew how to make things last back then.”

“There are walls like this around most of York, but I think that I read somewhere that these are the most complete in the country,” said Melissa.

“Mom? Are you turning into a history buff?” asked Zane.

“Not really. That’s the thing about Europe. History is everywhere around you all the time. There are bits of Roman Road on Jack’s estate. He showed me part of it because it was right next to where I got a flat. The next bit of road that we use today is built right on top of the Roman road.”

Zane laughed.
“I’ll take the ‘not really’ under advisement.”

All three of them laughed.

[the next day]

“This landscape is very different to any that I’ve seen before,” remarked Zane as they started to drive down roads that were flanked by dry stone walls.”

“These aren’t the first that you have seen. Do you remember that TV show about a Vet called ‘All Creatures Great and Small’? Wasn’t that set in Yorkshire?” said Brittany.

“I do,” said Melissa.
“I think that it was on BBC America.”

“Oh yes. But that was set around the time of WW2,” said Zane.

“And not a lot has changed since. There are millions of sheep. There are more sheep than people in this part of the world,” said Melissa.
“The shepherds still gather up their flocks, using dogs. Quad bikes and the like can’t work on many of the steep hillsides. There are even competitions for the shepherds and their dogs to show their skill at rounding up and herding sheep.”

Melissa glanced at her two children. She guessed that they were having much the same reaction as she had when she drove up into the dales from York. It was just so different from anywhere that they had been before.

“Here we are. This is where you two will be staying tonight. Jack’s cottage is over there on the right, about a hundred yards away,” said Melissa as she drove up to the front of the building. In the sun, the classical portico looked great.

They had hardly gotten out of the car when the front door opened, and a smiling Moira came to greet the new arrivals.

“Well, hello, Melissa. And who do we have here?”

“This is Brittany and Zane, my children.”

“Welcome to this little bit of God’s own country,” said Moira.

“Please get your bags and bring them into the house. I’ll show you to your rooms.”

Moira disappeared with Zane and Brittany. That left Melissa on her own. Rather than standing around like a lemon, she drove the short distance to Jack’s home.

“Hello? Is anyone at home?” said Melissa when she opened the front door. She knew that it was hardly ever locked from her previous visit.

There was no response, so Melissa entered the house. The temperature dropped by a good ten degrees thanks to the thick stone walls. She was about to go up the stairs when a figure appeared at the kitchen door.

“Hello. You must be Melissa.”

The man was younger and a lot taller than Jack.

“Hello. Yes, I’m Melissa.”

He smiled.

“Good. Let me take that case. It looks heavy.”

Melissa wasn’t going to argue about that.
“I’m Neil, Jack’s son. I’ve been living in Australia and only returned to the UK yesterday.”

The words ‘Jack’s son’ stunned Melissa. Jack had never mentioned him in all their conversations. Then, she began to question his accent. It certainly wasn’t the local Yorkshire dialect. Perhaps there was an innocent answer to all this.

“I can see that my father never mentioned me. That’s not surprising. He last saw me when I was a couple of weeks old. Then my mother took me to live with her parents in the Northern Territory.”

“Why did you come back?”

“My mother died of breast cancer during COVID. She was afraid of getting COVID to seek medical treatment until it was too late. I recently finished winding up her affairs and those of my grandparents, who died in 2019. I sold up and decided to come in search of my father. All I had was his name and the name of the village. So, here I am.”

Melissa mentally breathed a sigh of relief.

“Jack must have had a bit of a shock when you turned up?”

“He did.”

Melissa thought… ‘Yeah, right’.

“I can see that you aren’t convinced?”

“It isn’t my place to be concerned or not. It is a family matter.”

Neil smiled.
“Not according to Moira. You are part of the family.”

Those words, on top of seeing Neil, just added to the feeling of being manipulated. That was one of the things that Jeff had done to her all the time. She had this sudden urge to flee. Any thoughts of doing that were dashed by the arrival of Jack.

“Ah, there you are. Moira told me that you’d arrived. I see that you have met Neil.”

“Yes… It was a bit of a surprise, I can tell you.”

“It was to me as well. I’d sort of put the fact that I was a father to the back of my mind. Neil’s mother, Tessa, made it very clear right from the outset that she wanted nothing to do with me, nor did she want any money in child support. We received a raft of letters from a lawyer in Sydney telling me to forget that I ever fathered a son.”

“Did you love her?”

Melissa’s directness surprised Jack and Neil.

“It was more of a one-night stand after our final exams at university. I would have supported them, but Tessa made it clear that she didn’t want me to even send a birthday card.”

“Jack’s right, Melissa. I didn’t know about Jack until just before she died. Then she opened this box of correspondence. One of the items in the box was a photo of my christening and my birth certificate.”

All the things that Melissa wanted to ask went on an extended walkabout.

“I take it then that you are staying a while?”

Neil smiled.
"I hope to. I've never been north of the equator before, although raising sheep here is a very different thing from raising cattle in the Northern Territory. There it is hot and wet, and then very hot and dry for six months."

“I suggested that Neil work with one of our tenants for a bit starting in September, just to get his feet under the table. That’s where I started after I returned from university. He’s still thinking about it.”

“I’d like to see a bit of the ‘old country’ first. Mum grew up about thirty miles north of Swansea in Wales. While she was a student, her parents emigrated to Australia and bought a place in the middle of nowhere. That’s where I grew up until she got too ill. Even then, she didn’t want to go to into hospital. She spent her last days at a place she loved.”

His words caused a temporary silence in the room.

“Come on, Melissa, I’ll show you your room,” said Jack.

She managed a smile and followed him upstairs.

After showing Melissa where her room was, Jack turned to leave.

“Jack… don’t go.”

He stopped and turned back to face Melissa.

“I had hoped that we could spend some time together and talk… talk about us and what happens next?”

“I know, and I wanted to do that as well. Then Neil turned up. It was a heck of a surprise, I can tell you.”

“What can we do?”

“At the moment, I don’t know. I think I’ll have to talk with Dad.”

“Just remember that we only have until next Saturday. Then we have to return home so that Zane and Brittany can start school a few days later.”

“I guessed that would be the case.”

Jack stepped up close to Melissa. Then he kissed her for the first time since her return to his little bit of GOC.
“We will manage to get through this… I promise.”

“I hope so.”

Jack squeezed her hands.
“I don’t know how Neil will react when he finds out about the other me.”

Melissa smiled.
“As I said on the phone, Brittany and Zane know about you. They read your letter and didn’t go mad. If my ex had read it, he would have blown his top. He’ll do that anyway when he finds out. I’m ok with it as long as I’m not around when he does.”

“He sounds a bit manic when it comes to the subject of LGBT?”

“He’ll probably have an aneurysm when Zane tells him that he is gay.”

Jack smiled.
“That probably goes a long way to explain why they didn’t reject me outright when they read my letter to you.”

Melissa nodded.
“I didn’t know about Zane at the time, but now that I think about it, it wasn’t much of a surprise.”

“Thanks for explaining that, but I think that we should go and rescue Brittany and Zane from my mother?”

Melissa laughed.
“Moira will be… what is the word that you used… mollycoddle… Yes, mollycoddling them.”

“I can see their epitaph. Here lie Zane and Brittany. Killed by too much kindness.”

Melissa smiled and headed downstairs.

Jack and Melissa found Zane and Brittany carrying trays of food from the large kitchen out to the barn where the ‘End of Shearing’ dance was going to be held later that afternoon.

“Just in time,” said Moira.
“There are cases of wine and beer to go out to the barn.”

Jack took the hint and headed off to earn his keep.

“What can I do?”

“We will be serving baked potatoes at five. That’s when the bar opens. I have put some on trays for baking, but there are more to be prepared.”

“Ok, what sort of fillings are we having?”

“Grated Cheese with Worcestershire Sauce and BBQ beans with onions and peppers. The fillings are already prepared. The beans will need to be heated up nearer the time.”

“Ok, I’ll get the potatoes prepared.”

While they worked and when there was no one within earshot, they were able to talk.

“What do you think of Neil?” asked Melissa.

“I don’t know what to think. It all seems a bit suspicious, but Jack thinks that he is genuine enough.”

“Has he said what he wants to do now that he’s here?” asked Melissa.

“Not really. He talked about working on a farm like he did down under. The next time you see him, look at his hands. Then look at Jack’s. Jack’s hands, like those of the tenants, show the signs of manual work. His hands seem too soft. If you were to ask me, I’d answer that he’s probably never done a day of farm work in his life.”

Melissa smiled. She’d seen her former husband taken to task when out canvassing because his finely manicured hands meant nothing to the people in the community where he was trying to get both money and votes. The town had voted for his then opponent almost to a man, woman and child. Jeff had vetoed any attempts by subsequent campaigns for him to visit that part of his very gerrymandered district.

“I’ll make sure that I get a look at them.”

“What about you, Melissa, what do you want from Jack?”

Melissa knew that sooner or later, she’d be asked that question. She hadn’t expected it to be so direct.
“Moira, I honestly don’t know apart from one thing. I’m not interested in money. My divorce settlement left me very well off indeed, and there is more than enough for me to live off for the rest of my life without having to find a job.”

Moira laughed.
“I hadn’t expected that repost, but thank you for being honest with me.”

Melissa smiled.
Then Moira added,

“Henry made some enquiries in DC after you left us the last time, and the word on the street is that Jeff paid a lot for you to go away in a hurry. One minute, you were there being the dutiful stay-at-home wifey, and then you were gone, never to return.”

“The word that Henry received was not far from the truth.”

“Good. I feel that we are going to have a long and prosperous relationship… should you sort things out with my son. You are good for him. Since he met you, he has a new spring in his step.”

Melissa had not expected that sort of reaction. She had underestimated Moira and Henry, but it was nice to have them on her side. It was nice not to have to think carefully about everything she said and did in front of prospective in-laws. The last time around, she felt like that, she had to walk on eggshells for fear of putting her foot in it. Now, she was older and wiser. The big difference was that Jack was a very, very different person from Jeff. Jack actually cared about people and not just himself.

She smiled when she remembered hearing a conversation in the Hotel Bar on Lindisfarne. The woman was describing the man who was planning on marrying his daughter. She’d made it clear that she thought that he was ‘all mouth and trousers’ and not good enough for her daughter. That was the perfect description of Jeff.

[to be continued]