JOE
Meera isn’t the only person I know with a ladder-related death wish. Charles proves he must share a similar gene for high-rise adventure when I get back to Cornwall.
As soon as I pull into the car park, I spot him at the very top of the tallest set this school possesses, although he doesn’t risk his life to splash Glynn Harber with the same sunny paint as my nephew’s nursery. Charles almost scores a visit to the fracture clinic by stringing up brightly coloured bunting, and after a year of fifty percent of my time being based here, I know why.
Glynn Harber isn’t only a school of second chances. And it isn’t only a safe harbour for the city kids I still spend half my work life helping to find their way here. It’s a school built for celebrations.
I believe that even more each time I return with new recruits who get greeted as if they’re guests of honour instead of criminals in the making. Or maybe they’re more like missing puzzle pieces. This school is more complete with each version of Noah or Kwasi that I steer here. And yes, I’ve come back alone today, but I still believe that nothing spells welcome home more than the sight of those fluttering triangles of fabric and the prospect of Isaac waiting for me.
That’s who I’d usually seek out first.
Seek him out?
Typically, I’d take a deep breath and let myself feel a tug that only gets stronger with each month passing. It always leads me in the same direction—to the library he’s made his own—but today I abandon that urge and instead run to steady a shaking ladder.
Charles peers down at me his eyes warm and merry. “Well, hello there, handsome stranger. You’ve been gone for ages. I was worried you wouldn’t make it back in time.”
“For what?”
I’m not sure rabbits can climb ladders. Charles does a pretty good impression of one caught in headlights until he stutters, “F-for the summer school interviews?”
I squint, fairly sure that isn’t what he thinks I’m running late for—I already told Luke I might not make it back in time to meet his candidates. And I told him that I had plans this afternoon that involve Josh once he’s done giving the talks that brought him here a day ahead of me. But I also know it’s almost impossible to keep secrets in a team as tightknit as ours. “Hugo told you about what I’m planning for Isaac’s birthday?”
Charles descends the ladder in a hurry, beaming again. “No, but I guessed when he wouldn’t stop smiling after your last phone call.” He lowers his voice. “Are you going to do it right now?”
“Not yet.” I repeat a promise I once made to Lenny. “Soon.” I check my phone for a message from Dad. “Really soon.”
“At least go let Isaac know you’re back. He hasn’t stopped popping out to check the car park. Bless him, he keeps looking where he used to park his van before it went to the big scrapyard in the sky. Then he checks all the other cars to see if yours is back. Anyone would think he missed you!”
He calls that out from behind me.
I’m already jogging away to track down someone I’ve missed too, and fuck only being away for a few weeks. A single day without getting to wake up with Isaac feels like forever, and I have a little celebration of my own the moment I finally do see him.
He’s busy in the courtyard, surrounded by candidates for Luke’s new venture. Right now, I can’t pay attention to anyone but him, and from behind, Isaac is exactly the same long, lean, and windswept that I remember from the lay-by where I first saw him again in daylight. Over twelve months later, his hair is teased by a similar breeze that blows his story in my direction.
“Once upon a time, a librarian saved my future.”
I can’t help wanting to eavesdrop, even though I already know the ending of this story. It still does something to me whenever Isaac weaves his truth with fiction for kids. Right now, he does it in front of an audience of adults.
“She taught me that standing up for kids is everybody’s business. That anyone can be a role model. I did that with a mobile library to let kids who were missing a parent know they weren’t alone. Sounds to me like some of you have stories of your own about doing the same as my first hero. You stood up for kids, only you didn’t get the same happy ending as me.” He lowers his voice to a whisper. “Want to know a secret? Come inside my mobile library, and I’ll tell you.”
Some of his audience smile at him sliding open an invisible van door complete with the loud clunk and groan his old rust bucket always used to let out. Isaac role-plays getting into a vehicle I know he misses. He has to make do with sitting on one of the mats that used to live in the back of his Transit when dirty spark plugs were its only problem. That’s where he arranges more mats, then looks up to see me watching.
If there’s a better sight in the world, I’ve yet to see it. No other welcome home comes close, and I don’t know when Charles strung bunting inside my chest, but I’m almost certain that’s what flutters when Isaac blows me a quick kiss his audience can’t see.
Isaac turns back to them to mime winding down a window, leaning out the same way Lenny used to. He reminds me of his brother again, only by getting chatty in front of strangers like Lenny doesn’t struggle with these days. “Come on,” Isaac encourages these ex-teachers. “Hop in so I can tell you how I didn’t score my happy ending until I got here. It was a hell of a journey.”
Luke’s summer school candidates still hang back until Isaac tells them another truth I could also vouch for after joining the team here to share Hugo’s workload. “Listen, I could do with some company, because that’s what we do here. We work together.” He still doesn’t get any takers, and starts to roll up that imaginary window just as a candidate stalks forward.
“You got space for someone sick to death of exam results being the only measure of success? I can’t go back to letting kids think they’ve failed before their lives have really started.”
I hear Wintergreen loud and clear in Isaac’s answer. “Those are the kids that need you the most. Hop in.”
Another candidate steps forward, her hand shaking as she pushes her hair back. “How about for a teacher who can’t breathe at the thought of walking into another lesson observation?”
Isaac softens. “Oh, not breathing is my speciality. Definitely got space for you on my struggle bus.”
I don’t know about the rest of these teachers, but when it comes to Isaac, I’m all fucking aboard already—have been from the very first day I saw him wrap a cape of care around his brother. And it’s Lenny who spots me through the library window that must have given him a clear view of that kiss his brother blew to me.
Lenny cracks up at spying on our soppy moment, and he isn’t alone—my brother stands beside him, rolling his eyes, but I don’t mind. It’s a reminder of old times, and I’m so here for that instead of our old avoidance.
I go inside to join them, passing a pastoral care room with my name on its doorplate to reach the library where the view through the window means I promptly forget every storybook hero ever written.
Isaac’s so much more than it for me. More than my past and present combined. He’s my future, I hope, and I can’t help grinning.
I also can’t help shoving my hands deep in my pockets. Not to hide them from my brother. These days, we address what makes us different. We’re still identical everywhere it matters. And I don’t hide my hands from Isaac. He’s too busy in the courtyard to notice. Instead I wrap my fingers around what I’ve brought home from London to ensure he gets the ending he deserves. One that I’m pretty sure he wants as much as me, but that will have to wait.
Right now, these interviewees need him. And Lenny needs me to talk at a mile a minute. I know he tells me all about Sealife School and a visit to his favourite island. I’m pretty sure he also shows me new pictures he and his classmates have drawn to illustrate emotion. They cover the walls of a space Isaac has made his own after a year of managing dual roles.
And once Lenny is done talking my ears off and leaves the library with Josh, I discover that Isaac must have finished with those candidates in the courtyard.
It’s empty.
He’s gone.
“Hey,” he says from somewhere behind me. Isaac is hidden from sight by bookshelves, and labels on nearby artworks match how I feel about him.
I kiss him beside Love drawn under a portrait of Emma Webber. Happiness is pinned to the wall right beside it. This version of Joy has wings thick with glue and glitter. Maisie’s work, I bet. Asa has labelled his image of a crab with Exciting , and that’s how Isaac’s tongue sliding next to mine still feels each and every time we reconnect like this.
“Two weeks was too long,” he grumbles once we both need to breathe. I don’t know if he’s aware of how his hand on my chest always gets to me. All I’m sure of is that he’s right. I was away for too long this time, even if I had a good reason.
“I won’t need to go away again until the new school year.” That isn’t until next September. “We’ll have a whole summer together.” That’s months. Right now, I kiss his lips, his cheek, the place under his ear where a pulse beats, and time slows. At least, it does for me.
Isaac isn’t done asking questions. “What kept you away?” He’s as suspicious as my brother, eyes narrowed, and I’m as bad as Pavlov’s dogs, forever programmed to respond to the uptilting of a chin and conditioned by care he can’t keep inside. “Is your dad okay? I worried when he said he couldn’t make it.” His chin dips a little further. “And Meera and little Sammy.”
“They’re all fine, especially Dad.” He’s also the reason I’m late back, but not for any of our old not-talking reasons. “He tagged along on a few of my school visits this time around. Think he enjoyed getting to see what I do firsthand.”
I distract Isaac with another kiss, with telling him, “Happy birthday,” and with finding the silk of his tie. I wind it around my fist until there’s no parting us, and he does the same with mine.
“Love you,” he tells me when we finally break off. His eyes aren’t narrowed now. They’re the real windows into Isaac’s soul, and I wish to fuck I could meet the librarian who saved him.
For me.
I’d tell her thank you. Tell her how special Isaac is to so many children. Most of all, I’d tell her how she gave me back two families. She toppled a first domino in my direction, even if not all of them fell as easily as I fell for him. Right now, I need to kiss him again with relief that we got this chance to pick them up together, only those dreamy doe eyes have sharpened to focus on something behind me.
Not on a student, thank fuck. And not on Luke Lawson, who I glimpse passing the window in a hurry.
Isaac is focussed on a wall clock. “It’s almost time for Mum’s talk.”
That’s who we head to the school chapel to support, although we aren’t needed.
She’s a different woman compared to the shadow I brought to Cornwall on a fast train from London. Today, she spits facts instead of becoming voiceless, and my brother listens while standing beneath a stained glass window featuring a protective angel.
He stands guard for her even if she doesn’t need him. She’s plenty brave enough to face rows of teens to slice to the heart of her story—how growing up in care left her wishing for a fairy-tale family life, including her own Prince Charming—but it’s my own fairy-tale ending I itch to hurry away for, and it isn’t too long until I get to set those wheels in motion.
First, we wave off Lenny and Emma, who leave for the beach in the school minibus.
Then I have to fight off Josh to keep hold of the keys to our car. Finally, I have to put up with his backseat driving along the coast road.
He only shuts up quoting the speed limit when Isaac shouts, “Stop!”
He isn’t talking to Josh, and I had already slowed down—was applying the brakes to pull into the same lay-by where my brother once buzzed like a wasp in my ear. That’s where Isaac shouts again.
“That’s my van!”
He’s out of the car before it’s fully stopped, which I’m sure Josh would have opinions about if I had the headspace to listen.
I don’t. I’m too busy watching Dad pretend he has no idea how come an old rust bucket now gleams like polished silver. He also pretends he doesn’t have a key to unlock a vehicle it has taken months of London visits for three da Silvas to repair together.
I could pop those locks, no problem. Instead, I pull Isaac’s old set from my pocket to pass them over. Every minute of the last frantic week of welding was worth it when he slides that side door open to find my sister-in-law complete with my nephew, who chews on a book designed for babies.
“Happy birthday, Isaac!”
More gifts fill the shelves Dad has crafted so not a single one of these new books can fall when Isaac drives to Cornish children missing a parent. He tells Isaac all about these renovations. It’s the most I’ve heard Dad say since I told him that Isaac’s van was a goner and he sprang into action to stage a scrapyard intervention.
Now it’s Isaac who goes quiet after investigating every nook and cranny, and my family gets that silent message. They leave to join the rest of the school, and we’ll join them on that beach just as soon as I finish what I started.
Isaac sits in the driver’s seat, and I shouldn’t be this nervous to slide in beside him. I can’t help asking an anxious question. “Want to start her up and let me know what you think?”
“I’ll tell you exactly what I think.” He clasps the keyring I carried back from London after visiting a jeweller’s, then meets my gaze instead of starting the engine. “I think I want you to be it for me forever.”
He digs into his own pocket, and I only grasp what he pulls out when a gold band gleams on my ring finger as brightly as his van’s new paintwork. “What do you say, Joe? Marry me?”
I could say plenty.
Like there’s a gold ring for him too on the keyring he holds so tightly.
Or that he’s stolen my thunder by proposing before I could pop the question the way I had planned.
For now, I settle for telling him, “Yes,” while seagulls soar and our families—both school and blood relations—party on the beach below us.
That’s okay.
This black sheep is sure our good news will be welcome.
The End.