Songs For Your Mother Gordon MacMillan (good books for 7th graders .txt) 📖

I glance at TSP as I say this, and we exchange a look. We’re quiet for a second, and thinking about Will. I notice her play with Will’s ring, twisting it around her finger out of habit. I should say something, mention Will’s name aloud. He is the missing person here, and one of the ghosts in the room. TSP offers a faint smile as if to say she understands.

‘It’s okay,’ TSP says. ‘I love this idea.’

‘It’s a few years too late,’ I say.

‘It doesn’t matter if you’re late or even how late you are. I think the only thing that matters is that you’re finally going and that you’ll get there in the end. It’s the right thing to do for you and Luke as both of you need to see her, maybe it will be goodbye, maybe it will be something else. I don’t know, but you should go,’ Susan says.

I smile gratefully at Susan, and I’m lifted. I’m positive now that, if I can find Josie, I can find Lauren. I know she wrote that I shouldn’t go looking for her, and it’s what Josie told me also, but I’m convinced it’s what’s best for Luke. He’s the most important person in all of this. He is the one that counts, and what he needs has to come first, and we have to try for him.

Am I doing the right thing? I am telling myself I am, and that I am doing this for Luke. He’s already been through so much. Then there is Lauren who didn’t want to be found. I do not want to disrespect her wishes, only it feels like we are running out of time.

‘I need to ask if you think I’m doing the right thing,’ I say. ‘I really don’t know. My heart says yes, but my head is all over the place, and the truth is Lauren did not want to be found,’ I say.

‘If you think she’s out there you have to go,’ says Susan.

‘I’m so glad you’re coming with me,’ I tell Susan.

‘We’re coming as well,’ TSP says.

‘You are?’ I ask.

Susan and I look at TSP, as this is breaking news. I’d not thought for a moment that TSP would do something like this. She has a real job and two children. However, now that she’s said it, her idea to jump on a plane with us feels right. We have always been in this together, and that’s how we should finish it.

‘Of course I am. It’s sorted. My mother is going to look after Dan, and Georgie will love it. It will be good for Luke to have her there as well,’ TSP says.

‘This is brilliant news, all of us together. It’s the final part of the puzzle, about how you found the girl,’ Susan says.

I know what she was going to say next. Susan was going to add something about how it all turned out. The part about this being the last leg of the journey. We know we’ll find Josie. What we don’t know is what happens after that. We don’t know how this story will write itself out.

‘Susan’s right, you have to do this,’ says TSP. ‘You might hurt Lauren’s feelings, but if it means you get to spend any time together as a family, then do it.’

‘I’ll drink to that,’ I say, and we all clink glasses as we plan our trip to San Francisco.

Chapter 21

The five of us are sitting in a row on a BA flight to San Francisco. Susan is across the aisle from TSP, and then there’s Georgia, Luke and me. Luke is a changed boy since I told him three days ago that we were going to see Josie and find his mother. He has been grinning ever since, and it’s such a relief to see. I realise seeing him like this has a significant effect on me as it makes me happy too.

In the spirit of rushing forward, and not examining anything too carefully, we booked our tickets to San Francisco that same night we stood in my kitchen.

The only thing I hadn’t worked out then was how to tell Luke. The next day, I called the school and said I would follow Mrs Holmes’s suggestion, and keep Luke home until the end of term. I said Luke would be back next term, and I really hope that is the case.

I ummed and ahhed about the best way to break it to him. What I didn’t want to do was raise his hopes too high. I knew that once I told him, there was no way I would be able to keep them earthbound. In the end, I came out with it and said it as straight as I could the next day.

As he wasn’t at school, we made a day of it. In the morning when I got him up he was reluctant and grumpy like he was fifteen and not five years old, aware that he didn’t have to get up that day.

We took the tube to Oakwood at the northern end of the Piccadilly line, where it runs above ground through post-war suburban houses to the gently sloping green hills and woodland that sits on London’s edge.

I wanted to find a way to connect him to his mother. I told him I would take him to ride a pony like his mother had done when she was small. He sat bolt upright after I’d spoken the magic word and produced a smile that could not be suppressed. This was heartening to see, and it was a reminder that he could still smile brightly after everything that had happened over the last few days.

‘Like Mommy did when she was small?’

‘Like that,’ I told him.

‘Will I have a cowboy hat?’

‘Not quite, but you’ll have a hat, which will keep your head warm as it’s pretty cold out there today.’

‘I dreamed I would ride a horse,’ Luke said.

‘What else