Wings

They are all here. All three of them. Three plus two makes five.

A FullFatFive. For two whole satiating weeks. Sixteen sleeps I tell myself.

First my son.

And then my girls.

They had to rendezvous in London and navigate their way through Terminal Five.

I – mobile phone clutched in sweaty palm – fretted: would they manage? Would they lose their passports? Miss their flight? Board the wrong one? Get distracted in Accessorize, at Smiths? Go to sleep?!

My daughters tickle my worrisome Achilles Tendon.

I’ve lost Hat. Gaaaaaaaaaaagh. She was here just now. I swear it. Hahahahahaha

And the following morning as I drive the six hours to meet them at the airport:

Cairo? Cairo! How the crap did that happen.

And then they surface, from the belly of too long international travel: nine hours on a long haul, a three hour layover, an hour’s domestic.

They emerge as two tall and beautiful and they gather me up and they laugh.

And we drive the six hours home and they tell me that it is wonderful to be back. In Africa. Stories of school spill and Hat says, ‘shall I tell you about House Music now? Shall I tell you about everybody in my dorm next?’ And she does and then suddenly falls silent and I glance in the rear view mirror and see a girl who is sound asleep. Curled into a seat that doesn’t properly accommodate too long legs so that they tangle with her sister’s.

And I think. Give them wings.

So that they can fly home.