The Search For Home

I feel rivulets of sweat racing down my spine from my neck, and I just know my hair looks like I slicked an obscene amount of oil through it. Working in this heat is already enough to make me miserable, but compound 38-degree Melbourne heat with a café that has broken air conditioning during the lunchtime rush and I’m fairly certain this could be classified as a form of torture utilised at Alcatraz in its prime.

Between serving each customer, I take a breather and use my battery-operated fan. For ten seconds I’m offered a reprieve from the heat, but immediately lose the comfort of the cool air the moment I set the fan down to attend to the next customer.

I rush through handing out orders of coffee and sandwiches to customers ordering their food and drinks for takeaway and I feel as though I’m on the verge of collapsing in exhaustion.

“Mills, you look like you’re about to drop dead each time you bend down to grab a sandwich from the displays,” my co-worker Aly says. “Go sit down for ten minutes out the back before I have to call an ambulance to come and peel you off the floor.”

I sigh and wipe my face and the back of my neck with a napkin before tossing it into the bin. It’s starting to overflow from the number of napkins we’ve burned through just wiping the sweat from our faces.

“It’s the lunch rush, Aly. I can’t just take a ten-minute break in the middle of it,” I move to the coffee machine and get started on the next batch of lattes on order.

She nudges me out of the way and points to the doorway to the breakroom. “Go. I’ll be fine for ten minutes on my own.”

I’m too exhausted to argue further and slowly make my way to the breakroom, grabbing a cold bottle of water from the fridge as I pass it. Pressing it to the back of my neck, I collapse into a chair and lean over the table, resting my forehead on its surface. I’m very tempted to unscrew the lid on the bottle of water and pour its contents over my head. I can’t wait to get home to take an ice-cold shower and eat a pint of Ben & Jerry’s for dinner.

I sit up and take a hefty swig of water. Taking my phone out of my pocket, I scroll through Instagram for several minutes until my perusal is interrupted by a text message from my mum.

Mum

Dinner tonight?

I groan and toss my phone onto the table, reclining back in the chair and closing my eyes. The last thing I want to do is share a meal with my mother when I feel so shitty, but I’ve already put her off the last two weeks. I can’t avoid her forever.

My mother is possibly the only parent on the planet who was upset with their child for moving out of their home. Although we weren’t best friends even when we did live together, I was desperate to get out of her house and into my own place. When I reached my mid-teens, I was beginning to feel more like a maid than an equal in her home. She would rarely clean any surface of the house, wouldn’t buy enough groceries for the both of us, and even had some of our utilities switched off multiple times due to lack of payments on the bills. This forced me to get a job at 16 to offset the financial shortfall that she couldn’t cover.

My frustration grew with my mum when I found out how much of her money she was wasting weekly at the pokies. She had lied to me and said her pay had been cut, but instead she was spending more and more of her weekly wages on gambling, causing her to come up short for bills and groceries at home.

A week after my 18^th birthday, and after saving as much as possible, I moved out of home and into my own apartment. At the same time, I gave my mother an ultimatum and told her that if she didn’t seek help for her gambling addiction, I would cut all communication with her. Thankfully, she eventually relented and got help for her addiction.

Regardless, ever since I moved out, our relationship has dwindled. She can be overbearing and judgemental, but her and my grandmother are all the family I have left. Before I was born, my father passed away from a car accident, and my mother didn’t realise she was pregnant until after his death. She chose to never keep in contact with his family, and now both of his parents, plus my mother’s father, had passed away, leaving only my mother, grandmother and myself.

Not that I see my grandmother very often, either. Where my mum is controlling, judgemental and uptight, her mother is ten times worse. I haven’t seen my grandmother in nearly four years, and I only ring to speak to her on two days during the year: her birthday and Christmas day.

I reach for my phone and ponder my options regarding my mum. Sighing, I type out my response to her.

Me

If you’re fine to come to my place for pizza, then yes.

Mum

Can’t go to a nice restaurant instead?

I groan and thump my forehead against the table. If there were an Olympic sport for sending my blood pressure through the roof, mum would be a gold medallist without even lifting a finger.

Me

I’m wiped out from work. Pizza at my house, or we catch up another time.

Mum

Fine, I’ll see you at 6:30.

I toss my phone onto the table and quickly down the rest of my water, tossing the bottle into the bin. Checking the clock, it’s been nearly ten minutes since I sat down. I move to the kitchenette sink and splash some cold water on my face to help cool down before double-checking my appearance. Grabbing my phone and pocketing it, I heave a heavy sigh and make my way back to the front counter.

As I re-enter the café, I hear a man’s voice asking Aly if I work here.

“Err, yeah, Milly works here,” Aly responds hesitantly. “She’s just out the back,” she turns to the doorway and notices my presence. “Oh! Here she is now! Mills, this gentleman says he wants to speak to you.” The look she sends me screams ‘what the hell is happening?’.

I circle the counter and approach the man. He’s wearing a simple black suit and holding a large envelope in his hands.

“How can I help you?” I query.

“I’m a paralegal that works with Victoria’s Births, Deaths and Marriages Department. On behalf of New South Wales’s Births, Deaths and Marriages Department, I have been tasked to provide you with paperwork from Sebastian Grant’s estate.” He holds out the envelope to me.

“Births, Deaths and Marriages?” I echo. “Why do you need me for anything relating to that? And who’s Sebastian Grant?”

“Unfortunately, I have no further information to provide you,” he motions to the envelope. “All the information you need is in the envelope. Enjoy the rest of your day.” Before I can respond, the man briskly makes his way out of the café and joins the throng of pedestrians passing by.

I turn to Aly with a befuddled expression. “What the hell just happened?”

She looks just as stumped as I feel and shrugs. “Not a clue. I’ve never heard of a Sebastian Grant, either.”

Scoffing, I quickly throw the envelope behind the counter beside my handbag and get back to work. The paperwork will have to wait for when I make it home later.

***

I slowly amble into my apartment at 5:30, dumping my bag on the floor. I stumble toward the couch, dropping the envelope on the coffee table and collapse across the couch, groaning into the cushion in exhaustion.

Sitting up, I glare at the envelope that has plagued me all afternoon with curiosity. I snatch it up and tear it open to find several bundles of paperwork.

The more I read through the paperwork, the more my confusion grows. Some man named Sebastian Grant has passed away and named me as his beneficiary, yet I have no clue who this man is. I nearly choke on thin air as I turn to a page that details what I will inherit, shocked at the amount of money I’m seeing.   

There’s a part of me that doesn’t believe what I’m reading; it all seems too good to be true. Who on earth is this Sebastian person that decided that when he dies, I would receive millions of dollars from his estate?

I lose track of time as I examine the paperwork, jolting into awareness when I hear a knock on the door. I hastily make my way to the door and open it to see my mother sporting her regular sour appearance.

“Hi, darling,” she leans forward and kisses my cheek before moving past me into my apartment. “Have you ordered the food yet?”

“Uhh, no, I’ve been really distracted since I arrived home,” I explain.

As she passes the coffee table, she glances at the pile of papers. She does a double-take and snatches up one of the pages.

“Where did this come from?” she asks frantically.

“Someone from Births, Marriages and Deaths brought this paperwork to me at work today. I still don’t quite know if it’s legit or not, but some man in NSW has left his estate to me,” I move next to her and point at the name at the top of the page. “Sebastian Grant. I’ve never heard of him.”

I glance at my mother and notice her complexion has turned a ghostly white. Something in her expression causes suspicion to spike. “Do you… Do you know who this man is?”

Shakily, mum sits on the couch, still staring at the papers in front of her. “You’re never going to forgive me,” she whispers.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I demand.

When she raises her head, I can see tears pooling in her eyes. “I know who Sebastian is…” she pauses and heaves a great sigh. “He is… Your father.”

My eyebrows furrow in confusion. “But you’ve told me my father died before you even found out you were pregnant! You lied about him being dead?!” I shriek, horrified.

The tears in her eyes spill over as she sobs. “I didn’t want him to be in my life anymore,” she wipes under her eyes with her sleeve. “I told him I wanted nothing to do with him, but after you were born, he was adamant about wanting to be in your life… Not just him, but his entire family.”

I drop onto the couch beside her, suddenly feeling faint and nauseated. “My dad has been alive all this time? And I have more family? Does grandma know about this?”

She nods, covering her face and sobbing into her hands. “I told them to leave us alone,” she mumbles through her hands. “But then he… He insisted that he…” she dissolves further into tears and hunches forward.

“He what?!” I stress.

“He would send money every month to be put aside for you, for when you would head to university after secondary school,” she refused to make eye contact with me. “You were meant to receive the amount when you turned 18… But I…”

Angry tears stream down my face. “You gambled it all away, didn’t you?”

She curls further in on herself, ashamed. “I’m so sorry,” she hiccups.

Rage fills my chest and burns up my throat. Standing, I snatch the paperwork from her grasp. “Get up,” I order. “I want you to leave, now.”

Her head snaps up to stare at me. “What?!”

“Get out! Go!” I stomp to the front door and wrench it open. “I don’t want anything to do with you! GET. OUT!!” I cry in agony. “You’ve kept an entire family away from me!! You took money from me that would’ve saved me thousands in student loan debts!! I can’t believe you would do this to me, after everything I did to help keep a roof over our heads and food in our mouths!”

She rises from the couch, reaching her hands out to me. “Please, Milly, don’t do this –”

“LEAVE!” I bellow. “This was the last straw! I never want to hear from you again!” I move behind her and push her towards the door. I shove her over the threshold and toss her handbag out behind her. “You’re a sick, fucked up person, and I’ll never forgive you for taking away my opportunity of having a loving family!”

Before she can respond, I slam the door in her face and lock it. Moving back to the couch, I wipe the tears from my cheeks and breathe deeply to calm myself.

I sift through the paperwork, finding a page with the names, addresses and phone numbers of Sebastian’s – dad’s – relatives: his older sister and his father. Grabbing my phone, I dial the number for his sister, Tess.

After a couple of rings, a woman answers the phone. “Hello, this is Tess speaking,” she greets.

“Umm, hi, my name is Milly…” I pause and take a fortifying breath. “I assume you know who I am?”

“Oh my gosh! Yes, Milly! I’m so glad you reached out to one of us!” she gasps. “This must be a huge shock to find out this way that Sebastian has passed away.”

“I didn’t even know he existed until today,” I respond. “My mum always told me that my dad had died before I was born, and he had no family after his parents died when I was a baby, too.”

“Good lord,” she mutters. She clears her throat, and I can tell she’s crying. “I apologise if this offends you, but I’ve always thought your mother was a horrific woman. I can’t believe she would lie about something this extreme.”

I huff out a humourless laugh. “She also gambled all of the money that Sebastian sent monthly to pay for my university.”

She gasps again. “I’m so sorry, Milly,” she says. “I know this is all a lot to take in, but if it’s at all possible, we would love for you to make your way to Sydney to meet us.”

I hesitate, torn between fear of the unknown and the strong yearning to become better acquainted with the family I didn’t know I had. “I can’t afford a plane trip right now with my finances…”

“No problem, I’ll happily pay for your plane ticket, no issue at all. Please… We would really love to officially meet you and get to know you. But if you’re truly not ready, we can wait – we’ve already waited twenty years to get to this point, waiting a little longer won’t hurt us,” she jokes.

I smile at her kind and caring tone. “I would love to meet you all,” I admit. “Can you give me one month so I can take the time off from work and save up for the trip?”

“Of course, honey. Whenever you’re ready, we’ll be waiting for you.”

A pleasant warmth spreads through my chest that is unfamiliar. “Thank you for giving me the chance to get to know your family,” I choke out.

“It’s our family, Milly,” she corrects. “It just took a long time to get to this point. Take care, Milly, and if you’re okay with it, I would love to get to talk to you more over the phone.”

“I’d really love that, Tess. You take care of yourself, too,” I sign off, ending the call.

I sit frozen on the couch, taking in the events of the evening. My heart aches for the years lost not having a loving family by my side, and my resentment towards my mother grows exponentially. I shove those negative thoughts to the side and focus instead on my growing excitement of getting to know my family.

***

After an hour and a half flight from Melbourne, I finally touch down in Sydney. Nervous butterflies flutter through my stomach, and my palms are slick with sweat. My nervousness is only surpassed by my extreme excitement for what this trip holds in store for me.

My first time in Sydney to meet a bunch of strangers who are, in fact, not strangers at all.

I primarily kept in contact with Tess, speaking occasionally to her husband Andrew and their two daughters, Paige and Sonia, both of whom are younger than me. From what Tess was telling me last night, I expected a fair amount of extended family members to be awaiting my arrival in Sydney today.

As I step off the escalator into the Jetstar foyer, I glance around hoping to find Tess’s now-familiar face. As the crowd in front of me clears, I finally spot Tess. She’s surrounded by at least twenty other people, some holding up signs with my name on it, others saying ‘Welcome to Sydney’. I can’t fight the grin that lights up my face. Some of the people I don’t recognise from the few photos Tess has sent me over the last month, but I already feel more kind-heartedness from these nameless faces than I have felt from my own mother for many years.

I jog the rest of the distance to the huge group, and immediately I am pulled into a huge group hug with Tess at the helm.

“Welcome home, Milly,” she whispers in my ear. I hug her tighter as emotions wash over me.

I’ve hardly been in Sydney for five minutes, but I can’t help but feel that sentiment down to my bones.

Finally, I’ve found a home with the family I’ve always wanted.