A free short story: The Place We Always Stay

I wrote The Place We Always Stay with one question in mind: why do some places feel like they’re part of us, no matter how much life changes?

For me, it’s about the way houses and beaches and holiday rituals become layered with echoes - of parents, children, laughter, loss. This story is my attempt to capture that strange blend of memory, nostalgia and love of summers past and present, and to put it on the page. It feels particularly pertinent as we enjoy these last glorious sunny days of September.

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I loved writing it.

Ali x

I’m not sure what woke me up so early - excitement or the desperate need for a wee. These days, my alarm is my bladder.

I pull on a loose, comfortable dress and shuffle down the corridor of our holiday cottage, making sure not to tread on the floorboards that squeak. I’ve been coming here for so many years that I know it like my own home. I love the familiarity, the memories woven into the woodwork, the echo of children’s voices past and present entwining.

The garden path is flanked by abundant, pale pink and blue decades-old hydrangea bushes leading towards the gentle incline of dunes over which lies the beach. The sun is hot already, despite the early hour. I pause on top of the dunes to catch my breath and gaze at the view: the vast stretch of North Sea, sunlight catching the waves and making them shimmer like diamond tiaras. I slip off my shoes and revel in the feel of hot, fine sand tickling my bare feet. I close my eyes and inhale. This is my happy place. It always has been.

I lay the gingham picnic blanket down in my usual spot just to the left of the big rock, tucked under the slope of dunes that rustle with marram and sea couch grass. In the distance behind me, the pine forest offers quiet shelter. Ahead, a seal bobs in the water. Then another. Parents with their seal pups, I think.

The beach is almost empty, just how I like it. Half an hour of stillness before I rejoin the fray. No longer than that, because they’ll all worry. Solitude makes people uncomfortable, doesn’t it? As though it must be linked to sadness, even when it's chosen. But I know life is something you start alone and end alone, and I’m a big believer that you need to make your peace with that.

I let the thought come and go, like seawater licking the edge of my blanket.
I take a sip of my coffee, strong and black, just how I’ve always liked it. Dad did, too. I can still see him, legs crossed at the old pine kitchen table of our holiday rental - the same one we’re in today - sipping his Americano and exclaiming with delight.
He was a dad who loved being a dad. Leaned into it entirely, when work didn’t take him overseas. I miss him. I miss him in this place.

It’s silly to get so emotional today, after so long. He wouldn’t want me to be sad. He was 83 - the kind of age anyone would be grateful to reach. Today, here, I feel close to him. This is where he became the version of a dad he wished he could be all the time: who said yes when we asked him to play pirates, who built the biggest sandcastles, gave us mermaid tails in the sand. Being with him then, I knew this would be the place that brought out the best in me as a mum, too: packing delicious picnics, playing jump-the-waves, rubbing lotion on pink shoulders, snuggling under towels with books and snacks. I lean back. For a moment, the beach time-slips like a kaleidoscope offering a different picture from the same components.

I’m holding a towel out to a laughing, dripping girl. A toddler with flyaway hair is curled into my lap, dropping crisp crumbs onto my bikini and picking them from my belly button with assumed ownership of both my body and the food.
The heat behind my eyes tightens but I don’t fight what I’m seeing. I’ve learned not to.

I open my eyes and take another sip of coffee. The beach is starting to come alive now, with dog walkers and bleary-eyed parents with excitable children desperate to paddle before breakfast. Two girls are burying their legs in the sand - mermaid tails, I think nostalgically. A boy of four or five runs past with a football, impish grin so familiar it fills my heart. I smile. Beau would be friends with him.

I take a soft, ripe peach from my bag, which I stole from the fruit bowl like a naughty child, and bite into it, letting the juice run down my chin. I wipe it with the back of my hand, catching sight of the familiar whorls and scars. Marks no one else would notice, but that map my life.

The tide is inching closer, stealing back space and time. I drain the last of my coffee and ease myself to a standing position. I shuffle my feet back into my sliders, fold the blanket, and head back over the dunes. I pause to take one last look at the sea, which is wrapped around the beach like a silk scarf around a movie star’s alabaster neck, the pine forest its gown. Boats dot the horizon - one, two. So tiny, so distant, they could be ghost ships. They make me wonder, if a boat sails through water unseen from shore, does it leave a ripple? And if we sail through life alone, do our ripples go unnoticed?

I descend the dunes, flanked by sea lavender and saltwort and the house comes into view again. The walls blur and wobble in the magical morning light like in an old TV show depicting something going from present to past, lived moment to dream. Children’s laughter rings out from the garden. The sound of life. I smile and quicken my pace.
“She’s back!” a voice calls out - a mixture of joy and warning.
“MUM!”
“Mum! Mum!” another voice joins in. “She’s here, Mum!”
The singing begins - an out-of-tune happy birthday cacophony. I laugh in delight.
As I walk through the gate, Elodie bowls over barefoot to meet me, arms flung wide, and wraps her arms around me, trying to drag me inside.
“Come and see the drawing I’ve done for you!”
“Give her a moment, Els!” my sister laughs, sun-flushed and barefoot, carrying a tray of cupcakes, her youngest, Raffaella, hanging off her hip like a koala. She looks at me and grins.
“Happy birthday, big sis, I can’t believe you’re 40! Raf! I need my hands! Mum’s inside,” she says to me. “She’s looking for the number 4 candle we had as kids. She thinks it’s in a box somewhere, in the utility room. We need to encourage her to have a clear-out, the level of hoarding is off the scale!”
Just then, my beloved nephew runs up, pushes his big sister out of the way. “Auntie Tee! I made a sea monster cupcake for you with eleventy-seven tentacles! I piped them!”
“I see it, Beau,” I say, brushing his hair back and kissing his sweet, icing-sugar-covered cheeks. “You’re so clever!”
“Auntie Tee-Tee! You’ve been ages!” Raff scolds and stretches her arms to me. My sister passes her over and she wraps her legs and arms around me like a monkey.
“I’m sorry, Raf,” I say. “I needed to have a little chat with the sea.”
“What you say?” she asks, frowning.
“I said, thank you for being here and for giving me so many lovely holidays with my family,” and I nuzzle my nose into her neck which makes her giggle.
“And what it say back?”
“You’re welcome,” I smile.
“You’re Welcome!” she sings in delight - a song from one of her favourite Disney movies. I laugh and sing along with her.

Inside, the smell of breakfast is thick in the air - eggs, garlic, tomatoes, bacon. Mum turns and smiles, her face lighting up at the sight of me, haloed by the sunshine streaming through the window. In that moment, I wish more than anything that Dad was here too.
“Happy birthday, darling,” she says.
I walk into her arms and rest my forehead on her shoulder. The years fall away. My expectations of how life was meant to be dissolve, and I feel calm. Happy. Safe. Mothered. Raffy is between us, Beau has appeared out of nowhere, and Elodie too and it that moment, I think This is mothering. Not what I imagined. But real. Fierce. Instinctive.
“Hey, I’m not being left out!” my sister laughs, wrapping her arms around us all. For a moment, the shape of my life feels simpler than it is. And fuller than it sometimes seems.