Margaret Murphy sat on the arm of the sofa looking out the sitting-room window. Through the brilliant white net curtains, she could see the odd leaf gently whirl its way to the ground, carried on a gentle October mid-morning breeze. September had been particularly warm this year and now, the second week in October, later than usual, autumn was starting to take hold. Margaret loved autumn; it was her favourite time of the year. She liked the process of getting ready for the winter. It was a hopeful time of year; she remembered fondly the preparations of the children going back to school, the excitement of new starts. Margaret smiled as she remembered the trips into town for new books, stationery, shoes, and, of course, the new school bag which each of her four children were allowed every two years.

As Margaret sat there in quiet contemplation, her daughter, the youngest and only girl, Maggie, came into the sitting room and padded barefoot across the floor to her mother. She placed a hand on Margaret’s shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze. Margaret looked up into her daughter’s face and smiled. Even now, three weeks after Maggie’s 32nd birthday, Margaret was still taken aback by how much Maggie’s eyes were like her father’s, Paddy Murphy. The man Margaret fell in love with the moment he smiled at her 54 years ago, her best friend and the kindest man Margaret had ever known. “Do you want another cuppa Mam?” Maggie asked, a touch of Londoner sneaking through her Wexford accent. Margaret patted Maggie’s hand, which still rested on her shoulder, and said, “No thanks love, I’m going to sweep around the front door and then go have a shower, I think.” Maggie knew better than to tell her mother that the front door no more needed sweeping than the kitchen floor had needed washing at 6am that morning. Margaret wanted the place to look well for her eldest child’s return home. Pat had gone to Australia to find himself when he took a gap year from college. Whether he found himself or not remained to be seen, he had found an Australian girl by the name of Sky, who Margaret always resented for taking her son away from her. Pat had only been home twice since then, once for the second eldest son’s wedding, Michael had married a nice local girl 10 years ago now nearly, they had two children, Zoe who was 8 and a right madam and Michael Jnr who was 6 and the image of his father at that age, floppy curly blonde hair and sparking eyes. The second time hadn’t been such a happy occasion.

As Margaret was putting her sweeping brush back in its place in the utility room, she heard a mobile phone ring somewhere in the kitchen or sitting room; she wasn’t sure where exactly. It wasn’t her own mobile phone; she knew that because her own mobile made a loud ringing sound, like the old telephones used to. She heard Maggie talking, but couldn’t hear what she was saying. As Margaret walked up the hall Maggie walked out of the sitting-room door and said, “That was Michael Mam, he said that they are leaving Dublin now.” Michael and the youngest boy, Kevin, had gone to Dublin to meet Pat. “I’ll go have a shower and get dressed so.” Margaret said and she started up the stairs with her daughter in tow. It wouldn’t take them long to get home and Margaret wanted to be looking her best and ready to welcome her son home. As Maggie headed for her room, which looked just as it had when she was a teenager, before she moved to London for college and made a life for herself there as a photographer, Margaret asked her daughter “Will you look around the sitting room for me love and make sure everything is right.” Maggie nodded to her mam and went into her room to look for her shoes.

Margaret had her shower, being careful not to wet her hair, which her neighbour’s daughter Lisa had blow-dried for her that morning before she went into her job in town as a colourist. Margaret wasn’t sure what a colourist was exactly, presumably someone who dyes hair, but sure she’d hardly just do that all day, surely, she did other things. Anyway, she did a nice job with Margaret’s hair. As she was getting out of her shower and wrapping a large, soft towel around herself, she remembered when Maggie was a baby, Maggie was born when Kevin was 10, Michael 12 and Pat 15, they all adored their baby sister and would sing Rod Stewart’s Maggie Mae song to her as Margaret would bathe the baby girl in her yellow plastic bath atop the kitchen table. Her four children, each one unique and special, each with their own struggles in life but luckily none that they weren’t able to get over. All four of them back at home with her now soon.

As Margaret tried to open the clasp of the necklace Pat had sent home to her a couple of Christmases ago, Maggie knocked on the door and stuck her head around it, “Michael just text me Mam, they’re coming through the village now.” Margaret held the uncooperative necklace out in front of her and Maggie came forward to help her mother. The necklace hung around Margaret’s neck and she ran her fingers over the pendant as she moved towards her bedroom door.

As Margaret walked down the stairs, this time her daughter in front of her, she could hear the familiar crunching of tyres on the gravel driveway. She stood in the hall, Maggie standing between her and the front door, Maggie’s eyes fixed on her mother and Margaret’s eyes fixed on the door. There was the sound of several car doors being shut and the murmur of men’s deep voices from beyond the front door. As Maggie opened the door, Margaret could hear the shuffling of feet on the gravel, as her sons Michael and Kevin, along with four of their cousins, carried Pat toward his mother’s house. Margaret whispered, “Welcome home son.”

Welcome Home Son was originally published in Writers’ Blokke on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.