My Little One Walked Into A Stranger's House And Called It Home

My little one has a birthmark on the back of his left hand shaped a bit like an old key, the long kind with the round loop at the top. People always comment on it. He is proud of it. When he was very small he used to hold it up and say, this is how I get in.

We took a trip last spring to a part of the country none of us knew, a green quiet place with narrow lanes and stone houses. We were only there because a cottage came up cheap. My little one had never been. He had never seen a photograph of the village. I want that clear before I tell the rest.

On the second afternoon we were walking and he let go of my hand and started up a lane on his own, quick and certain, the way he walks toward something he knows. I called after him but he did not stop. He went up the lane and through a gate and up to the door of a house set back behind a hedge, an old house with peeling green paint, and he stood there like he was waiting to be let in. When I caught up, out of breath and cross, he looked up at me and asked, where did Grandma go.

I told him his grandma was at home, my mother, the only grandma he had. He shook his head, patient, like I had misunderstood. He said, my other grandma, the one who lived here, with the cats. He pointed at the door. He said, I used to sleep in the small window at the top. He pointed. There was a small window at the top.

Then the door opened. An older woman stood there, and I started to apologise for my little one wandering onto her step, but she was not looking at me. She was looking at him. She had gone completely white. She asked, quiet, where did you get that mark on your hand. I said he was born with it. She had to hold the door frame.