The Cuckoo's Call

by Lily Morton

It’s sad to realise finally that we won’t ever reconnect now. He’s moved away from me and the gap is too wide to breach. It hurts but he isn’t the first to let go of me and I’m sure he won’t be the last.

“Remind me to take you everywhere with me, Mateo,” I say. “Why?” “I wouldn’t want to cross you. You're the Terminator of politeness. That was annihilation by good manners.”

“You’re doing something much better. You’re finding him a home. Every person needs one of those.”

“I was like a cuckoo. They never really have their own homes, do they? They’re left in someone else’s nest. I remember reading about them in primary school and thinking, ‘That's me. I’m a cuckoo, and there is nowhere that is really my home.’”

I’d found a sort of safety in reading them. A comfort because people met and fell in love, and they always ended up happily ever after. I’m a poorly hidden romantic, and I’ve always been convinced that maybe someday if I were lucky, I’d meet a man to whom I could give all my love.

but just for once, I would like someone to want me to stay. I want someone to miss me when I go.

His frame is bigger and wider than mine, but it doesn’t make me feel small or threatened. There’s gentleness in every line of his body.

There’s a sudden loud banging on the door. Owen frowns. “Who could that be?” “Maybe it’s the compassion police,” I say idly. “Coming to arrest you for being such a complete cocksicle, Owen.”

The thing is, I know how mad this is. A lifetime of being disposable has taught me to cling on white-knuckled to stability. I never leap, and if I were ever to do it, I’d make sure I looked a thousand times first.

I’m a bird, I tell myself. I will be free and easy and ride the wind, but I will never be a cuckoo to him. I will go home when winter comes, and I will never make him regret wanting to spend time with me. I hug him back, closing my mind to doubts and focusing on the scent of his skin.

His voice is sleep-warm, his eyes tired. He’s rumpled and very unlike the usually well-put-together hotel tycoon. I decide I like him like this and smile at him.

I wish so much for him. I want him to find love and make his own family. I wish him to see the world and all its glories. But at some point, that wish has shifted to include me in those visions.

“You’re like my lighthouse, Wren. You show me the way, and your light is so clear and warm.”