Parental Love.
Ellie breathes out, tired but happy, as she settles the children into the back seat of the cab. Millie is four, little David only eighteen months. Theyve just had a lovely few days at Granny and Granddads: biscuits, cuddles, bedtime stories, and all the treats youre allowed at grandparents that are just that little bit more than at home.
Ellie has genuinely enjoyed the visit as well: her parents, sisters, nieces and nephewsher childhood home welcomes her without fuss or questions. Mums cooking is impossible to resist. The Christmas tree glitters with fairy lights and those odd, endearing old decorations. Dads toasts are always a touch too long but unfailingly heartfelt. Mums gifts are always practical, thoughtful, and given with love.
For a moment, Ellie feels like a child again. She wants nothing more than to say, Mum, Dad, thank you for everything. Im so glad youre here.
Ellie bundles her children into the car. Theyre soon dozing off in the back, full, content, and pressed up against each other.
On the drive home, Ellie asks the driver to stop at a corner shop.
Just a minute, please. Need to grab some nappies and a bottle of water, she tells him.
Five minutes later, she steps out of the shop, climbs into the car and her heart crashes into her stomach.
The children arent there!
The cabbie is chatting away to an unfamiliar young woman in the passenger seat.
I beg your pardon? Ellie says, her voice slow and flat.
The woman whips round. Whos this then? Whats she doing here?
The driver just shrugs. No idea! Then, turning to Ellie: Who are you, love? What do you want?
Are you having me on? Where are my children?!
Oi, you cheat! the woman yells at the driver. Youve got kids too?! She starts battering him with her handbag.
And you! Ellie shouts in turn. Letting random people in the car? Where are my children? Where?!
For three or four minutes, utter chaos reigns inside the car: shouting, blaming, wild gesticulating, and that overwhelming feeling of injustice.
And then, suddenly, the door opens. A man bends down calmly and says,
Excuse me but youre in the wrong car. Yours is just up ahead.
Ellie freezes. She slams the door shut in silent fury and dashes up to a nearly identical cream-coloured cab parked in front.
She flings the door open.
Her children are there, sleeping peacefully in the back seat. Two little angels, not even stirring.
Ellie exhales as though shes been hauled back from the brink of a cliff. She gets in, closes the door firmly and mutters, Lets go, please.
Suddenly, laughter overtakes her real, shaky, and gloriously freeing. The driver bursts out laughing too, tears in his eyes, hugely relieved that things have turned out this way: no disaster, just a story to last a lifetime.
Ellie looks at her sleeping children, and an obvious truth dawns on her: parents go through life soft and weary, smiling, sometimes a bit distracted. But the moment danger flickers, they become lions.
No hesitation, no doubt, no fear just a single, fierce instinct: protect.
Thats how love is. Quiet when all is well, unbreakable when it comes to their children.
