The hunter

Prologue

Growing up I’ve always struggled with myself feeling like there was pieces of me missing, I was that jigsaw puzzle that looks almost complete. You can tell what the picture is but there are just a few key pieces missing still. I was raised by two amazing people who were my mum and dad even if they had adopted me from a baby, they are all I knew.

They were always honest with me, and they told me how they came to find me they always said that I was there wish answered by the stars.

I have no knowledge of my birth parents; birth mother is dead she died giving birth to me. Although she didn’t struggle with the labour from what I’ve been told she had been attacked and was badly wounded, no one could fathom how it happened very much an unsolved mystery. She had claw marks and bite marks that had torn major arteries internally, she was covered in bruises old and new. Was she a victim of domestic abuse, or was she just attacked at random did they have a dog that was vicious or was it a random dog that had been through years of abuse and was homeless having no trust for humans. The woman who carried me had no identity, no id, no name, no health record, however she did exist there was a body so how could there be no material evidence of who she was.

Over the years these questions that are left unanswered didn’t plague me as much as it used to. Instead, I learnt to appreciate what I did have two people who I wasn’t linked to through blood but would have moved heaven or hell for me, I was one of the lucky ones. My parents Lynn and Dave where quirky, they knew who there where and embraced themselves, my dad a very high-powered businessman by day, but by night once the suit came of was in jeans band t shirts swinging me around the room to wild horses by the Rolling Stones.

Telling me that night clubs will never compare to going to a concert hearing the music live, seeing the band transport the crowd to a new reality, where the music could reach the very depths of your soul.

My mum was very much a hippy artist who ran her own flower shop.

Her flower bouquets always very popular, the passion she put into them showed.

Being honest with you I have never known anyone else’s roses to smell as beautiful, the sweet scent from just one rose could just transport you to a garden surrounded in them. you could just see yourself sat there with not a care in the world.

Sadly, they both passed away when I was 24, they had gone away for a romantic weekend as they were avid believers that impromptu romantic weekends away where a good way to keeping the spirit alive and charged. on the motorway driving back some i***t late teenage driver decided that the speed limit did not apply to them, still drunk from the night before lost control of their car due to the rainstorm and the poor visibility.

I never really took much thought before about how small actions from one can have such a vast out reaching impact on others until then. He lost his licence and was sentenced to 10 years in prison a very small price to pay for the fact he destroyed a family and turned my world into my personal hell.

I was now no longer able to wind mum up with my dad when sat in the garden saying that her coffee cake was dry. She was an avid baker and there has never been a cake that has matched hers, they always failed in comparison. I can remember sat on the patio with the honeysuckle weaved into the trellis behind us the scent just carrying in the air, it had such an effect that you could switch of from the reality and at that moment In time nothing else existed.

Mum would come out with the cake almost dancing across the lawn her long brown hair tied up in a messy bun, her blue eyes still very bright and vibrant. My dad would be sat in the chair with his feet rested up in another chair, very clean cut and shaven as he always said he felt he needed to look a specific way for work so his brown hair was always neat and tidy and resting on his lips would be his cigarette. He would say he worked hard so if he wanted to smoke then that was his choice. I would watch him and he would be just looking at mum, the way his brown eyes would light up as if he’d won the lottery or that no number of items could compare to mum.

I got my music taste from dad mind he always used to laugh when I’d listen to cradle of filth saying they were little boys who’d never compete with Mick Jagger. I could never see how he came to that conclusion but then I’d love when he’d stomp around my room pretending, he was Dani Filth, acting as if he could hit those high notes Danni Filth would sing. During the weekend I would spend ages baking with my mum, she was a firm believer baking was a great way to cleanse the soul.

That was my life even when leaving college and doing temp work in administrative positions I’d go out with friends and colleagues, but home was my sanctuary. I now have the family home no outstanding debt he worked hard paid it all and mum even owned her flower shop we didn’t live frugally but we didn’t live glamorous lifestyles either there was life insurance money which had become my safety net.

My mum had a senior florist who bought up half the business, she is good but not to mum’s standard. I just could not let what she created wither and die like a neglected flower. My mum’s art needed to carry on so even if she wasn’t going to be here anymore her legacy could still exist, it was my way of keeping part of her spirit with me.

So, I was left being comfortable neither poor or rich, oh how I would gamble it all with fate just to have my family back. Over the next couple of years my wounds mended, the scars where visible only to me as after all how can anyone see emotional wounds when you lose the ones you lost.

So as the famous love song goes where do I begin, I will tell you my story as three years to the day that I lost my parents I then learnt who I was I meant to be how’s that for irony.