“Where were you, Katie? I’ve been trying to call you for the last hour or more, I was worried. That’s an awful night out there.” Katies mum Angela was beside herself with worry after wearing the carpet down waiting.

“I’m so sorry Mum, I got a flat tyre and when I went to ring break-down assist, I was in a black spot, no reception. I began to change it myself, when a lovely gentleman stopped to help.”

“Katie, oh my good God, why didn’t you rim it till you got to an area with reception, a stranger, a man, in the middle of nowhere, you could have been killed. That’s it, hand in your notice tomorrow. You’re not driving them back roads anymore. No job is worth your life.”

“Mum, you have me dead and buried. Stop! I’m okay. I’m alive. I’m standing here in front of you…besides,” she said softly, “He was lovely, he insisted I get into his car out of the weather until he was finished…”

“His car, Katie he could have been a murderer, a rapist and you get into his car?”

“Mum, calm down. He gave me his keys and he had an elderly couple with him, his grandparents I’d say. His Grandad wanted to help, but he insisted he stayed in the car. They were lovely. I felt safe in their company. They told me they lived on Gibbons Road. I told them to call some day for tea. They knew our house. He said he was a postman, perhaps that was why. She said she often came this way. They must know someone around here. They asked all about you.”

“Why would they ask about me?”

“I told them you would be worried. Andrew, the man that changed my tyre said, you always were a worrier, I think he meant Mammy’s always worry. Now let’s have a cuppa after I get chan…”

Katie stopped her Mum having plonked into her armchair; the colour gone from her face.

“Mum are you okay?”

“Katie, where did you get the flat tyre?”

“Up near Middleton, at the top of the hill, I was lucky, just as the road widens, you know where they took the bad turn out of it, I pulled safely into the layby.”

“Did the old couple tell you, their names?”

“They did, Patrick and Catherine. They were lovely, she had a lovely friendly face and he had a kindness to him. I felt so safe and calm in their presence. They called Andrew ‘son,’ guess that’s their era. They were easily in their eighties and he wasn’t even thirty, definitely not their son.” She smiled at her Mum. “Guess they were my guardian angels.”

“They were, they had to be,” Mum said as she walked to the cupboard and took out a photo album, she opened it and placed it in front of Katie. Katies jaw dropped as she saw Andrew smiling out at her from the photograph with a much younger Patrick and Catherine. Then on the next page an older picture of the couple, sadness in their eyes, no Andrew.

“Mum?”

“That’s my uncle Andrew, he was killed at the bad bend up near Middleton and they are his parents, my grandparents, you’re called after her. She passed before you were born, Grandad long gone, she told me she would look after you. Tonight, she did.

“My Guardian angels,” Katie stroked their faces.

“Your Guardian Angels.”

Jacqui Wiley

07/09/2024