Missing

We walk from our house into Porto. Stopping for ice cream, and lunch at a fancy restaurant which Jacob asserts is “too posh”. From the restaurant we take an old tram to the Port Museum (yes, that kind of port). We walk up crooked, steep streets. Freya reads the graffiti: “Fuck your aesthetic” it says. What does “aesthetic mean, mum?”, she asks innocently.
After more ice cream, while Freya terrorises peacocks in the park, we head back to our house for a siesta.

We dine at nearby restaurant on the beach. Between courses Jacob and Freya play on the rocks. We watch the sunset. Spectacular.

An altercation between the children. Freya returns tearful. Jacob marches off over the rocks in a strop.

A few minutes later I can’t see Jacob. Anywhere. I search the rocky shore, but he’s nowhere to be seen. Austin and Liz join the search. Darkness is falling rapidly and I know time is short.

Freya sobs. She fears Jacob has fallen and drowned. I can’t discount this possibility.

I enlist the help of the restaurant staff. They respond immediately (followers of British news will know why – ominously the restaurant is called Praia da Luz). A short time later, I ask them to call the police, before it goes completely dark. Maria heads back to the house.

She finds Jacob on the way back, and calls me, hugely relieved. We are too. Jacob has been back twice, to find it locked up.

Now we’ve mislaid Austin, and we have his phone, so he doesn’t. He’s old enough to look after himself though, and in any case we meet him on the way home.

We put the kids to bed. Exhausted, stressed, and tired. We need a drink, over which we retell our own childhood misadventures and wonder what our own parent went through.

Tomorrow, we’ll return the the restaurant to settle our debt, with a generous tip.