A story based on real life. Names and various circumstances are changed to protect identities.
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Sarah always considered herself as being very lucky, she had been raised by truly caring and loving parents. John and Elizabeth always had time, or made time for their only daughter, she was the apple of their eyes. Both parents had professional careers, money wasn't ever a serious problem, they weren't millionaires but they were 'comfortable '.
When Sarah was sixteen a long held dream came true for her mum and dad, they bought an old mill, 400 years old, formally a working museum, now with planning permission to be converted into a family home. John is an architect, Elizabeth an interior designer, the mill was going to be a project that they could work on together. And so they moved out of the city into a trailer so that they could work on the mill.
Sarah had finished senior school and started college, although she didn't really know at that point what she wanted to do with her life, so she was now walking into a village every day to catch the bus into town to go to college, not too bad really, at least it kept her fit.
The other thing that kept her, her and mum and dad fit was the mill.
To start with they completely gutted the mill, John had told Sarah that the more she got involved in the work, the more input she would have in the final outcome of the rebuild, so she spent a lot of time wearing a paper workman's suit, a face mask, and goggles, and in warm weather very little else. Tongue in cheek they all called those paper suits 'sweat suits'.
The mill had originally been powered by a water wheel, which in turn powered huge stone wheels which pulverized the wheat and corn, the dust was incredible! The more they swept up, the more seemed to appear, everyone got incredibly dirty. At the end of a day of cleaning they all hit the shower, and as at that time the shower was a temporary affair that John had rigged up behind the mill, Sarah and her parents all tried to be discreet, but when you're tired and hungry as well as filthy any embarrassment quickly melts away and you just 'get on with it' as they all started to do.
It took a couple of years, working part time, mostly at weekends or late evenings before the family was able to move out of the trailer and into the mill. It wasn't finished, not by a long way, but at least by then you could see what the finished home was going to look like.
There is a cellar, to be used as most cellars are, housing the heating boilers, yes, boilers, plural. One gas and the other solid fuel, in line so that they could be used together or independently, John's design. Storage and eventually a gymnasium would complete the cellar.
The ground floor housed the kitchen, the laundry room, a breakfast room and a wet room (no more outdoor showers), as well as a cloakroom. Part of the floor space was reserved for John's office.
The first floor was living accommodation, a huge living area and a dining room, fed by a dumb waiter from the kitchen below. Again one office, this one for Elizabeth. Both parents could do most of their work at home, and they were gradually doing so, except for site visits.
Second floor was bedrooms, four of them, all with their own bathrooms. John and Elizabeth 's room was pretty huge, Sarah's just a touch smaller and the other two smaller still, they didn't really need the other two rooms unless the grandparents came to stay. That wasn't going to happen any time soon as none of the bedrooms were actually completed, there were no walls, just the framework, covered in heavy plastic sheeting, if you looked hard enough you could see into any of the rooms through the only partly opaque plastic walls.
That factor was a bit off putting for a now eighteen year old girl, Sarah couldn't bring friends home to stay, and boys? Well, that was a nonstarter.
John and Elizabeth's sex life was still obviously very vibrant, as Sarah could clearly hear, and at least vaguely see, they made no really serious attempt at discretion, they never had.
Sarah and her parents had spent so much time openly showering outside that none of them really even noticed if the others were dressed or not, at least upstairs. They weren't deliberately naked with each other, they didn't consider ourselves 'home nudists' or anything like that, they were just comfortably relaxed about their bodies.
When Sarah started university her parents bought her a little car as the campus was about two hours' drive away from home. She'd decided on architecture.
Driving for two hours every morning and evening was a pain so Sarah moved into student accommodation, driving home about every other weekend.
It was one Friday evening that everything changed. Sarah arrived home about mid evening to find the mill deserted. This was wrong, her mum and dad knew she was coming, and it was far too late for either of them to be out on a site visit. Sarah wandered around and finally went into her parents' bedroom, it was empty, but a quick look into their bathroom had her reeling from dizziness.
The bath was full of towels, and the towels appeared to be full of blood.
Sarah panicked, she screamed for her mum and dad and ran around every room in the mill again, then outside, no sign of anyone, but both her parent's cars were parked round the back, where they were normally kept. The problem with living where they did was no cell phone reception, so the phone that was virtually part of her was no use, so she headed back indoors aiming to use the landline in one of the offices. As she went into her dad's office the landline phone rang.
It was her dad himself on the other end but at first Sarah couldn't hear him for her own incoherent babbling.
It must have taken a couple of minutes before Sarah calmed down enough to hear what her dad was saying.
No, no-one had been murdered, no-one had cut off an arm or a leg. Elizabeth had started bleeding, like a period, but very much heavier, an ambulance had been called and they were both at the hospital.
Half an hour later Sarah was there as well. John had suggested that she call a cab rather than drive herself but she couldn't wait so drove, she never did remember the drive.
Sarah found her dad in a waiting room, her mum was in surgery.
The upshot was that Elizabeth had cancer of the uterus, which had spread to the cervix, or the other way around, it kind of went flying over Sarah's head. As soon as she heard the word 'cancer' her brain closed down.
John and Sarah spent that night in each other's arms, when not drinking copious amounts of coffee and hot chocolate. Sarah was little comfort to dad, she was almost hysterical, at one point she was offered some sedative, she was too wound up to even contemplate taking it.
Elizabeth had a full hysterectomy, and part of her bowel removed, the prognosis wasn't good.
The following morning found Elizabeth in the recovery unit, John and Sarah sat either side of her. Elizabeth looked awful, but as usual she tried cracking jokes, if anything, John looked worse. When the nurses insisted that Elizabeth be left to get some sleep, Sarah drove home.
Once in the mill, John and Sarah both showered and got some sleep, for the first time in years Sarah slept in her parents bed, with her dad.
By the time Sarah got into her parents bed John was sound asleep. He was naked, Sarah couldn't help but notice that when she got in next to him, she couldn't care less, she was wearing pyjamas so she cuddled up to him, put her arm around him and must have been asleep in minutes.
When Sarah woke up some hours later their positions had reversed. Sarah had turned over onto her other side, facing away from her dad, now he had his arm over her, and his hand was cupping one of her breasts. A moment of shock went through her, then she relaxed. It didn't feel bad, in fact it felt very comforting!
John's hand was outside of her pyjamas, she very gently unfastened a couple of buttons and just as gently moved his hand inside, he stirred a little, ran his thumb over her nipple, then seemed to settle back into sleep. Sarah followed suit and was soon asleep again herself.
When she awoke the second time things had altered again, she was still facing away from her dad, and he was still cuddling her, but his arm and hand had moved downwards, he was no longer cupping her breast, his hand was down inside her bottoms, between her legs!
Sarah quite involuntarily gave a squeak and her dad seemed to wake up. There was a moment or two of fumbling about and then John pulled his hand out of her bottoms and he started apologizing.
"Oh Sarah, I'm so sorry, I was asleep, I'm so sorry, I didn't...!"
"It's ok dad, it's ok!"
