Chapter 30
30
JOEL
I stared at Poppy, my heart racing. ‘You mean that?’
‘Every word.’
‘But you love it here.’
‘I do, but there are other places, other houses, other farms. Are there other Joels? Other Imogens?’ She shook her head. ‘I think the pair of you are unique.’
She’d included Imogen. She’d unconditionally accepted that we came as a two-for-one deal and that my future had to be where my daughter was. I already knew I was falling in love with Poppy, but those feelings switched up a gear.
‘You’re pretty unique yourself,’ I said, drawing her into a kiss.
How amazing was she to be willing to give up on her dreams to be with me? I didn’t want her to have to do that. I wanted her to have Whisperwood Farmhouse, to be the Bumblebee Barn beekeeper, to spend time with my friends who’d welcomed her into the fold. It gave me renewed strength for my solicitor’s appointment. For Poppy and for Imogen, I was going to fight Tilly so hard. Imogen would get to stay with her friends and Poppy would fulfil her dreams.
We lay cuddled up on the sofa for a while. I gazed into the flames flickering in the log burner thinking how homely Whisperwood Farmhouse felt. I’d had my place decorated after Tilly moved in but hadn’t done anything with it since. She’d made it all cosy with pictures, candles, cushions and throws which she’d taken with her and I’d never replaced. Nineteen Conifer Close was a house but it wasn’t a home, and I hadn’t realised that until now. It wasn’t right that a holiday cottage could feel more like a home than my own place. No wonder Poppy had fallen in love with the farmhouse.
‘Any update on Chez?’ Poppy asked after a while.
‘Not yet. I tried ringing Mum on the way here but there was no answer.’
‘Why don’t you call her now for a quick check-in? I bought some hot chocolate in Bloomsberry’s earlier. I can make us some while you’re doing that.’
Mum answered this time and said they’d spent most of the day with Chez and he was embarrassed by the way he’d spoken to me and extremely sorry about throwing the bottle.
‘He doesn’t know what possessed him and he promises he wasn’t aiming at you.’
I wasn’t going to contradict her. The more I replayed it in my head, the more convinced I was that he had meant for the bottle to hit me. I put that down to his drunken state as I couldn’t imagine him doing that sober, no matter how angry he was, but I wasn’t going to make an issue of it. I also wasn’t going to make an issue of the fact that he could have phoned or messaged me to say sorry himself. Sending a message via Mum hardly smacked of sincerity – it was simply another sign of how immature my brother really was.
Mum said they looked forward to spending the day with me on Wednesday. Chez had agreed to join us and they’d mediate if necessary. If he didn’t take the opportunity to apologise to me in person then, the mediation would definitely be needed as I wasn’t going to let him get away with it. Drunk or not, his behaviour had been completely unacceptable, and I was sick of people walking all over me just because I was the nice bloke. It didn’t mean I was also a pushover. I wasn’t accepting any more crap from him, and I wasn’t accepting it from Tilly either.
‘Your dad’s spoken to him about Portugal but it’s still a no,’ Mum said. ‘He’s convinced he’ll get back with Lorna once she calms down and accepts his apology.’
‘Seriously? I know I keep saying this, but how many times can you keep breaking up before you accept it doesn’t work?’
‘We’ve said the same thing, but he’s convinced he knows best.’
‘Didn’t she say it was for good this time?’ I vividly remembered him hurling that at me as though it was my fault.
‘Apparently she’s said that before.’ Mum sighed. ‘We’ll just have to see what happens.’
As we finished the call, Poppy appeared with the drinks and I filled her in on the conversation with Mum.
‘It sounds like you get on well with your parents,’ she said. ‘The problems from the restaurant didn’t cause any lasting damage?’
‘I left before they could. There were a couple of tricky months but then it was back to normal. They’re both great and I really miss them, but we speak regularly and have lots of video calls.’ I sipped on my hot chocolate and smiled approvingly. ‘You said something about your parents at the wedding – about them not wanting children – but then you changed the subject. If you want to talk about it…’
She held my gaze for a few moments before nodding. ‘You know what? I think I do. The woman I call Mum – Joy Wells – was really my great-aunt. The woman who gave birth to me was called Evie Miller and she was Mum’s niece, daughter of her older brother. Evie discovered she was pregnant when she was sixteen but she’d already split up with my birth dad by then. She was an only child and her parents were incredibly protective and strict with her. Despite that, they had a good relationship but she knew they’d hit the roof when they found out. She tried to keep it secret, but horrendous sickness put paid to that and, as predicted, they went berserk. They forced her to tell them who the father was and marched her round to his house demanding he do the right thing and marry her. His parents were really strict too so they were of the same mind, but Evie refused to marry someone she didn’t love. Her parents gave her an ultimatum – marry him before I was born and they might play a small role in her life, or leave home and never see them again. Evie couldn’t believe they were so prehistoric in their attitudes or that they’d be so willing to cut her out of their lives, so she packed a bag and ran away. My parents were disgusted when they heard what had happened and they managed to find Evie and take her in.
‘A couple of weeks sleeping rough had taken its toll on her. Mum said she’d always been a vivacious child, full of fire, and it was as though somebody had blown out her spark. After I was born, Evie had severe post-natal depression. She’d managed to convince herself that her parents would forgive her and want to see their only grandchild and she asked Mum and Dad to invite them round, but they wanted nothing to do with her or me.’
‘That’s awful. She must have been devastated.’
‘She was. She slid further into depression and overdosed on her meds three times. Mum and Dad had made a choice not to have children but they became parents to her and to me.’
‘Was there a reason they didn’t want kids?’ I asked when she paused.
‘They loved their careers and each other and felt no strong desire to have a family. They had big plans to retire early to travel the world and had been saving for years, but they gave all that up for Evie and me.’
‘What happened to her?’
‘Mum bought my first school uniform and Evie cried when she saw me in it. Mum told me it was as though she suddenly realised that four years had passed and she’d missed every milestone. Mum suggested she come to school with me on my first day, so she did, and that very afternoon she contacted her doctor and asked for help. Across that year, she made great progress. She got a part-time job in a pub and took on a lot more responsibility for me and then, shortly after I turned five, she was on her way home from work when a drunk driver travelling the wrong way down the dual carriageway ploughed into her.’
My stomach plummeted. ‘Oh, Poppy. No!’
‘He didn’t even have his lights on, so she stood no chance. He’d been out for his work Christmas do, took advantage of the free bar and was too stingy to pay for a taxi home. He walked away with a few bruises, a broken wrist and a two-year suspended sentence. Don’t even get me started on the injustice of that.’ She took a deep breath. ‘After that, my parents officially adopted me, and they were the best parents I could ever have dreamed of.’
‘I’m so sorry about Evie. Do you remember her?’
‘I have vague recollections of there being a woman in the house who had long, dark hair, but nothing concrete.’
‘What about your birth father?’
Poppy shook her head. ‘Dad went to see him and his parents after I was born, but he wasn’t interested. They told him there was an open door if he ever changed his mind but he never came and I’ve never wanted to find him. Joy and Stanley Wells are my parents and I don’t want or need a relationship with the man who was effectively a sperm donor. But sometimes…’ She sighed heavily.
‘Sometimes…?’ I prompted as she stared off into the distance.
Her eyes met mine. ‘I’ve never told anyone this before. Sometimes I feel guilty for entering their lives when they’d made a decision not to have children. It’s my issue. They never made me feel like that and my logical mind is telling me that they’re the ones who found Evie, invited her in, insisted she stay and chose to adopt me. I wasn’t the one influencing it all. But I think about how different their lives could have been without me. Mum loved the quote do one thing every day that scares you and told me the scariest thing they ever did was become parents when they weren’t prepared for it. I worry that they’d have preferred not to face that particular fear and I guess that’s why I’ve devoted the past seven years to caring for them both. I love them and I’d have done it regardless, but I think I’ve taken it to the near-burnout extreme because I want to prove how grateful I am to them for throwing away their dreams to look after me.’
‘I see it differently. I don’t think they threw away their dreams. I think they found a different dream.’
Tears welled in her eyes and I noticed her swallowing hard. I raised her hand to my lips and kissed it, keeping my eyes on hers.
‘As for that quote, doing the things that scare us can bring great rewards. From what you’ve told me about your parents, that’s what raising you was – something scary and unexpected which changed their lives for the better.’
‘You really think that?’
‘I’m sure of it. When Tilly announced she was pregnant, I felt that fear. We hadn’t planned on a baby until after we were married. We both felt too young and unprepared and, while the situation with Tilly now is far from ideal, I’ve never regretted for even a second that Imogen came along. It terrified me, but Imogen changed my life for the better and I’m sure your parents felt the same about you.’
We talked some more about Poppy’s childhood and I assured her it sounded idyllic with parents who loved her wholeheartedly and unconditionally.
As we were getting ready for bed a little later, I noticed a frame on the dressing table with that quote embroidered inside it. Poppy told me that her mum had made it and why.
‘Have you done anything lately that’s scared you?’ I asked as we settled under the duvet.
‘Everything about this trip has scared me, but it’s all turned out to be amazing. What about you?’
She’d been honest with me earlier about wanting to follow me to Scotland and I didn’t want her to have any doubts about my strength of feelings for her so I needed to be honest in return – more honest than I’d ever been with anyone.
‘Being with you scares me because I already know I can’t bear to be without you and my heart is going to break into a million pieces when I have to leave you in the morning.’
Tears glistened in her eyes as she cupped my face in her hands and drew me into a kiss.