Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
NINA
Iwake to sunlight and the smell of coffee.
For a moment, I don’t know where I am. The light’s wrong. The bed feels different. There’s a weight beside me that shouldn’t be there.
Then I remember.
Tom.
I turn my head. He’s still asleep, sprawled on his back, one arm flung above his head.
His shirt’s rumpled. His hair’s a disaster.
There’s a crease on his cheek from the pillow and his mouth is slightly open and he looks absolutely nothing like a man you’d drive eleven hours for, and I would do it again tomorrow.
He’s here. He’s actually here.
I lie there, watching him breathe, and I let myself feel it. All of it. The relief. The terror of almost losing this. The absurd, improbable luck of getting it back.
The coffee smell intensifies. Which means someone’s downstairs. Which means—
‘Brynn,’ I mutter.
Tom stirs. ‘Mmph?’
‘Brynn’s here. In my café. Making coffee.’
‘Good.’ He doesn’t open his eyes. ‘Coffee’s good.’
‘She’s going to interrogate us.’
‘Also good. Interrogation means she cares.’
‘Tom. It’s three in the afternoon.’
‘Practically dawn.’ He rolls towards me, eyes still closed, and pulls me against his chest. ‘Five more minutes.’
I should argue. I don’t.
Twenty minutes later, we make it downstairs.
Brynn’s behind the counter. She looks up, takes in our rumpled clothes and tangled hair, and her face flickers with a quirk of a smile.
‘Afternoon.’
‘Afternoon,’ Tom says.
She makes us both a flat white without asking and slides them across the counter.
‘I opened up this morning,’ she says. ‘Figured you’d be occupied.’
‘Thank you.’ I wrap my hands around the mug. The warmth seeps into my palms. ‘How was it?’
‘Fine. Dot came by three times. Wanted updates.’ Brynn pauses. ‘I told her you were fine. That Tom had come home. She said, “About bloody time,” and went back to her crossword.’
Tom laughs. I take a sip of coffee and let it settle me. This is real. This is actually happening. I’m standing in my café, drinking coffee that my friend made, beside a man who drove through the night for me.
‘I should go,’ Brynn says, reaching for her jacket. ‘Let you two figure out the rest of your lives, or whatever.’ She pulls me into a hug – quick, fierce, the Brynn hug that says everything her voice doesn’t. ‘I’m glad, Nina. Really.’
‘Thank you. For everything. For last night—’
‘That’s what I’m for.’ She pulls back. Looks at Tom. Nods once. That’s all. From Brynn, it’s enough.
The door closes behind her. The café falls quiet.
Just me and Tom. Alone. Together.
I set down my coffee.
‘I need to talk about Peter.’
Tom goes still. ‘Okay.’
‘Not because I’m having second thoughts. Not because I don’t want this.’ I reach for his hand across the counter. ‘But because if we’re going to do this properly, I need you to understand something.’
‘I’m listening.’
I take a breath. ‘I loved him. I loved him and he was going to ask me to marry him and I didn’t know, and when he died, I thought I’d never feel anything again.
’ My voice wavers but I push through. ‘For almost a year now, I’ve been walking around with a hole in my chest. And I thought that hole would be there forever. I thought that was just who I am now.’
Tom’s thumb traces circles on my knuckles. He doesn’t speak.
‘But then you left. And the hole got bigger. And I realised that some of it was you. That I’d been so focused on losing Peter that I didn’t notice I was losing you too. And when Jude told me and everything rearranged itself, I understood I’d been mourning two things without knowing it.’
‘Nina—’
‘Let me finish.’ I squeeze his hand. ‘I’m always going to love Peter. He was my first real love. I can’t pretend that away. I won’t.’
‘I would never ask you to.’
‘I know. That’s why I’m telling you.’ I meet his eyes. ‘I love you. Differently. Not less, not more. Different. And I need you to be okay with that. I need you to know there’s room for both. Back when I stayed with Mum in Truro she asked me who I was. Who I was before Peter.’
Tom just watches me.
‘“Who is Nina Ellis?” she asked me.’ My voice is wobbling and I reach for his hand. ‘And I’ve been so very lost, Tom, so lost in the dark that I couldn’t see.’
‘What couldn’t you see?’ It’s a whisper.
‘You.’
Tom’s quiet for a long moment. His face is serious.
‘Can I say something now?’
‘Yes.’
‘You know I was there when he bought the ring.’
My heart clenches, the way it did when he first told me.
He holds up a hand before I can speak. ‘I stood in that jewellery shop in Truro and I watched him pick out a ring for you. And I helped him. Told him to choose the aquamarine – because you loved the sea, because everything about you was the sea.’ His gaze drops briefly, colour rising in his cheeks.
‘And I went home and I was glad for him. And it nearly killed me.’
The tears come before I can stop them.
‘I don’t need to replace him,’ Tom says. ‘I don’t want to fill a space he left. I want—’ He pauses. Finds the word. ‘I want to stand beside you. Not in his place. Beside it.’
‘You already do.’
‘Do I?’
‘Tom.’ I stand up. Walk around the counter.
Take his face in my hands. ‘You’re not second choice.
You’re not a consolation. You’re the person who stood in a jewellery shop and helped another man buy a ring for the woman you loved because you wanted her to be happy.
That’s not patience. That’s not martyrdom.
That’s—’ My voice breaks. ‘That’s extraordinary. ’
He closes his eyes. I feel the tension drain out of him – the last of it, the deep-held fear he’s been carrying that he’d always be the one who came after.
‘I’ve waited a long time to hear that,’ he says.
‘I know. I’m sorry it took so long.’
‘Don’t be.’ He opens his eyes. Bright, wet at the edges. ‘You had to get there on your own.’
I kiss him. Gently. Tasting salt – his tears or mine, impossible to tell.
‘For the record,’ he says against my mouth, ‘there’s room. Whatever you need to feel, however you need to grieve – I’ll be there. I’m not threatened by a ghost. I’m just grateful to be here.’
Tom’s parents’ house smells of roast chicken and furniture polish.
Ivy opens the door before we’ve reached the gate.
‘I knew it,’ she says. ‘I told Don. I said he’d come early.’
‘Mum, we’re not early. It’s half four.’
‘Early for you.’ She holds his face in both hands, studying him. ‘You’re thin. You’re tired.’ Her eyes slide to me. To our joined hands. Her whole face transforms. ‘Oh. Oh, Nina.’
She pulls me into a hug so tight I can feel her heartbeat. An Ivy hug – the kind that makes you feel like you’ve come home to a place you didn’t know you’d left.
‘I’m so glad,’ she whispers. ‘I’m so, so glad.’
Inside, Meg and Hayley are positioned at the kitchen table like sentinels.
‘So,’ Hayley says. ‘Finally.’
‘Don’t start,’ Tom warns.
‘Eleven years.’ Meg shakes her head. ‘Eleven years of watching you pine—’
‘I didn’t pine.’
‘You pined, Tom. You were Olympic-level. You could have represented the country.’
‘I hate you both.’
‘No, you don’t.’ Hayley grins. ‘You love us. We’re delightful.’
Don peers over his paper from the armchair. ‘Leave the boy alone. He’s had a long night.’
‘He drove eleven hours,’ Ivy says, already heading for the kitchen. ‘Through the night. For love.’
‘For Nina,’ Don corrects her mildly. ‘Which is the same thing, apparently.’
‘It is the same thing.’ Ivy beams at me. ‘Isn’t it, love?’
I glance at Tom. His ears are pink with embarrassment.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘It is.’
‘Oh, that’s lovely. That’s just lovely. Don, did you hear?’
‘I’m right here, woman. I’ve been right here for the last forty years.’
‘She said she loves him!’
‘I gathered.’
‘Our Tom!’
‘Yes. Our Tom. The one looking like he wants the floor to swallow him.’ Don turns a page with great dignity. ‘I’m very happy for you both. Now can we eat? I’ve been smelling that chicken since two o’clock.’
While Tom’s being interrogated by his sisters in the living room, Ivy catches me alone in the kitchen.
‘Nina.’ Her voice quietens. She sets down the dish she’s drying.
Takes my hands. ‘I loved Peter. We all did. He was a lovely boy and what happened was a tragedy.’ She squeezes my fingers.
‘But I’ve watched my son love you for over a decade.
I’ve watched him put your happiness above his own, over and over again.
And I’ve watched you these last months – lost, grieving, finding your way back. ’
My throat tightens.
‘I’m not asking you to forget Peter. I’d never ask that. But I want you to know—’ Her voice wavers slightly. ‘You’re family. You always have been, really. Long before today. But now it’s official.’ She smiles, eyes bright. ‘Welcome to the Darcys, love. Properly this time.’
I hug her. Hold on tight. The smell of her kitchen – chicken and herbs and the woodsmoke – wrapping around us both.
‘Thank you,’ I manage. ‘For raising him.’
‘Oh, I can’t take credit. He came out stubborn and loyal and too patient for his own good. I just fed him and hoped for the best.’
I laugh. Wet, but real.
‘Mum?’ Tom appears in the doorway. ‘Are you making Nina cry?’
‘Happy tears. We’re having a moment. Go away.’
‘Should I—’
‘Set the table. The good china.’
‘The good china? We only use that for—’
‘Special occasions.’ Ivy looks at me. Smiles. ‘This qualifies.’
After dinner – roast chicken, roast potatoes, three kinds of vegetables, and a trifle that Don claims to have made but which bears all the hallmarks of Ivy’s hand – we walk down to the harbour.
The late afternoon light is doing the thing it does in October – low and amber, catching the stone walls and the water and turning everything golden.
Tom walks beside me, and I can see him taking it in – not as a visitor this time, not as a man here for a weekend.
As someone who lives here again. His eyes go to the surgery, dark but waiting.
To the harbour wall where he’s stood a thousand times.
To the village that held his place while he was gone.
‘There.’ I point.
Lavender Dreams sits at the end of the quay. Transformed. The cabin’s been opened up, a serving hatch cut into the side. Fresh paint – pale sage green with lavender trim. Fairy lights strung along the rails.
‘Nina.’ Tom stops walking. Stares. ‘It’s beautiful.’
‘It’s not finished. The inside still needs work, and the cushions haven’t arrived, and Emmett says the wiring’s a nightmare—’
‘It’s beautiful,’ he repeats.
We climb aboard. The deck shifts beneath us. I show him the serving hatch, the space for the espresso machine, the bench seating.
‘Coffee on the water,’ he says.
‘That’s the idea.’
‘Peter’s boat.’ He runs his hand along the railing. ‘Your café.’
‘Both.’ I lean against the cabin. ‘His dream and mine. Together.’
He looks at me with an expression I’m still learning to read – or rather, an expression I’m finally allowing myself to read. All these years of practice, and I’m only now paying attention.