Chapter 6
A very British lunch of shepherd’s pie is served as soon as Gareth and I come downstairs. Freya, Vi, Vaughn, Gareth, and I gather around the kitchen table and dig into our food like it’s not completely obvious that Gareth and I both have wet hair.
In my youth, I would have been much more embarrassed by the notion of Gareth’s family knowing I was intimate with their son when we’re not an established couple.
I married Callum so young, I never had any opportunities to be an adult couple in front of someone’s parents.
But after everything we’ve been through in the last twenty-four hours, I couldn’t care less.
Gareth needed me upstairs, and I can already sense that his mood has lightened toward his father, which makes everyone a bit less tense.
“The food is delicious, Sloan. Are you the one I pay my respects to?” Vaughn asks, looking up from his plate and eyeing me with his steely gaze. He’s been overly polite to me since he arrived, our battle at the hospital all but forgotten.
I dab the corners of my mouth with my napkin.
“Both Freya and me I suppose. I wanted you guys to have something comforting. Since I’m not the best chef of classic British meals, I enlisted her guidance.
In Chicago, I would have whipped you all up tater tot casserole, but England doesn’t have the exact kind of tater tots I like, so I embraced the culture for once.
” I smile and Vi, Vaughn, and Gareth look at me with puzzled expressions.
“What’s tater tot casserole?” Vi asks curiously.
I press my lips together to stop myself from laughing. “It’s a hotdish with beef and these round, fried potatoes on top. Kind of like a hash brown but bite-sized.”
“I want that recipe!” Vi states happily.
I wince. “It’s so basic…Like, it’s really nothing special. But it has a comforting feel to it that I think the British would enjoy. You guys really nail comfort food.”
“I can agree to that!” Freya states brightly and forks another bite of her pie.
Vi nods in agreement. “Nothing beats beans on toast, but I’ve got loads of really great Swedish recipes from our mum. She was a great chef.”
I can feel Gareth tense beside me and look over to see him staring down at his food.
“Was your mum a full-blooded Swede?” Freya asks innocently.
Vi nods. “She was. Most of her recipes were written in Swedish. I had to have them translated.”
“That’s so brilliant! Did you guys ever learn any of the language growing up?”
The table grows quiet as Vi and Gareth both shake their heads softly. What’s not being said is that they were too young to remember, even if they did.
It’s Vaughn’s deep voice that breaks the awkward silence. “I learned a bit.” We all turn to look at him sitting at the opposite end of the table from me. His aged face turns a deep shade of pink as he says, “Tack s? mycket for maten.”
I smile back at Vaughn, who quickly drops his head.
“What does that mean?” Freya asks.
“Thank you very much for the food.” Vaughn looks up and stares back at me, his eyes pink around the edges as he holds my gaze captive for a moment.
It feels like he’s saying something else, but I can’t be sure.
The longer he stares at me with that sort of intense twinkle in his eyes, the more I find myself softening to him.
He was horrid at the hospital, but he’s clearly a man who’s just sad at the core.
It’s Freya who’s brave enough to breach the unspoken subject. “Did you meet your late wife in Sweden then, Mr. Harris?”
I swear the entire table takes a deep breath and holds it. Vi’s fork of potatoes freezes in the air as she watches for her father’s reaction.
“Excuse me?” Vaughn asks, breaking his eye contact with me to look over at Freya’s bright, freckled face. His eyes are tight around the edges with obvious discomfort.
Freya flushes and slouches down slightly in her seat. “I was curious how you met your wife. You had such a large family together, I imagine it was a bit of a whirlwind romance.”
“Freya.” I state her name softly and give her a tight shake of my head. “I’m sure Mr. Harris doesn’t care to discuss—”
“No, no, it’s quite all right.” Vaughn cuts me off and I look over at Gareth, who’s watching his father intently when he adds, “It was love at first sight, so I suppose you could call it a whirlwind.”
Freya beams back at him with glee. “Really? I always thought that was something made-up in romance novels.”
Vaughn smiles tightly, his eyes crinkling around the edges. “Not for Vilma and I. I saw her across the room at a pub in London and I knew I was in love.”
Vi makes a strange noise in her throat. “I never knew that.”
Vaughn wipes his mouth with his napkin and rests it on the table. “Well, your mother didn’t know it either. It took some convincing.”
“Do tell!” Freya tuts. As much as I want to kick her under the table and tell her to shut up, I can’t help but love my friend for being so brave and innocent.
Vaughn looks off into the distance as he tells the story about all but forcing Vilma to attend one of his football matches in Manchester. He said he loved her the moment he saw her, but it wasn’t until he saw her after his match that he knew he had to marry her.
“Vilma was the woman of my dreams’ dreams. She had this light in her eyes that she could so easily turn off and on. And when it was on and directed at you, you couldn’t help but feel like you had this incredible gift. This incredible immortal amongst humans staring you right in the face.”
“Blimey,” Freya croaks, her eyes welling with tears.
“But she was definitely human enough to get pregnant. Gareth was the result of our wild and overexcited passion.”
“Too much information,” Gareth murmurs, but Vaughn keeps on going like he’s in another world.
“At first, I thought it would be hard to have a baby. My football schedule was hectic and we had only just met. I knew I wasn’t ready to be a father, but she was never afraid. She accepted the surprise like it was her destiny that she knew was coming all along. Her confidence made me feel brave.
“With every baby she gave me, I grew more and more in love with her. She took everything so wonderfully in stride, too. It was miraculous. Even the twins didn’t shake her.
By the time Booker was born, I had only fallen more in love with her.
But, by that point, love seemed like a word that wasn’t enough to describe what we shared together.
What we had between us was ten times bigger than a feeling.
More massive than a sentiment. We had a family. ”
The entire table waits on bated breath for what Vaughn will say next. One glance at Gareth and Vi tells me this isn’t a story they’ve heard countless times over the breakfast table. They both look stunned into silence.
I have to admit I’m feeling stunned as well.
After everything Gareth told me about his father, this is nothing I would have expected from him.
He’s cracked open that hard outer shell from the hospital and exposed a part of himself that I don’t think he shows very often.
Maybe it’s because he’s back in Manchester for the first time in years.
Maybe it’s because no one’s ever been brave enough to flat out ask him these questions.
Whatever it is, I get the feeling it’s having a major effect on Gareth.
“I remember a bit of when you two were happy like that,” Gareth states out of nowhere, his voice low and brow pensive.
Vi turns her watery, surprised eyes to him. “You remember those times?” She whispers the question but we all hear it.
“In the Manchester flat, yeah.” He nods woodenly, his eyes darkened like he’s haunted by the happy memories.
She shakes her head sadly. “I can’t remember the Manchester flat. My memories only include the London house. That was, of course, when Mum was sick.”
Vaughn clears his throat and looks down at his plate, a shameful posture hunching his shoulders. “Things were different in London.”
“Dad—” Vi begins to soothe, but Vaughn cuts her off.
“In Manchester, things were happy. Warm. I remember I couldn’t wait to get back home after travelling for matches because I missed the madness of our Manchester flat.
One of you was always crying, or fighting, or needing something.
It was chaos all the time. Your mother and I had to divide and conquer because she refused to ever hire an au pair.
I bloody well loved every minute of it.”
Gareth pulls his lip into his mouth and seemingly selects a spot on the table to stare at while his thoughts most likely drift to memories he’s long since forgotten.
“The hotels our team stayed at for away matches were lonely. I’d have a room all to myself when I was so used to having a kid tucked up between me and your mother at night. So quiet, too…A lot like those hospitals.”
Vi sniffs softly but Vaughn keeps going, clearly needing to get these words out so much that he doesn’t even notice the tears streaming down his daughter’s face.
“The hospital you were in last night is where I found out your mother was truly sick and not just run down from chasing after five kids. They told us there was nothing they could do for her and that our best bet would be to make her last days comfortable.”
Vaughn inhales deeply and begins shaking his head back and forth. “That light she had—that magic, that sparkle—was being sucked out of her body. Like taking a colourful photo and turning it black and white.”
Vi’s voice is garbled when she says, “How awful, Dad. I can’t imagine how hard that must have been for the two of you.” She reaches out to touch his hand, but Vaughn recoils away from her.