Chapter 29
SARAH
My eyes snap open. It’s only a quarter to six, but I can already feel from the adrenaline coursing through me that I’m not going to get any more rest today.
Yesterday evening, a group of people Mum had hired came and set up chairs, each tied with a burgundy ribbon, an aisle running between them with an arch of flowers at its end.
Soon, the guests will start to arrive. There aren’t many: Summer’s parents, who have been staying locally and whom I’ve now met a couple of times in passing; her friends Reuben, Cait and Nat, who all greet me with hugs as if we’ve known each other for years; a couple of Mum’s friends from the village; Greg, Louis’s friend from uni, who arrived yesterday evening and is sleeping on the couch.
‘It seems quite small,’ I said to Hal yesterday when we worked out the chair arrangement and the seating plan for the meal we’d have afterwards on Mum’s patio. She’s hired a chef to cook up something special, and I can’t imagine how much this will have cost her.
‘Yeah, I think the England one will be bigger,’ he told me, explaining that they planned to have a big party after their registry office legalities, where all their friends would be invited. ‘It’s too expensive for most of them to come,’ he explained.
But legally binding or not, this is a huge day for our family. Louis is doing something his father and I never managed to do – making a lifelong commitment to another person. I’m proud, terrified, sad and happy all at once. It’s no wonder I haven’t been able to sleep.
There’s a splash outside and looking out of my window, I can see that Hal is already in the pool, his assured stroke cutting through the water.
It’s light outside, but at this hour the temperature won’t yet have risen enough for me to hit the water.
Still, he seems so relaxed and kind of graceful that I decide to go out and watch.
I wonder whether Summer got any sleep last night and hope for her sake she managed to drop off eventually. We met briefly by the fridge around midnight, both of us grey-eyed from chasing sleep that refused to come.
She looked almost ethereal in her silk robe, the slight swell of her stomach apparent under the fabric. Her hair was tied in a scruffy ponytail, her face free of make-up and revealing a sprinkle of freckles that made her seem even younger than she is.
‘All OK?’ I asked her as she poured herself a glass of water.
‘Just nerves,’ she said, making a face. ‘Can’t sleep.’
‘Me neither,’ I told her, rolling my eyes.
We were silent for a few minutes. Ordinarily we’d chat away about this and that, but something about the late hour, the momentous day ahead, somehow made it hard to break the glass-like silence of the dark room.
Then: ‘I’ll look after him, you know,’ she told me, out of nowhere.
‘Sorry?’
‘Louis. I’ll take care of him.’
I looked at her. ‘I know you will, Summer. Not that he should need it… I just…’
‘I get it. He’s your baby. You worry. My mum’s the same with me.’
I’ve only met Summer’s mother a couple of times, but she always seemed so together, so at ease, that it surprises me. ‘Yeah? She doesn’t seem—’
‘Yeah,’ she grinned, taking a sip of her water. ‘I guess it’s a mum thing.’
‘Well, you’ll find out soon,’ I said, nodding towards her tiny bump.
She coloured a little, touching her stomach. ‘Louis worries about you, you know.’
It was my turn to feel embarrassed. ‘Oh, God. I’m sorry.’
‘No! It’s good. I think… There aren’t many guys out there who are so caring. With me, too, of course. Guys my age… well, pretty much all of them are idiots. But Louis,’ she sighed, ‘he’s… well, different. Good different. Loving, you know?’ Her hands rested on her bump.
I felt my heart swell. ‘Well. Good. I hope he takes good care of you – and the baby of course.’
‘I know he will.’
I began to make my way to the door and opened my mouth to say goodnight.
‘Sarah, in case I don’t get the chance tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’
‘What for?’
‘I know we’re young and it’s sudden. But you’ve made me feel so welcome. Even when Louis and I first started dating. You’ve been so kind.’
‘It’s nothing.’
‘But it’s not. That help you gave me with my CV. And giving up your time to drive me to that appointment when Mum was sick.’
I looked at her. ‘Oh, Summer, of course!’ I moved closer and put an arm on her shoulder.
As if the touch were the signal she needed that it was OK, she stepped forward and gave me such a tight squeeze that it nearly pushed the air out of my lungs. Tentatively, I put my arms around her back too. ‘Welcome to the family, Summer.’
Somehow, in that moment, all the tension that I felt about the wedding melted away. Because I realised it wasn’t the ending I’d thought it was. But the beginning of something wonderful.
I slip into my robe, grab my crutch and make my way to the back door, which is already unlatched.
Crossing the grass, I quietly slip onto one of the sunloungers which is damp with dew.
My leg is hardly hurting at all now and I’m hopeful that the bone is finally starting to knit together properly again.
It will be such a relief to slip off the boot for good.
Hal notices me on a turn and swims to the ladder, water pouring off him as he climbs out of the pool. ‘Couldn’t sleep either, eh?’ he says as he roughly dries himself with a towel.
‘Yeah. Big day.’
‘Huge day,’ he says. He sits down on a lounger, turning his body so he’s facing me. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Weird?’ I suggest.
‘Well, yeah. That goes without saying!’
‘You know, I had a bit of a conversation yesterday with Mum.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah, I was worried, I guess, that she’d kind of forced those two into getting hitched before they were ready. Oh, I know they had plans, but being engaged and actually tying the knot are two different commitments, aren’t they, at twenty-two?’
He raises an eyebrow. ‘And did she?’
I laugh a little. ‘Maybe she gave them a nudge. But you know, they seem pretty committed. Happy. And I guess it’s a way to really celebrate the day in style.’
‘Still,’ he sighs. ‘It’s a bit… backward of her in a way. Judgemental.’
I make a face. ‘Maybe a bit. But I don’t think it’s so much to do with them having a baby, as to do with Mum.’
‘What do you mean?’
I sigh. ‘She had a health scare a couple of months back. Didn’t tell anyone of course – typical Mum. Had a lump, a biopsy. Everything turned out to be benign. But I think it really shook her. Especially after Dad. You know?’
‘Oh. Poor Vivian.’
‘Yeah. She felt confronted by her own mortality. And I think she realised she was kind of lonely. I know she has lots of friends out here already. But essentially, she is an older woman living on her own. Even if she’s living in paradise.’
‘Yeah, I guess so.’
‘I know she’s in her late sixties, but I don’t think she actually thought of herself as particularly old until the scare.’
‘Well, I can definitely understand that. I’m forty and won’t accept that I’m in midlife.’
‘Midlife is fifty,’ I tell him firmly.
‘It is?’
‘It is,’ I say. ‘At least, I’ve decided it is. Ask me when I get to fifty and I might have revised it a bit.’
He laughs, towelling his hair a little to stop it dripping down his torso and back. Then he falls silent, his eye drifting to the horizon, to the evergreen-covered hillside and the blue of the early morning sky.
‘You OK?’ I ask.
‘Yeah.’ He shifts towards me again, his eyes serious. ‘You know, I’d have married you back then. If you’d wanted me to.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Well, yeah.’
‘Hal, we were teenagers. If you’d asked me to marry you, I’d have laughed.’
‘Well, yeah. But it’s just… I thought maybe I should have at least offered. I don’t know.’ He runs a hand through his still wet hair. ‘Just all this. Watching Louis commit to Summer like it’s the most natural thing in the world. And speaking to Vivian—’
‘Oh no, what did she say?’
‘It doesn’t matter. Just, it never occurred to me back then that it was something I was allowed to do. Everyone was so angry, so furious about the pregnancy. You were upset, obviously. Your mum was protective. I get that now more than I have before. What she must have felt like.’
‘It’s fine, Hal. It’s a long time ago and we’ve done a pretty good job, I reckon.’
He nods, looks at his hands. ‘I’m making a hash of this,’ he says.
‘Of what?’
His eyes meet mine, full of something I can’t read.
‘I suppose I’m trying to say I had the feelings.
I had all the feelings you’re meant to have when you propose to someone.
I loved you. I wanted to be with you, with our baby – even though the idea of having a kid scared the shit out of me.
I just didn’t know what to do about it. What I was even allowed to do. ’
‘Hal, we were both terrified. The only reason I didn’t run away from it was because, well, I couldn’t.’
He nods. ‘I just wanted you to know, though. That you meant that much to me. Before Louis, before all the baby stuff and the recriminations, when things were simpler. I saw a whole future with you. Only it came at us too fast, back then.’
‘You can say that again,’ I tell him, thinking of the moment the stick I’d peed on had shown two strong lines. Finding out subsequently that I was already five months along.
He’s silent now. A light breeze blows across the water of the pool, making it ripple. We watch as a hawk floats past, its wings open and unmoving, hovering on a warm current of air.
‘What would you have said?’ he asks.
‘What?’
‘If I’d asked you to marry me back then. What would you have said?’
I laugh. ‘Hal, that’s ridiculous. I don’t know. I’d probably have thought you were mad. And whatever Mum says now, I’m sure she’d have had something to say about it.’
He nods. ‘So, you’re OK?’
‘Of course I’m OK.’
He opens his mouth as if to say something more, but closes it again. Then, with a decisive movement, he gets up from the lounger. With the sun behind him, his face is almost entirely in shadow. ‘Right, I’d better go get showered,’ he says. ‘Want a hand back into the house?’
‘No, think I’ll sit here for a bit.’
I watch him walk towards the house and wonder what things might have been like for us if we had tied the knot back then. Would we have thrived? Would our love have grown? And where would we be now?
Then I turn my attention back to Louis and Summer. This is, after all, their day.
I’m in the kitchen with Mum, sorting out champagne flutes. She’s dressed in a light pink shift dress, her hair gathered up with a floral hairpiece. She looks a little like a would-be bridesmaid, but I bite my tongue.
I’ve opted for a longer summer dress, which I’d hoped would hide my boot a little. In reality, its ruched skirts swing just inches above it, probably drawing more attention than ever. I’m hoping that Louis and Summer’s party in the UK will happen after I get this thing removed.
I’ve seen Louis – he’s wearing grey trousers and jacket, a white shirt, and a burgundy tie to match the ribbons on the chairs. It’s the first time I’ve seen him in a proper suit since his graduation, and he seems so very young and so very grown-up simultaneously that I feel almost overcome.
I’m longing to see Summer in her dress, but her mother’s commandeered her and I want to give them this special time alone.
But I feel the fizz of excitement knowing that after today, I’ll have a daughter as well as a son; that my little family is growing.
Even if it does mean I have to wear the title ‘Gran’.
Other than the connotations of the word, I’m lucky to be a young grandmother.
I’ll get to know this child on a whole different level; have the energy to be with him or her in a way I might not have later.
Mum hasn’t mentioned the term ‘great-grandmother’ but she’s probably wrestling with similar thoughts.
It’s hard not to think about Dad today, too.
I know he’d have loved to be here. In truth, he’d have loved to be anywhere with us – he wasn’t always into big events, but he loved family gatherings, however they came about.
I wonder if Mum is thinking about him too, but decide not to ask.
She’s clearly applied an inordinate amount of mascara and I’m not sure whether it’s waterproof.
Instead, I reach and squeeze her hand. She looks at me. ‘What was that for?’
‘Love you, Mum.’
She nods. ‘Well, yes. Thank you.’
I’m about to say more when the door opens and there’s Hal.
He’s wearing a grey suit that complements Louis’s, neatly fitted and topped with a matching burgundy tie.
He’s ditched his usual battered trainers in favour of some neater black shoes with bright white soles.
For once, he’s even styled his hair and it sits closer to his head, damp with water or gel.
I’d known Hal was handsome, of course. It’s impossible to be with him and not notice how women react to him.
Adèle at the cider tasting seemed smitten; the pretty waitress at one of the bistros we stopped at addressed all her questions to him; even the nurse at the hospital had seemed to bat her eyelashes more when he was around.
I get it: he’s handsome. Yet for a moment, looking at the man who has helped me raise our child for the last twenty-two years, I’m taken aback.
I’m reminded briefly of those ‘nerd makeover’ movies from the nineties where the girl takes off her glasses, gives her hair a brush, and suddenly all the boys see her in a new light.
Surely I’m not that shallow.
‘Hey,’ he says. ‘Does this look OK?’
‘Yes,’ I reply. ‘Very nice.’
When he smiles at me, I feel a shiver of something pass through me, as if over the difficult years of child-rearing I’d forgotten to see Hal as a man, and a man I once loved, and saw him as an inconvenience, a work partner, someone who was helping to raise my son.
But this journey has changed that, I realise.
It’s impossible to be in close proximity with someone for as long as we have and not see them for who they are.
‘Thanks,’ he says, fiddling with his tie. ‘Right, I’ll go check on Louis.’
I nod.
‘Sarah Hopkins!’ I hear. Glancing up, I see Mum watching me, a glint in her eye.
‘What?’ I protest, sounding all of fifteen.
‘I saw the way you were looking at that man. I think someone’s got a little crush.’