Chapter 40 #2
When it was over, the vicar shook Callie’s hand with both of his. ‘I don’t know what we’d have done without you. We actually hit our target.’
After that, it happened quietly, almost by accident. Someone from the next village asked if she’d mind ‘having a look’ at their fundraiser. Then a school rang. Then a local wedding where the planner had ghosted the happy couple three weeks from the big day, and everyone was panicking.
Callie stopped saying she was helping out and started saying she was booked.
She learned invoices, hired a part-time assistant, and bought herself a clipboard.
She was made for it: reading rooms, untangling egos, making chaos look intentional.
No cameras. No edits. Just people going home happy and things starting on time.
The work was frantic and satisfying and occasionally ridiculous, and she loved it.
When someone once asked if she used to be on television, she said honestly, ‘A bit,’ and went back to moving chairs.
By the time spring arrived properly, Callie was booked through to August.
And around the same spring, on a Tuesday afternoon, in the quiet of the shop, something else happened.
Mae caught her reflection in the display glass. Flour on her cheek, a crease between her brows she didn’t remember earning. She looked like her father at his most tired.
That night, she said it aloud.
‘I don’t think I want to run downstairs forever,’ she told Callie over dinner.
Callie nodded slowly, like she’d been waiting.
‘You don’t have to,’ she said.
Mae swallowed. ‘Feels like I’m… Like I’m betraying him.’
‘I think he’d be furious if you stayed miserable on his account,’ Callie said simply.
Mae knew she was right. But still.
‘But how can I sell it? I mean, really?’
Callie had been working on a solution for a while. She’d only been waiting to be asked for it. Since Mae couldn’t bring herself to sell, she could simply hire someone to manage it for her. Someone who could keep it running smoothly and give her space to figure out what she actually wanted next.
At first, Mae wasn’t sure. But it didn’t take too long for her to come around when she realised that she could be lying in bed with her girlfriend on Saturday mornings instead of getting up with the sun.
She hired a manager brimming with ambition and ideas: delivery options, workshops, events catering. Ideas Mae didn’t have the energy to come up with or follow through.
For the first time in her life, she didn’t work. She pottered around the house, started doing crosswords, took long baths, ripped Netflix a new arsehole. It was nice to live by her whims.
Of course, she’d peek into Morgan’s now and then to watch brisk trade in action. But she’d let go of the grind.
And on the rare moments she felt like it, she baked. Not for the business, not for the village, not for anyone else. Just for herself.
She smiled a little more often now. She woke up without the weight of living her father’s life on her chest.
They didn’t move to London. They didn’t stay in the village either.
Instead, they did something neither of them had ever been very good at before: they chose the middle.
They moved to Brighton. They bought a tiny shithole with a tiny garden, which Mae began renovating herself, as well as starting a vegetable patch.
She had no idea what she was doing, but she learned as she went.
Callie came home smelling of coffee and bus fumes and talked too much about spreadsheets. Mae listened. They argued about nothing important. They learned how to live together. They talked about getting married, but made no big moves to book anything. There was no rush.
Sometimes it was hard. Sometimes it was brilliant.
One day, when Mae was supposed to be looking at loft insulation, she found herself scrolling through photos of her and Callie at eight, at some birthday party. Callie was perched beside her, shoulders brushing Mae’s as she went through work stuff.
‘You know,’ Mae said, half-smiling, ‘you were ridiculously cute as a kid.’
‘Oh really?’ Callie raised an eyebrow. ‘Then why did it take you so long to realise you wanted a piece of this?’
Mae rolled her eyes. Then she paused and cleared her throat. ‘Makes me wonder what a tiny you would look like.’
One of Callie’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Oh?’
‘Mmm. So, um… Do you… want to have a baby at some point?’ Mae asked suddenly shy.
Callie’s other eyebrow joined its twin. ‘What?’
‘I mean, sometimes I think about it,’ Mae said lightly.
But Callie didn’t take it lightly. ‘Mae, that’s… I don’t know…’
Mae grinned. ‘You’re freaking out.’
‘No. Yes. Yes, I am.’
‘Relax, I’m just starting a conversation,’ Mae said.
‘I wasn’t prepared for it. You should have dropped some hints before now. Started staring at prams on the street or knitting booties.’ She took a breath, letting the thought settle a bit.
Then she took another. And another. The panic began to dissipate. ‘But I guess I could start thinking about it.’
‘I’m happy you’d even think about it,’ Mae said easily.
There was one thing Callie needed on the record, though. ‘But what about…’
Mae frowned. ‘What?’
‘I mean, I sort of thought when I started my career, that I’d kissed this goodbye. Kids.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Because they’ll be… Well, they’ll be humiliated by my career, won’t they?’
Mae cocked her head, shocked and sad. ‘Callie…’
‘You’re gonna tell me they won’t? Neither of us is that na?ve, Mae.’
Mae took Callie’s hand. ‘Baby, it was just a blip in time. Something you did for a bit.’
‘You’re actually making it sound worse. Like a porn career.’ Callie tried to laugh, but it came out thin. ‘I just… I hate the idea of our kid Googling me one day and—’
‘—finding out their mother did something crazy for a living when she was young?’ Mae finished gently. ‘I don’t know, they might think it’s cool you were famous.’
‘Till they see me cosying up to some muscly idiot.’
Mae laughed, tugging Callie closer. ‘Well, I didn’t love watching that either. But I got over it. So will they.’
Callie shook her head, smiling despite herself. ‘I don’t know how you always make me feel like… everything’s okay.’
‘Because it is,’ Mae said firmly. ‘Even if it’s not perfect or even goes catastrophically wrong. Stuff breaks sometimes, that’s just how it is. But you get out the glue and get to work.’
Callie leaned back against Mae, thinking of what they had built already, of what else they could make together. ‘Glue?’ Callie asked with only slight mocking.
‘Yeah. Glue,’ Mae said firmly.
Maybe it could work. A little one, Callie’s and Mae’s. Could she really do it? Did she want to? She’s spent her early years forced into motherhood. She had to consider her fear of the trap. It still lingered.
‘I know you might be thinking about George,’ Mae said. ‘I get that. I’m not disregarding it.’
Callie looked at her. ‘Can you stop reading my mind? It’s disturbing.’
‘I just know this isn’t simple to you. I don’t want you to feel stuck with a child if it’s not what you want. I don’t want it if you don’t want it.’
Callie didn’t want to be stuck either. But somehow this felt different.
Because no one had put her here. She had walked herself into this life with Mae.
An open door looked good, but only if you didn’t like the room you were in.
But Callie liked this room. She was prepared to close the door and lock it up tight.
Callie smiled to herself, thinking about how tiny baby shoes were. ‘I want to keep talking about kids. But maybe over those lovely butter cookies you made?’
Mae smiled and went to the kitchen. She came back with a pot of tea and a plate of cookies. Callie thanked her and poured for them both. Then she took a cookie and bit into it with utter bliss. Mae sure could bake.