Chapter 29
Now
‘You’re up early.’ Mum’s voice startles me as I reach the kitchen. The morning is still dark, and she sits in her pyjamas at the dining table, shrouded in the warm glow of a lamp. ‘Are you sneaking out again?’
‘Again?’ I almost choke, but Mum only chuckles.
‘Ava, I’ve been a teenage girl living in this house. Anything you’ve thought of, I tried it twenty years ago.’ She winks and I flush. ‘That bottom step always gave me away too.’
‘I wasn’t sneaking out … I couldn’t sleep.’ I plonk myself down beside her and notice the old Clarks shoe box she has open in front of her. ‘Granny’s photos?’
Mum nods. ‘I haven’t been able to bring myself to look at them, but then I saw those ones that Jake took for your exhibition, and, well, I thought I’d give it a go.’ Her lips find a sad smile before she gets to her feet. ‘Cuppa?’
I don’t need to reply, she already knows I need one.
So, she flicks on the kettle and we both listen to it simmer.
A few wedding photos are on the top of the pile, and there’s a damp smudge still on the corners from where Mum had been looking at them only moments ago.
I saw the contents of this box inside out two summers ago, but the feeling I get while looking at each photo is unchanged from the very first time.
‘I wish I had spent more time with you all here in the summers,’ Mum says as soon as the kettle clicks and she has an excuse to turn away from me under the pretence of making tea. ‘By the looks of things, I missed out on something rather special.’
I nod, but realising she can’t see me, I hum. ‘I’d trade years of my life to have one more summer with her.’
‘Me too.’ Mum sets down my tea in front of me and returns to her seat with a long breath. ‘I had hoped that us moving here would give you just a little bit of that feeling. I’m sorry if I was wrong.’
I pick up a photo of Granny standing beside Callum and I. We’re dressed like two field mice, and she proudly shows us off to the camera. ‘You weren’t wrong. I just don’t think any of us quite realised how much of the magic was just Granny.’
Mum holds up another photo. ‘I think you might be right.’ She places her hand on the table beside mine and presses her pinkie finger against me.
‘Although, I reckon she passed on some of that magic to you.’ She nudges me gently, then glances at the photo in my hand.
‘I didn’t realise how quickly you’d grow up.
I know you asked me why I didn’t wait another year—’
‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ I say quickly. ‘I was angry and I took it out on you and—’
‘I understand, Ava. What I was saying is that I brought us back here now, so we could have at least one more year together. Who knows when we’ll all be back in the same kitchen again?
With you galivanting across Europe and your brother burying his head in his books at uni, I only have one year until you both really are grown-ups, and I wanted to make sure I didn’t waste a second of it. ’
I lean my head against her shoulder. ‘It was nice to see Dad. He seems happy. Happier than I thought he was.’
‘We both are.’ Mum combs her nails through my hair. ‘And I’m sorry that you’re not.’
‘I don’t know how I feel any more.’ I confess and I feel her chest deflate with her breath. ‘Do you still believe in love? Even though you and Dad didn’t work out?’
‘Of course, I do,’ she says without hesitation.
‘I loved your dad for over twenty years, and I still do now. I don’t regret any of the time we spent together.
’ She hesitates for a moment, as if unsure how to say the next part.
‘It was out of love for each other that we had to let go of our romantic relationship. We love each other, but love changes, and sometimes the best way to love someone is to let them go.’ Just like Granny used to do, she strokes me by the hair and all of her words settle on me softly, as though deep down I knew them all along.
‘I may be going through a divorce, but I’m surrounded by love now, more than I ever was before.
I have you, and Callum, and your grandad.
We all still have Granny, in our hearts, our memories, and in the very seams of our tops and trousers.
’ She slides out another photograph. ‘Do you not believe in love?’
‘I don’t think so,’ I confess. ‘I think maybe Granny and Grandad were the exception.’
‘Because of your dad and me?’ She ceases her caresses and looks at me with a pained expression.
‘Jacob.’ His name comes out in a whisper, and Mum sighs and holds me tightly.
‘Oh Ava.’ She doesn’t ask, but I tell her anyway. I tell her about Pen, and the treehouse, the kiss, and the note. I cry when I tell her about his rejection yesterday, and she holds me closer still when I tell her that I have always loved him.
‘Anyone with eyes in the last ten years can see that boy feels something for you,’ Mum says into my hair. ‘I may not have been around much, but I was around enough to see that. I don’t think you should give up on love just yet.’
‘He doesn’t love me, Mum. He’s made that clear.’
‘Didn’t Granny ever tell you about how she got together with Grandad? They had years of misunderstandings and missed opportunities.’
‘I haven’t got any more time for missed opportunities.
I’m moving away in less than a year. We’ve missed our chance.
Plus, Jacob has never sent me letters like these.
’ I take the heap from Granny’s box and skim through the masses of papers, all filled with Grandad’s raw confessions.
And all I’d gotten from him were two words: I’m sorry.
‘You have your whole life ahead of you. Moving to Milan is the beginning of your whole life – you don’t need to let that stop you from being in love. Love is bigger than any country; it will travel with you. You don’t have to leave it behind.’
As she speaks, I run my finger along each letter, seeing Granny’s name printed in the same handwriting over and over until I stop dead in my tracks.
My name interrupts the wave in scrawled, joined up writing.
Hesitating for a moment, my fingers hover over the sheet, too afraid to touch it, as if any contact at all would set it alight and turn it to ash before I can read the letter’s contents.
‘I think Granny might still be working a little bit of her magic, after all of this time.’ Mum stands up and takes her mug of tea with her. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’ She winks and closes the door behind her.