Chapter 34
ONE YEAR LATER
I was sitting at my new, extendable dining-room table, trying to find the motivation to start gathering the empty lasagne trays and mountain of other dishes, when my phone buzzed.
I glanced at Will, whose phone had pinged at the same time, then grabbed a stack of plates and carried them into the kitchen, so as to circumnavigate the no-phones-at-the-dinner-table rule.
A rule I was sticking to religiously, even while getting my fledgling non-profit organisation off the ground.
I was already working with three charities desperately in need of some fixing and loving every nine-to-five second of it.
‘Come on then, what’s she chosen for Christmas Day?’ Will asked, following me out with the salad bowls.
I checked the new message. Darya had really gone to town with the Advent Challenge this year. Among relatively tame words such as JOLLY, FANCY and NEIGHBOURLY, other debuts included OUTRAGEOUS, NAKED and OUTLAW.
‘Same as last year.’
He grinned. ‘Romantic?’
‘Ooh, that’s a toughie,’ Bronte said, appearing behind him bearing more plates. ‘Whatever will you come up with?’
‘Whatever it is, please take the picture while I’m not in the room,’ Edith added, her face deadpan as she opened the fridge to retrieve a new bottle of lemonade.
‘Amen to that.’ Lacey put down the dishes she’d brought through to high-five Edith, a gesture the now-teenager wouldn’t have accepted from anyone else. The moment those two had met they’d become kindred spirits.
Will and I had started officially going out at Easter. Both Jordan and Edith had not only accepted it, they’d staged a ‘losers’ intervention’, cooking us a meal and insisting we had a proper first date at their kitchen table once Bonnie was tucked up in bed.
‘Is it pudding time?’ Kaylynn asked, squeezing in behind her mum.
Those magical words had the other children out of their chairs and racing into the kitchen before I had time to question how they could even think about dessert after devouring such a feast.
‘The pudding we brought from our house is soooo good,’ Lennon announced. ‘Mum working at Tucker’s is the best thing ever because not only are we not poor any more, she can cook now. We took some to Nana and Grandad’s flat and even Nana said it was nice.’
It had been a rough year for my parents.
Their initial determination to squat in the house had disintegrated when Mum collapsed one night on her way to the bathroom.
After several arduous weeks in hospital while Dad sofa-surfed with mates, they had eventually conceded to move into the ground-floor flat I’d secured them by acting as guarantor.
Lacey took the kids to visit once a month.
I usually accompanied them for moral support.
It was much easier to tolerate my parents in a different environment.
Another huge relief was that Tad Butcher’s operation had fallen apart.
One of his top henchmen had confessed everything to the police, forcing Tad to flee the country so Lacey could stop worrying about him finding her or Bronte.
For the first time ever, my sister walked with a spring in her step, as if she wasn’t wary of what lay ahead of her.
Her laugh had become infectious, and the children were all benefitting from having a mum who was finding contentment at last.
‘Pudding is after fireworks,’ Jordan reminded the others, snagging Lennon’s hoodie to stop him from grabbing the cool box Lacey had left on the side with the desserts in.
‘Fireworks!’ Harley shouted, jumping up and down so vigorously he almost impaled himself on one of Bonnie’s polystyrene tusks. ‘Can I help? I’ll light the match. I know how to be careful, I promise. Can I do the fire, can I, Will?’
‘Sorry, mate, we’re watching from inside, remember?’ Zendon said. ‘This is for Jordan, Edith and Bonnie to celebrate their mum.’
‘But isn’t Auntie Alex their mum?’ Kaylynn asked. She’d somehow got hold of a bowl of mayonnaise and now had creamy blobs all over her face from where she’d been licking it.
Everyone went still.
‘Ssshhh!’ Bronte’s hush echoed around the now horribly quiet kitchen. ‘You can’t say things like that.’
I spun around, busying myself with starting to fill the washing-up bowl to show that it was fine. I was fine. I’d stopped being embarrassed about a thousand ‘mum’ comments ago.
‘Actually,’ Jordan blurted at the same time as Edith said, ‘Well, funny you should say that…’ and Bonnie squealed, ‘Do it, Daddy, do it now!’
‘Do what now?’ I asked, turning from the sink a few seconds later to find my sister and Bronte standing with their mouths hanging open.
Zendon was grinning as he held on to Harley’s shoulders to keep him from wriggling off, while Jordan had lifted Kaylynn up onto his hip.
Bonnie had tipped back her brand-new elephant mask, complete with not only tusks but a longer trunk, revealing eyes wide with utter delight as she gripped onto Lennon’s hoodie with both hands.
The biggest clue that this was something genuinely significant was Edith, who simply smiled, eyes shining as she rested one hand on Ernest’s head and held up her new phone to film me with the other.
And then I turned to find the other person in the room.
I’d initially missed Will because he was kneeling. On one knee, not two.
He was holding out a clear epoxy resin box. I could see it contained not only a ring, but a few other items, too.
‘This isn’t a question of me asking you simply to be my wife, but also mum to Jordan, Edith and Bonnie. So, they decided they’d all like to give you something.’
‘Maybe ask her properly yourself, first though?’ Lacey said.
‘Right. Yes.’ Will smiled, ducking his head as if bashful for the first time since I’d met him.
‘Alexis Nixon. I have been waiting for this moment for over a year. I genuinely wasn’t planning on it happening surrounded by dirty pots and pans and, ahem, both our families looking on, but now we’re here it seems as apt a time as any.
Because, if we’re honest, this is how it’s going to be.
A lot of mess, a lot of people, a lot of change and surprises and life being…
well, a lot. But I couldn’t imagine anyone else I would rather do all that with than you.
You’re not only prepared to embrace our family, you do it so wholeheartedly…
I’m beyond grateful you chose to trust me of all people, and it would do me the absolute honour if you would consider—’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ Bonnie shouted. ‘Will you marry Daddy and be our mummy or not?’
I took a moment to glance at our beautiful family before fixing my eyes on Will’s.
‘Am I allowed to see what’s in the box before I give my answer?’
‘No!’ ten voices yelled, so loudly it drowned out my ‘yes’ to everyone’s ears but Will’s, keeping at least one moment between the two of us.
‘Yes?’ he asked, breaking into a grin as he sprang to his feet, putting the box on the worktop so he could pull me into his arms, lift me up and spin me around.
‘Yes,’ I whispered. ‘Yes, to the whole lot of it.’
Later that evening, once Lacey had taken the kids home to their cute cottage in the centre of the village, I relocated to Will’s house so his older children could retreat to their bedrooms. We then indulged in a few contented minutes replying to the congratulations messages on the Friends Wanted WhatsApp groups.
We belonged to two groups, now. The first one was the ‘OFs’ – Original Friends, name chosen by Darya, who all shared their own ROMANTIC snaps along with our proposal video.
There was Merry and Ray pulling a cracker each with Joel and his girlfriend; Darya was on a sailing boat with the neurosurgeon she’d met at last year’s dinner, holding a glass of champagne in the glorious sunshine with the caption, ‘my new Christmas tradition’.
Lola and Donovan were both visiting a care home for people with dementia, Donovan playing sixties hits on the piano while a ninety-year-old resident taught Lola how to jive.
Then there was the second group. One that we often had to turn off the notifications to avoid the almost continual buzzing and pinging.
The main group for all the new Friends Wanted branches, birthed last Christmas Eve Eve, and now flourishing and reproducing all on their own. The furthest one was in Cornwall.
We spent a few moments scrolling through the images of all the different Friends cooking and eating together, playing everything from games to musical instruments and practical jokes, walking, embracing and enjoying the countless other shared moments that create the miracle that is friendship.
Curled up on the sofa with my soon-to-be-husband on one side, Bonnie enjoying her anteater sticker book on the other, faint laughter from Edith’s bedroom blending with the debut Bigley Boys Christmas album softly playing, I knew without a doubt that, for me, this was Winning at Life.