Chapter 46
Mhairi had made it to the car and Jolyon was safely strapped in his seat, exhausted from a long day’s gardening.
She wished she could say she’d enjoyed it as much as him, even if Shell seemed to have forgiven her son enough to come and plant a few potatoes and herbs alongside him, but Mhairi had been unable to shake the feeling of eyes upon her, of being judged.
But soon they’d be home and out of sight of everyone. What a relief that always was.
‘Mrs Sears,’ a voice called. ‘Can I have a word?’
Mhairi froze. That phrase, whether it was said with a beckoning finger at nursery pick-up, or by a health visitor at her doorstep, was enough to strike her frozen with fear.
She turned slowly on her heel, taking the time to rearrange her face, but on their way across the floodlit carpark towards her at quite a pace were Livvie and Roz and Shell, and they looked like they meant business. She took a deep breath.
‘Look, I know you want us gone from the project,’ Mhairi pre-empted.
‘Before you go, we wanted to show you something,’ Livvie was saying over her, ‘because I think we might have been getting ourselves in a pickle unnecessarily.’
‘Oh?’ Mhairi said, wincing and wishing herself miles away.
Jolyon, however, was chuckling from his car seat, waving at his friend.
‘Show them, Shell,’ said Livvie, and from behind her back the little girl produced her precious blue blanket.
Jolyon’s eyes lit up at the sight of it and he reached out a hand.
‘Oh, you can’t be handing that over, Shell. Isn’t that your special blankie?’ Mhairi said, looking between the girl and her mum.
Shell, however, seemed resolute and, stepping closer to the little boy, she pulled her hands apart to reveal the blanket was somehow cut into two halves.
Mhairi’s chest sank with a heavy weight of emotion. ‘You split it?’ she said.
‘She did,’ said Shell, tipping her head towards Roz, ‘but it was my idea.’
‘I may have hemmed it in blue satin all the way round so it won’t fray, and there’s a wee bit of embroidery too,’ said Roz.
Shell sorted the two pieces, showing Jolyon his name stitched in sunshine yellow on his half. ‘And my half says Shell.’
‘You weren’t cross with us?’ Mhairi asked, her mind racing. ‘This was what you were doing when you all disappeared together into the repair shop?’
Jolyon had the blanket in his hands and against his cheek in seconds, and Livvie steadied an emotional Mhairi with a hand at her arm.
‘Of course we weren’t cross,’ said Livvie like it was obvious. ‘What’s there to be cross about amongst friends?’
Jolyon, once unstrapped from his car seat, joined in the game of giving out hugs, stretching his arms especially wide for Shell. The little girl laughed at this and held her friend tight, and no one had to say another thing because, as the bairns had proven, sometimes love needs no words at all.