Chapter 5
Five
Iwasn't sure if Maia had strict instructions not to allow me out of her sight, or if she just didn't trust me to drive the Bentley alone, but either way she insisted on driving me to my old home for dinner with my family. I invited her in but she refused and said she would return when I was ready.
Ryan was running towards me before I even made it through the door.
He’d clearly been watching through the window waiting for my arrival.
He barreled into me and I scooped him up into a bear hug holding his little body close.
My nephew was a wild creature. At almost eleven years old his hair was still sticking up on end and he still had dirt under his fingernails, just like his dad.
“Auntie Lo, I have a new chapter of my book for you to read. Have you read my other chapters? I keep sending them to you! Are you enjoying it?” Ryan bounced on his feet as he talked with more energy than he could contain.
“Yes, it's fantastic! I can't wait to read more.” I meant it too. Receiving new handwritten chapters complete with illustrations had become the best part of my week. He had a wild imagination and I hoped it would never change.
Ryan ran upstairs, feet thudding on each step, to fetch the new chapter of his book.
I took a minute to breathe in the familiarity of my home.
The old but ever comfortable couches, the wood burner and bare brick fireplace.
Traces of my sister and nephew lay around too, toys and framed photos.
But pieces of Riley were here now too. His laptop, his books on horticulture. It was so very bittersweet.
I went into the kitchen in search of my sister and found her standing at the stove.
“Hey, you.” Natalie pulled me in for a one-armed hug, her other hand still stirring the chilli.
My sister's dirty blonde hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail. She wore an oversized cardigan that I was pretty sure she had crocheted herself. For as long as I’d known her there had always been a tightness around her mouth, a reluctant companion to the kindness in her eyes.
The tightness told of worry about money, about her son, about her family who had shamed her for having a child and not knowing where the father was.
That tightness was gone now and I knew what had taken it away.
The man sitting at the dining table. Riley looked perfectly at home here.
It made my heart ache. This was my home, sort of anyway, but it also wasn't any more.
Despite belonging to me on paper, it was home to a new family now.
“Hope you’re hungry. I made too much as usual.” She smiled. “I wondered if you’d be bringing Alfie with you.”
“No, no Alfie. He has work to do.”
She nodded with only the faintest stiffness in her smile. Now that she was privy to how Alfie had treated me, she wasn’t as warm to him as she’d been before, but Natalie was ever the peacemaker, so she would put on a show of support.
It was on the tip of my tongue to blurt out that I was engaged but I held it back. Not yet. I wasn’t ready yet.
I sat with Riley, catching up on the day and the stunning achievement of his creations. Ryan ran in with his story and he sat in my lap, feet tapping, his bony backside digging into my thighs as he read it aloud in an animated voice.
“Lo?” Natalie interrupted when we’d finally finished. “Do you want to go out and see your garden before dinner?”
I gave Riley a grateful smile when he distracted Ryan long enough for me to make my escape. I stepped out the backdoor but paused to look back through the window. I smiled at the happy family. It made me ache for my own. The one I wondered if I would have with Alfie.
I left them behind and crossed the lawn, heading for the gate buried in head-height hedgeways that led into my sanctuary.
I stepped into my memory garden and released a breath.
Riley had kept it beautifully. I knew that he would, but I had still carried a twinge of guilt that I wasn't here nurturing my mother's garden with my own hands.
Still, the wedding cake tree stood proud and tall, gently swaying in the breeze.
I sat on the bench, surrounded by beds of bleeding hearts of all colours.
The wedding cake tree seemed to judge me, judge the blank space on my finger where my engagement ring should be. Not for the first time, I wondered what my mum would make of all of this.
More than anything, I always wanted to make her proud. The thought that she might not approve had been gnawing away at me for a while.
“He’s a good man, mum. It just took him a while to know that,” I whispered. This garden had heard every muttered secret uttered to my mothers memory. If these plants could talk…
“And he loves me. He won’t leave me. Not ever.
” I chuckled. “I think you’d have to pry me out of his cold, dead hands before he’d let me go.
Maybe that’s why his possessiveness isn’t a deal breaker for me.
It’s comforting to know he’ll never leave me like dad did.
” My voice cracked. I didn’t know where these words about my father had come from.
I hadn’t even been thinking about him. But this is why I came here to talk.
It had always been a place of meditation, a place for me to talk out my thoughts and make sense of a problem.
Apparently, my father was playing a bigger part in my worries than I’d realised.
“It makes me angry that the wrong parent died,” I muttered.
“It should have been him and not you. I wish you were here now. I don’t know how I’m going to pick out a wedding dress without you.
” I rubbed my eyes. I couldn’t start sobbing now when dinner was almost ready.
“Maybe that’s why I don’t want to marry yet.
I don’t want to do any of this without you. ”
Had Alfie figured that out already? Probably. He always seemed to know everything in my head before I knew it myself. If his businesses ever failed, that man should set himself up as a damn psychic.
Before I could spiral down the wedding day drain any further, there was a loud bang on the gate that I recognised as Ryan's knock. “Auntie Lo! Dinner is ready!”
I cleared my throat, wiped my face, and headed inside.
This wasn’t the first time I’d sat around this table with our new family member but still, getting used to Riley was an adjustment. He was a third my colleague, a third Alfie’s friend and now a third my family. If it was strange for him though, he wasn’t showing it.
“So, when do you start filming?” Riley asked after finally getting Ryan to sit still long enough to eat.
“Not until Monday. Tomorrow is when I get started on building the first of the four projects. I'll meet the producer and some of the crew this week, but the contestants aren't arriving until the weekend.”
“Are they staying at Harrington with you?” Natalie asked.
“No,” Riley answered for me. “Alfie wouldn't allow that with the house not being finished yet.”
“Right. They'll film an episode a week and each episode takes two or three days to film. The contestants will travel down for filming, stay somewhere in the village and go back home when it's done. I think that's the plan anyway.”
“But you'll stay here for the whole month?” Natalie asked.
“Yes, but I'll be back in London on the weekends to see Alfie.”
“And how is everything going with the two of you?” There was a faint edge in her voice as there always was when she asked about Alfie.
“It's going,” I answered, trying not to blush as I remembered the noises he’d drawn out of me last night. “He’s in Paris right now, I’m not really sure why. He doesn’t like to talk about work.”
“But he’s supportive of you being gone all week?” Her smile was pinched with concern.
“Yes. I mean, he doesn’t like it but he knows how much this means to me. He’s proud of me.”
Natalie nodded and I noticed Riley gave her hand a squeeze.
Apparently her concern about Alfie going back to his old behaviour was a shared worry between them.
I made a mental note to communicate with her more often, I didn’t want her to worry.
I made a second mental note to remember this as another reason why it was smart to wait a while longer to announce our engagement.
“So, um…changing the subject a little…” Natalie said. I looked up to see her and Riley wearing matching cheshire-cat grins. “We have an announcement.”
“Are we telling her now?” Ryan asked. Natalie gave him a nod and he dropped his cutlery onto his plate. “We’re getting married!”
I sat there stunned for what felt like a full minute. “Really? Are you really?”
“Yes!” Natalie laughed. “We didn’t want to waste anymore time.”
I felt like I couldn’t breathe. All words stilled in my chest.
“Are you happy? You look a little pale there,” Riley joked.
“Of course I’m happy!” I stood, shaking myself out of my stupor. I pulled my sister in for a hug and Riley next. Ryan clung onto my waist the entire time.
“Are you happy-crying, Auntie Lo?” Ryan asked. I bent, kissing his face.
“Yes, I’m happy crying.” I sat again and pulled him into my lap. “When?” I asked them. “Have you started making plans yet? No, wait. How did you propose?”
As Natalie and Riley launched into their sweet story, I held onto Ryan and kept my smile on my face.
He’d proposed during a picnic with Ryan’s help and they were hoping to get married in Dublin, as soon as possible.
I was so deliriously happy for all three of them, but inside, I felt sad that I hadn’t been so excited to share my own engagement.
I felt guilty for harbouring my own secret.
And guiltier still that I could even think about myself during my sister's big moment.
I hoped when she found out about Alfie and I, Natalie would be as excited for us as I was for her. With a sinking feeling, I doubted it.