Chapter 28
Twenty-Eight
The feel of the shovel going into the dirt felt good. The rhythm of it. Dig, press down with my foot, pull up earth, throw, repeat.
The sun wasn’t high enough to make me sweat yet, but I could feel the weight of the work in my muscles. The rough wood of the shovel handle rubbed against my palms, causing red patches in the crooks of my thumbs.
I’d lain awake next to Alfie for hours, playing over everything I’d learned about my father.
He was a liar, a criminal, and a violent one at that.
Worst of all, he needed money. When I couldn’t lie still any longer I’d snuck out of bed.
It was a testament to how tired Alfie was that he didn’t wake up.
I needed something physical to do. So I decided to dig a hole. It wasn’t going to fix Alfie’s relationship with his mother, it wasn’t going to turn my father into an honest person, but for right now, it was making me feel better.
“What are you going to put in there?” Alfie startled me out of my ruminations, causing me to nearly drop the shovel.
“I don’t know. Maybe the body of my dirtbag father,” I huffed. “Or maybe a plum tree.”
“I’m going with a plum tree. We might need Elliot’s help for the other option.” The fact that Alfie wasn’t joking should have frightened me more than it did. Maybe I’d just gotten used to the scale of his power and influence now.
“Can I help?” he asked.
“No,” I snapped, driving the shovel deep into that dirt. The wooden handle splintered, breaking off, leaving me with a useless stump. “Seriously? You’re a fucking billionaire and you can’t afford a decent shovel?”
Alfie shrugged, unaffected by my outburst. “The hole looks deep enough for a tree anyway. Or a body, if you folded it up.” He held out a hand to me. “Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“To get a plum tree.”
“It’s the wrong time of year for planting plum trees. I should wait until spring.” I moved some of the dirt around with the toe of my trainer. The relief I felt from digging was fading now and I was just left with being sad again.
“Well, we can go and look at them anyway, if it’ll make you happy.”
I blinked at him. “It’s Sunday, everywhere is shut.” It was a lame excuse.
“Not for me. Come on.”
My chest began to loosen as soon as we stepped into the nursery that was only twenty minutes from Alfie’s house.
Of course as soon as Alfie had moved here I’d taken myself to explore this place even though it was out of my budget.
It was already open so luckily, Alfie didn’t have to use his powers on anybody.
I was surrounded by salvias, geraniums, a full catalogue of roses.
Everything you would expect to see in the middle of summer.
Soon, when late summer came, these would be replaced with rudbeckias, heleniums and japanese anemones.
Dahlias were in full bloom and I remembered how pretty my mum’s had been, cut and added to my gran’s dining table in one of her favourite vases.
Of course, I gravitated towards the bleeding hearts.
My fingers moved over the petals. As Alfie stood by, close but not too close, letting me absorb and mediate, I thought about my mother.
I wished she was here more than ever. I had so many questions.
Did she know who he really was? What he’d done?
Is this why he’d cheated on her before he left?
He wanted her to hate him, to end it first?
I needed fucking answers and the only person who could give them to me, I couldn’t trust to tell the truth.
I looked over my shoulder at Alfie who was reading the care label of a nemesia plant. “I want bleeding hearts in our garden, wherever we live.”
He came over, wrapped an arm around my waist and kissed my hair. “Tell me about them. Why were they so special to your mum?”
“I don’t know that they were particularly. All plants are special. Some of them just have better stories.”
“Stories?”
I looked around, making sure no one was watching, then I pulled off one of the bleeding heart flowers. I held it up.
“Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess and a handsome prince. The prince desperately wanted to marry the princess but she refused him. To win her love he decided to ply her with gifts. First, he gave her two pink rabbits.” I peeled off the pink outer petals and turned them, giving them the shape of a pair of bunnies.
“But she turned him away. Next, the prince presented her with a pair of earrings.” I gently removed the hook-shaped white petals with a gold piece at the top.
“These she took but still she said she could never love him. The hopeful prince tried one more time, gifting her a pair of enchanted slippers made from the finest silk.” I showed Alfie the inner part of the flower, pink and white and in the shape of a slipper.
“Again, she turned away.” I let the piece fall to the ground and all I had left was the frame of the heart with the green stamen forming a line down the middle.
“The prince was heartbroken and pulled a dagger from his sheath and stabbed himself in the heart.” Gently, I removed the stamen, and placed it through the centre of the heart-shaped flower.
“The princess was overcome with grief and realised too late that she had loved him all along. She cursed her heart to bleed forever in atonement for her selfishness.” I let the final pieces drop to the ground and brushed off my hands.
“Personally I think they’re both fools, but I like the story.” When I looked up, Alfie was smiling at me.
“I love watching you do that. You come alive when you talk about all of this stuff. I have no interest in it but I want to learn more just to hear you talk about it.” He squeezed my waist. “Don’t tell me you couldn't do this for a living.”
“You love me. It’s different.”
“It’s not. I see you. Even when you don’t see yourself.”
I turned and wrapped my arms around his neck. It was quiet here and I was grateful to have some privacy. “Thank you for not letting me spiral today.”
“Always.”
I leaned into him, just the two of us in this lush, alive space. Once, he had felt like a storm-stricken sea, battering me about while I clung on to my life raft. Now he was my oak tree, shielding me from the storm.
“Do you ever miss it? Being how we used to be in the first chapter of our lives? The intensity of it?”
“This is still intense. It’s just stable now.
Back then I was panicked all the time. Holding onto you too tight and you fighting to get away but not wanting to leave me.
It's fun for a while but staying on a ride too long makes you sick. I love you. I can say that now and not worry you’re going to laugh at me.
Old Alfie was made up of shadows and secrets. I don’t miss him for a moment.”
Neither did I. This new Alfie was everything I wanted from the old one.
I wondered about myself, if I had evolved like he had.
I thought about how many excuses I was making about the next step in my career, how I was dragging my feet at the thought of striking out on my own.
How many times had I told myself I wasn’t good enough? Wasn’t experienced enough?
He stroked my cheek. “What is it?”
“I think I still have some growing to do.”
An hour later, I was the proud owner of a brand new shovel. This one had a metal handle, decorated with a pink and white rose pattern. I was over the moon with it, and Alfie shook his head every time he looked at me holding it to my chest.
Continuing his day of distraction, Alfie insisted we have lunch in the teahouse attached to the nursery.
I didn’t need much persuasion. Alfie looked strange in his suit, tucked away in a shabby chic corner of a woodland-style cafe.
There was a wildflower bouquet on every table and a canopy of honeysuckle-covered branches overhead, serving as our roof.
I felt like I was in a charming treehouse.
It was busy, filled with people coming here for a light Sunday lunch.
Only a few people seemed to recognise Alfie and aside from the waitress who not-so-discreetly snapped a photo of us, we were left alone.
Still, it bothered me. Alfie had made himself infamous more than a decade ago, he was hardly a movie star still trying to stay in the public eye.
Yet, people coveted him. His wealth, his beauty.
He was impossible to forget as I had learned too well.
I didn’t argue as he ordered for me. It would have bothered me once. Strange, the things you let go when you loved someone.
Alfie arched an eyebrow at me once the waitress had disappeared to get out drinks. “You’re either having naughty thoughts or a nice memory.”
“Do those two things have to be mutually exclusive?” I giggled. “I was thinking about L’Amour. Our first date there. If you can call it that. You made me eat seafood.”
“I didn’t make you. I requested and you obliged, because you like being told what to do sometimes.
You just didn’t like that you liked it.” His foot hooked around my chair leg and I gasped as he tugged me around the table.
He grabbed the arm of my chair and pulled me until there was no space left between us.
That earned us some raised eyebrows but I didn’t care.
“I remember having you pressed up against your front door. I had to remind myself your family was home.”
I closed my eyes, feeling a flush spread over my skin. I remembered that night all too well.
‘I can feel your heart beating out of your chest, trying to get to me. It aches for me, O’Connell. Other parts of you ache for me too.’
“Can you remind yourself you’re in public now? People are looking and my skin is too Irish to hide the blush.”