Chapter 37
HEATHER
The last day of term.
‘Can you come and get me in the afternoon?’ Georgia had asked, all assured and managerial.
Crazy to think Heather had nightmares about her being eaten alive by cockroaches only nine months prior. Look at her now.
They packed the car together and separated for a couple of hours for Georgia to say her goodbyes. Heather filled her time on the beach.
She now taps her damp skin through the dry robe.
Will she make the effort to drive to St Andrews for a sea swim when the university isn’t in session?
It might feel strange to be here knowing that Georgia and Brianna are in Vermont at their summer camp.
Maybe she will, though. There’s something supremely grounding in the setting of St Andrews, the slow, gentle slope to the sea, the pure yellow of the sand, the historical castle and pier visible along the coast on the return swim.
Never say never. The sky takes on a reddish tinge as the sun lowers.
She glances at her swim watch. Georgia said they’d rendezvous at seven o’clock.
It’s already nine. If she doesn’t come soon, the drive to Edinburgh will be in the pitch dark, and they’ll miss the late-night film they were hoping to see.
The one saving grace with their altered travel plans is there’s now no chance of bumping into Scott.
He will have Brianna packed up and halfway home by now. They’re probably pulling into an airport because Scott’s booked a trek to see mountain gorillas in the Ugandan rainforest and expects Brianna to fly from Kampala to JFK for summer camp straight afterwards.
That’s fine. Whatever he wants.
She tried. She failed. Move on. She has plenty to look forward to without Scott-Bloody-Reynolds in her life.
The beach is empty save for one solitary figure moving towards her.
Most of the students have gone, and only the day trippers are left.
She turns to look straight out to sea. She closes her eyes and lifts her head to feel the warmth of the setting sun on her face.
The caw, caw, caw of seagulls looking for the next feed circulates in her brain.
‘Heather?’
A voice to her left. She turns. The other person on the seashore isn’t a stranger.
It’s Scott.
And he’s walking towards her. Her legs seize.
She can’t do this; she can’t have this confrontation here.
If she could turn and run, she would. The last thing she needs to hear is a justification of why he, like all the men before him, has chosen to leave, or some messy explanation about how it’s all her fault that Brianna nearly came to harm that night.
Heather has reconciled that evening to herself.
She’s made her apologies. Everyone other than Scott has accepted them.
She tries to shut her heart to all of it and tries to re-instate the mantra that got her through the last few weeks.
She can swim, she can paint. She can find a new way.
She has her parents and a healthier relationship with her daughter.
So what if she’s all alone? She’s been here before. She can do it again.
‘Heather?’
He’s closer now. She blinks back the tears. Swallows the lump in her throat down. It would be easier if he didn’t look so damn sexy with his shirt unbuttoned and his jeans rolled up so he can walk along the water’s edge towards her. Where did he get that tan?
‘Hi, Scott.’ There isn’t much more to say.
‘Georgia told me you’d be here,’ he says by way of an explanation.
‘That makes sense,’ she replies as she grits her teeth and replays her last conversation with Georgia: ‘Just stay on the beach. I’ll find you.’
Her daughter’s set her up.
‘I need to apologise.’
Heather’s eyes begin to smart as the sea wind buffets her face. She blinks.
‘What for?’ she asks. Because she’s damned if she’s going to give him the easy way out.
If he’s going to insist on doing this, and it looks as though he is, then she’s not going to level the path for him.
“This has nothing to do with you.” Those had been his last words to her.
So fine, spit it out, apologise and be done with it, but be man enough to face the truth full on.
‘Brianna explained,’ he says. ‘And I think maybe you explained as well, in the hospital when I was sleeping?’ He takes two steps closer.
They’re standing at the water’s edge. The waves roll onto the beach as it shelves back into the sea.
‘She said she gave you no choice. About the driving.’
She stands up a little straighter. ‘It was me or Trey, apparently.’
‘Exactly. I should never have kicked off like that.’
‘The thing is, Scott, it made no sense to me. You left Brianna in my care. And besides, you’ve always been so “take the risk and learn from your mistakes” about your parenting.
I’d never have dreamt of helping her if I’d realised you’d be so against it.
And I tried. I tried to call and there wasn’t any answer.
So, what was I supposed to do? Leave her to travel with a US citizen who wasn’t authorised to supervise her driving?
That would have been insane. And she was going anyway. With me or without me.’
He swallows and nods slowly. ‘It was just seeing her there. With the car all smashed up. It … it was triggering, I guess. I’m so sorry.
Brianna said I needed to explain. She says she’s never seen me happier than I was in those few months with you.
Because, guess what? The girls knew. Somehow.
And I agree with her. The thing is Heather … You make me ….’
And he’s crying now. ‘You make me complete in a way no one ever has since Lucy. No one’s come even close.
And now I want to stop fighting it … this belief that letting people close leads to devastation, because I know it’s not true.
I know it’s not true for you, anyway. I was trying to protect myself and Brianna—’
‘Oh, Scott.’ Within seconds, she’s in his arms, and he’s kissing her cheeks, because that fear – she gets it.
They embrace for a while as the gulls sweep around their heads. Heather remembers the first time they ever met. Last September.
‘And you said I’d never make it,’ she says. ‘I seem to remember you saying there was a 85% chance of Georgia not finishing her freshman year, and an 79% chance of me being on anti-depressants by the spring.’
His eyes flit to his feet where a chance wave has carried up the shore and now laps around his ankles.
‘I said that, didn’t I?’
There’s a beat as they both consider the relationship they built over those short months. Scott picks up a thin stone and skims it over the water’s surface before returning to look at her.
‘There’s another statistic, you know, about people at this stage in their lives.’
Her heart hardens as she prepares for another unpalatable truth. Her own reduced life expectancy, perhaps? The chances of a womb prolapse by age fifty-three?
‘Yes. Statistically, we have a ten percent chance of making a second marriage work.’
She takes a step away from him, deflated, struggling to comprehend why he’d choose now to give her yet another damaging statistic, until she pulls her focus to his pronoun.
‘We? What do you mean “we”? As in you and me?’
‘Yes.’
Heather’s chest constricts around her thudding heart. ‘Are you serious? Is this your attempt at a proposal, Scott?’
‘What if it was?’
Her mouth slackens. ‘What if it was?’
The question swirls around the sea breeze and catches strands of hair that tickle against her skin. Could they do that? Could that be them? He takes a step towards her and tucks the errant lock of hair behind her ear.
‘I guess I’m asking if you’d be prepared to share a mattress topper with me.
For, like, ever. I know I’ve got stuff to work on, but I’m getting help.
I’ve met Leon six times now.’ He holds up his left hand and splays the fingers then brings the thumb of his right alongside.
‘Six. It’ll take time, but I know now that I’ll get there.
And I also know it’s you I want to be with throughout this and at the end of it all.
So will you, please, tell me you feel the same.
Because it’s you, Heather, it’s you from now on in. ’
His eyes drill into hers, a flicker of fear behind the intensity of his gaze.
‘Scott. Are you seriously asking me to – ?’
And suddenly, he’s down, kneeling in the water, his shins submerged with waves licking around his thighs.
‘Heather Alice McVey,’ he says, and he’s groping in his trousers and – he is, he’s pulling a box out of his pocket and opening it up and there, nestling on a bed of green velvet, is a solitaire diamond on a band of glorious platinum, and as it catches the light, little glistening shards of the setting sun are cast across his face – and she’s melting.
Into the sea. Into his arms. Because she’s here. She’s home. She’s safe and protected by someone she now knows will never, ever leave.
‘Buyer of mattress toppers, protector of everyone else, will you marry me?’
She places two hands on either side of his face and cups the cheeks she’s grown to love with an urgency she’s all but forgotten.
And they’re kissing, and the waves are breaking at their waists.
And suddenly, there are shouts and splashes, and they’re surrounded in the water by their fully grown daughters, who are screaming and hugging and kissing them and each other.
‘You said yes!’ Georgia shrieks.
The tears Heather had been unaware of until now, slide off her face as she nods. And the girls scream and start an embrace of their own.
‘We’re going to be sisters,’ Brianna yells into the horizon.
And it feels – not 75% – not 85% – but 100% perfect.