Sunday October 5th 2025
Am just going to copy out Charlie’s little list in here. It’s fairly self-explanatory. Though might add some notes of my own.
Did not steal her hairstyle. Cutting in a fringe during a midlife crisis is a classic move, and she doesn’t own being brunette.
Did do the other stuff, though. So…should probably just let her have the hair thing.
Immediately give up stolen job as comanager of the farm shop
Knew this was coming. Obviously cannot object. And actually, as much as I love the farm shop, I miss midwifery, and this island is failing its women, IMO. Red belongs here, she wants to be here, and what, she has to leave because she’s pregnant? That’s crap.
This is the push I need to speak to Doc Laurry and make a case for bringing a midwife onto the medical team, which is currently made up of 1) Doc Laurry, 2) Rog (occasional tractor-ambulance driver), 3) Baptiste (resourceful vet, “can do humans at a push”).
Problem is, am no longer sure he or the island will ever want me. In fact, am fairly confident the Ormer gossip mill will be working overtime right now, spreading the word that I’m a lying fraudster.
A huge part of me wants to flee. Head back to the mainland, give up on the dream I’ve found here, hide from the shame of it all. That’s what I would have done, once.
But Ormer is my home now. And I don’t want to go.
How can I stay, though? When everyone hates me? Don’t know how I’ll survive the barn dance tonight, let alone try to build a life here after what I’ve done.
But I want to do it. I’m going to do it.
I’ve screwed up, I’ve done everything wrong, but am a tiny bit proud of myself nonetheless.
Lend Charlie Jones (original, one and only) a pair of hiking boots
Somewhat surprised by this one. As tense as things are between me and Charlie, I actually quite like her, you know—she’s quirky in a way that reminds me (no surprise here) of Rosie.
She also has the wounded life-has-been-hard-on-me energy that always makes me interested in someone.
All the best people are a bit screwed up, right?
The happy untraumatized tell terrible anecdotes, in my experience.
But didn’t think we were yet at sharing-clothes status. Am fairly sure she strongly dislikes me. When I looked surprised at the shoe request, she just said: “You’ve been wearing my shoes for two months. Metaphorically. And you look like a size five.”
Was expecting her to come to the barn dance, but Rosie shook her head when Marly suggested it. We were gathered around the fire in the farmhouse living room, everyone on their fifth or sixth cup of tea (though Marly has me on decaf, for obvious reasons. Sigh).
“There’s plenty of time for meeting everyone, but not today, right?” Rosie said to Charlie.
Charlie’s eyes were swollen from crying and her cat-eye eyeliner was all smudged.
“Not today. I came here for you,” Charlie said to Rosie, “but he—”
“Came here for you,” Berty and Rosie said together.
“We have a lot to talk about,” Charlie said. “We’d like to explore the island a bit—all the places we would talk about when we used to dream of the day we’d move here. Berty’s determined to get to Pouque Rock today.”
Oliver and I exchanged a quick glance, like, Are you telling her about high tide, or am I?
“Shh,” Marly whispered, catching our shared look. On our confused expressions, she jerked her head toward the kitchen. “More biscuits needed! You two?” she barked at us.
We dutifully followed her. We shared another tentative glance—by this point in the day we’d been doing a lot of glancing, not a lot of talking.
Back to how we’d begun. But where else were we meant to start?
I was just about surviving the fact that everyone on this island hates me right now, but when I thought that Oliver might hate me…
“Don’t you dare mention about high tide at the Rock,” Marly said, clattering around in search of biscuits. “Sunset, stranded on Pouque together…it’s perfect.”
“Perfect for what?” Oliver asked her.
Marly rolled her eyes, exasperated. “Berty’s going to re-propose, isn’t he? Come on.”
Oliver looked at me, testing how I felt about that, maybe. Was a little surprised to discover that I was genuinely happy for them. With a bit of space and distance, it was easier to see that Berty wasn’t a bad guy. He just wasn’t my guy.
“Wouldn’t they be better off at the viewpoint?” Oliver said to Marly. “Being stranded together in the sea sounds romantic but is actually just quite inconvenient, surely?”
“Do not interfere. Don’t you think you’ve got in the way of those two enough?” Marly said.
At some point midafternoon, Marly’s anger had melted into a sort of mock irritation—I’d guess she was approximately ten percent mad at us, ninety percent over it, but still planned to make us suffer.
“I resent that,” Oliver said.
“The way I understand it, they’re star-crossed childhood sweethearts and you’re…the fling?”
Oliver just looked amused by this. Smiling without smiling, that way he does, all crinkling eyes. I had to look away, staring blindly at the Aga stove.
“You know me, Marly. You must know I would be a terrible fling,” he said.
“True. Way too intense. But you!” Marly turned on me. She was enjoying herself now. “You were definitely the fling.”
“I was not!” I said. “What is it about me that says fling, exactly?”
“You’re too hot to be anything else,” Marly said, almost kindly.
“You don’t say fling to me,” Oliver said.
Think it was the first sentence he’d uttered directly my way since we were in the trailer.
It made me want to cry again. I longed to step into his arms for a hug, and just breathe him in, the man I knew, not the stranger called Oliver.
His eyes were soft and full of meaning, but I didn’t know what the meaning was.
We needed to talk, but every time either of us made a move to leave the farmhouse—either alone or together—Marly would say, “Ah-ah, nope, no sneaking off.” Couldn’t tell if she was just enjoying torturing us or wanted to make sure we didn’t flee the island before the barn dance we were supposed to be running this evening.
“Well, you two are the exes, anyway,” Marly said. “The baddies. The villains.”
“What is it people say?” Oliver said. “Everyone is the villain in someone else’s story.”
“Oh no,” I said, horrified. When most of your life has been dedicated to impressing everyone you’ve ever met, this is a pretty foundation-shifting thought.
Marly patted us both on the arms. “Better make sure you’re the hero in your own, eh?”
Save a dance for Oliver
The final and most surprising task of all. Can’t decide if Charlie attempting to matchmake me and Oliver is patronizing (“Here, have my ex!”) or incredibly big of her.
Either way, I didn’t need telling to save a dance for Oliver. I owe him an explanation, and not just about my name.
All the truth-telling today has been excruciating, but it’s felt freeing, too.
When I arrived here, I committed to singlehood because I knew if I dated, I’d relinquish control of my journey to motherhood to yet another guy.
Losing my dad should have been the moment when I realized how short life can be, that I shouldn’t waste another minute, but it wasn’t.
Too painful to teach me anything, maybe—too overwhelming, what with learning about his addiction, his life in LA, the parts of him I’d never been allowed to see.
It took falling out with my mum, and the shock of realizing Berty didn’t want a child, for me to realize how much of my life had been about other people’s approval.
I had to do this by myself, for myself.
But if I’m really ready to become a mother alone, then I should be able to tell Oliver the truth as simple fact, not a question or expectation, as it’s always been with men before.
Should be able to say, I want to get pregnant within the next year, without any part of me waiting for him to allow it, withhold it or judge me for it.
And I think I can—I think I’m ready. Standing there on the harbor telling the truth about my name made me realize I’m so much stronger than I used to be.
And clocking that Oliver probably doesn’t want a kid has kind of made it easier, too. I need to let him go—properly.
I know what I want. I want to be a mother, and nobody’s judgments or opinions are going to stop me following that path on the timeline I’ve chosen.
I suspect everyone, Oliver included, thinks the two of us need to talk about our real names, but honestly, I’m not sure I even care what he calls himself.
Throughout the day today it’s become so obvious that he’s still him.
He’s no different now that he’s Oliver to me instead of Jones.
He’s still the first man ever to challenge me to be myself—to want me to be.
Still the first man ever to hear that I’m afraid and rename that a kind of bravery.
Still the first man to make me wild enough to kiss him in the pouring rain when every logical part of me said I shouldn’t.
I know he hoped there was a future for us, once. Maybe knowing I’m called Aspen changes that for him, but for me, there is only one reason I can’t give Oliver my heart, no matter how much I want to.
Off to the barn dance now. Here’s to telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but.
And also…mastering line dancing.