*
Aaron’s Mercedes is on the drive when we get home, and a fizz of excitement runs through me.
‘Call me when the Chinese is here,’ Becky says once we’re inside and she’s unlacing her Doc Martens and tugging them free. She jumps to her feet and bobs her head around the lounge door. ‘Hey, Aaron,’ she calls, raising her hand in a wave.
‘Hey, Becky,’ he says, waving back.
‘I’ll have beef and broccoli with boiled rice.’ She’s done her research online for the healthiest Chinese takeaway options, and always has the same thing.
She drops her boots and heads up the stairs. I bend to pick them up and stand them neatly on the shoe shelf.
I enter the lounge. Aaron is watching The One Show. He looks up, points the remote control at the TV, and presses pause.
‘Hey, beautiful,’ he says, rising and heading towards me, taking me into his arms. He’s showered – smells of Jimmy Choo. He’s worn it ever since I bought him a bottle at Christmas.
‘It’s so good to see you,’ I say, nuzzling into his shoulder, breathing him in. I suppose the only consolation of this difficult way of life is we never seem to get bored with each other. My heart still races when I see him, and he says his does too. I’m guessing if we’d seen each other every second of the last year, things might be different – more static, normal. But I guess I’ll never know. He suggested once that he could change careers, said he hated that we were apart so often, but I knew how much he loved his job – still does. It wouldn’t have been fair to ask him to throw it in for me.
‘It’s so good to see you too,’ he says, placing a kiss on my forehead, and releasing me. He sits back down, patting the seat next to him.
I grab my laptop, and as I lean back, opening it up, his arm falls loosely around my shoulders, and I feel safe. ‘I’d better order the Chinese,’ I say with a smile.
‘Pork in black bean sauce for me, please’ he says, pointing the remote control at the TV again and unfreezing Matt Baker, his smile dimpling his cheek as he glances at the menu with me.
An email notification appears in the corner of my laptop screen. I click on it. It’s from Willow, telling me her address in Cornwall – and a brief message:
I can’t wait to see you, Rose. I need you so much, Willow. X
2001
Ava screwed up her face and wiggled so the bridesmaid dress rustled. It was floor-length, yellow satin, like her daughter’s – although Willow looked like child-sized sunshine, and Ava most definitely did not.
But in seven weeks Gail was getting married to Rory, and Ava would be their bridesmaid.
‘I look stupid, Mum,’ Ava said, strutting around the lounge, bashing her leg on the coffee table, as her mum looked on. ‘This headdress would look better on our front door this Christmas.’
‘You look fine, Ava. Now stop with your whinging,’ Jeannette said, pinning her with a stare.
Ava pulled the fake floral headdress over her eyes. ‘Ah, I can’t see.’ She held out her arms like a zombie and took pigeon steps across the room. ‘I reckon Gail pinched this thing off a gravestone.’
‘Enough. Stop that stupid talk.’ Her mum reached up and straightened her daughter’s headdress. ‘Your sister wants you and Willow to look beautiful. Why would she go out of her way to make you look stupid on her wedding day?’ She took short, sharp strides away from Ava, retreating into the kitchen.
‘Because she hates me, that’s why.’ Ava had no doubt of that. ‘She’s only having me as her bridesmaid because you told her she had to, and Rory wants Willow as their flower girl.’
Her mother reappeared in the lounge, and folding her arms across her slim body, said, ‘She doesn’t hate you, Ava. She despairs of you, as we all do. There’s a difference. And this is Gail’s big day, not yours. So can you please stop thinking about yourself for once, and be happy for her?’
The words stung. Ava rarely thought about herself.
Ava followed her mum as she headed back into the small, impeccable kitchen. ‘I’m pleased for Gail, really I am,’ she said. It wasn’t true. She wasn’t pleased for her sister. The only plus she could see was that Gail had finally moved out of the cottage. It had taken a while for the move to happen, as Rory had had problems getting rid of his lodger, but now her sister had moved into Rory’s Edwardian detached in Newquay.
Gail and Ava had always shared the bigger room – neither wanting to sleep in their brother Peter’s old room when he left for Australia when he was eighteen. They both claimed it smelt funny. When Willow was born, the young women had fought over the limited space. Gail had never had any patience with Willow – said she wasn’t cut out to be an auntie and didn’t want kids herself. But now Gail had gone, and it was bliss for Willow and Ava to have the room to themselves.
‘Do you like Rory, Mum?’ Ava asked, taking two mugs from the cupboard. She wasn’t sure what she felt about her soon to be brother-in-law. He had the looks, the charm, but she’d seen him grip Gail’s arm a little too tightly on occasions, and the aggressive way he’d treated her in the arcade two years back when she’d bumped into him, still stayed in her mind. ‘You’re sure Gail’s making the right decision marrying him?
‘For Christ’s sake, stop, Ava.’ Her mum raised her hand. ‘Rory is handsome, intelligent, witty, well-off—’
‘Too good to be true?’
‘He’ll make your sister happy.’ She turned and shoved the kettle under the streaming tap. ‘Sometimes I think you’re jealous of Gail.’
‘Maybe I am,’ Ava whispered, out of her mother’s earshot. Gail was marrying a rich, handsome man, while Ava struggled to hold on to Willow’s father. Some days she felt as though she might lose her mind stuck in this isolated part of Cornwall, with no means of escape.
But she had her beautiful daughter. Willow made things right.
And while she didn’t have many friends, she drew comfort from being close to the sea. From her bedroom window she would watch the tides rise and fall, and could be on the beach within moments; smell the salty air, feel sand between her toes. It kept her sane. Gave her hope. Hope that one day everything would be different. One day she would give her daughter a perfect life – the life she’d never had.
She looked down at the yellow dress once more. ‘Right,’ she said, putting the mug back in the cupboard, deciding she didn’t want a hot drink. ‘I’m getting out of this.’
She climbed the stairs, unzipping the dress as she went, and once in her room, she pushed it from her shoulders, letting it drop in a heap around her ankles. She stepped from it, and grabbed her robe, and pulled it on over her bra and pants, and flopped onto her bed wishing she was a million miles from away.
‘I’m heading out, Ava,’ her mum called up the stairs later. ‘Do you need anything from the shop?’
‘No, thanks,’ she called back.
The door slammed shut, and a cry came from the bed in the corner of the room. Willow was stirring.
As Ava padded over to her, she glanced out of the window to see her mum, wrapped in her winter coat, hurrying down the uneven road towards the local shop – her head down. She always avoided eye contact