There was a pressure in her throat and she held him close. “I know you do. I can see that. And she loves you right back. And I’m glad.” And she was glad. She cleared her throat and stepped back, retrieving her coffee from the side.
“I wasn’t expecting it to happen. Wasn’t expecting to meet anyone. To fall in love. I’ve been careful since—” He broke off and she nodded.
“I know. I was worried you might be a little too careful and miss out.”
He took his coffee to the table and sat down, legs outstretched. “She’s brave. Every single person in her life has let her down, but for some reason she has chosen to trust me.”
“She’s obviously a good judge of character.”
And a lucky woman.
Did every mother think that? Yes, probably, but in this case she knew it to be true.
He rubbed his finger over a dent in the table.
She thought of all the times she’d seen him sitting in that exact spot. As a toddler, chomping on fingers of toast. As a teenager, doing his homework. A medical student, studying for his finals.
That table had witnessed all the different stages of their family life.
She felt a wave of nostalgia but pushed it away.
Instead of feeling sad for the years that had passed, you hadto be excited for the years that hopefully lay ahead. You had to keep moving forward.
She pushed aside the emotion and kept the conversation factual. “Will you stay in Edinburgh?”
“Yes. I’ve turned our spare bedroom into a studio/office for her so she can work from there.”
“She won’t mind being in one place?”
“No. It’s what she wants. Her choice.” He smiled and finished his coffee. “We’ll stay in my apartment for now and then maybe move to something bigger at some point. We’d love a garden. We both want a dog, and that should work as Hayley will be able to work from home.”
She imagined the two of them planning together, whispering into the night as they plotted out their future and she remembered that she and Martin had done the same when they were first married.
They’d expected life to accommodate their plans, and for the most part they’d been lucky.
By the time she was Jamie’s age she’d already had three children. She’d looked at her parents and been unable to imagine ever being that age, and now here she was—close to the age they’d been back then. Was it strange that on the inside she felt no more than her thirtysomething self? She’d aged on the outside, but not on the inside.
Occasionally she felt a twinge of anxiety about growing older and the challenges that might bring, but then she remembered all the patients she’d cared for whose lives had been cut short, people whose life plans had been dented or decimated, and it reminded her to feel grateful that she was still here.
Occasionally you had to ignore the thoughts in your head or at least refuse to engage with them. It was like having biscuits in the house. Just because they were there didn’t mean you had to eat them. Unpleasant thoughts were the same.They could be there, but you could choose to ignore them. Instead she focused on enjoying the things that made her happy. Seeing family, cooking, walking Percy on the beach, chatting with friends, and reading. Some people might have considered those to be small things, but Jenny knew they were the big things.
And right now her focus was on enjoying this family Christmas, in whatever shape her family presented itself.
“Have you had a chance to have a proper catch up with your sisters?” She asked the question casually, feeling guilty for trying to extract information about his siblings.
“Which one in particular are you worried about?”
She sighed. He knew her as well as she knew him. “Both of them. Did you know about Becky and Will?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean anything. Haven’t seen either of them in a while. We’re at opposite ends of the country and our paths haven’t collided. But it makes sense.”
Did it? She wanted to ask if he thought the whole thing was a pretence, but she decided that wouldn’t be wise. “You think it’s serious?”
“I’m sure it is. There is no way they would have announced it if not. You know what Becky is like. I always thought they’d be good together. Wasn’t sure they’d ever see it themselves though. Neither of them seemed able to look beyond friendship. You must be pleased—” He stood up and grabbed the tin where she’d stored the mince pies. “You always used to say that Will spent so much time here when we were kids that he felt like another member of the family.”
“Yes.” She had said that. And now she didn’t know what to think.
She’d been so sure that Will and Becky had been faking their relationship, but watching them on the dance floor the night before she’d almost revised her opinion.
