“What’s wrong?” He immediately puts the Cor aside and comes to sofa.
“Give me your hand.” I shuffle closer to him, unable to stop myself, needing someone else to share this with.
“What?”
I take the hand he offers me and place it on my stomach. “Wait.”
It comes again.
“There can you feel this?”
“What…oh, what is it? It feels like…like a ripple.”
“It’s the baby moving.” I’m laughing, but tears are streaming down my face.
“Thepomegranate?” He leans over and wraps his other arm around me in tight, side-hug.
He keeps his hand on my stomach. We wait for the baby to move again, and when it doesn’t, he plays more music because we think it’s what made it happen. All evening, he plays me several wonderful melodies and my baby makes a few more movements, and every time, Brandon feels it with me.
It’s only when I wake up the next morning that I feel the anger.
For the first time in five months, I’m angry.
Where is Clive? Why the hell isn’t he here?
I’m angry at myself for making the sacrifice. For putting myself and my baby second.
Chapter Twenty-six
Brandon
Lessa always said the UK elections would signal her leaving date. It’s the middle of February, much earlier than I ever expected, but the UK elections have been and gone a few days ago. I know the exact day because Lessa stayed up all night watching the results come in. So, what now?
She tells me nothing; after two days of being glued to her laptop watching the news, she finally comes out the back door where I’ve been repairing the patio in time for spring. She has that look I’ve learnt to recognise as the birth of a new idea.
“It’s a nice suntrap at the back,” she says. “A great place to catch the sunset, too.”
“And…?” I wait to hear the rest of her idea, because that gleam in her eyes isn’t just about the sunset.
“You know these climbing roses you cut right down to nothing?” She points to the three short stumps left after my drastic pruning yesterday. “Didn’t you say when spring hits, they’ll shoot up in a frenzy of growth?”
Her wording makes me laugh. “I didn’t quite put it like that, but yes. That’s what every gardening book says. Except that I might have made a mistake uprooting the dead apple tree behind them because now they’ll have nothing to climb on, so they’ll just flop along the ground.”
Her face brightens. Here we go, she’s about to tell me her new idea.
“If you build an arch, they can climb that. Over the swing.”
“Swing?”
“Yes, the one you’re going to buy and put here? a wonderful place to sit on a warm evening and watch the sunset over the sea. With the roses framing the whole thing like a beautiful nook.”
“Aren’t you the romantic underneath all the politics.” As soon as the words are out, I wish I could call them back. The last thing we need is reminder of politics.
Lessa doesn’t react, maybe she doesn’t need reminding because she never forgets the politics. “You can order the swing online.” She holds out her phone, and I stand up to look. The screen already shows a shopping page.
“I thought one like this.”
“Lessa?”
