“Hi, Mara,” says a voice, and I turn to wave at Sanka, who is outside the video store smoking a proper cigarette.
“Don’t forget to vote today!” I say, waving back at him.
He gives me a lazy thumbs-up, and Charlie and I cross the zebra crossing and head onto the pebbled beach and across to the little café. I glance down the bay and have a flash of Ash pulling me out of the pub by the hand, and I smile and blush.
“Mara!” a voice booms, and it’s Ryan in his red lifeguard shorts waving from the sea, clutching his wakeboard.
“Jesus, do you know everyone?” Charlie says, looking at Ryan with the kind of thirst I haven’t seen since our London days.
“He’s hot, but he doesn’t know what an encyclopedia is.”
“Even better,” says Charlie, and I laugh, releasing some of the tension as I do. “You’ve really settled in here.”
“Yeah, it’s a great place, really. And many of the residents are under sixty,” I say.
We push into the café, and I get a knowing nod from Chrissie. As Charlie lowers herself into the chair, I see the bump, and the edge of her maternity jeans. Is she going to mention it? It’s just getting weird now—I first suspected she was pregnant two months ago. I hear my phone ping with a message.
“I better just check this,” I say. “It’s Election Day today, and my team are doing an exit poll by the church. I’m supposed to be there in an hour, actually, but don’t worry. I can be late. “
I feel bad saying it because she’s come all the way down here, but my priority today is to get through the voting. My mind wanders to the massive to-do list I have on the kitchen countertop, and I fret slightly. What a time for us to try to talk this out.
My phone shows a missed call from Charlie from yesterday, and I cringe slightly when I see it. There are WhatsApp messages on our Election group chat and one from Ash.
I hope you guys are okay. xA
I look up at Charlie and slide my phone into my pocket as we order a coffee and a tea.
“I’m really so sorry, Mara,” she says, stirring the coffee with her teaspoon. “There’s been so much going on and it’s hard to talk about with friends who don’t have kids. I feel like a bore.”
“It’s okay, Charlie,” I say, looking at her, offering up my best, warmest smile. “It’s not like I’m going to offer the best advice on leaking boobs.”
She laughs and then looks out the window, her face hardened.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” she says, putting both her hands on the table as if she’s summoning the courage.
“Okay, but, Charlie, I can see that you’re pregnant, honey. Unless you have like a giant cyst or something...”
“Gross,” she says. “No. I am pregnant, of course, but there’s more to it.”
She shuffles in her seat, stopping to touch her bump as she does, and then she says, “I’ve really struggled with Sophie, Mara. Like really. I wasn’t exactly happy to be pregnant again. I’m sort of dreading it. I’ve been seeing a doctor about it.”
“Oh, Charlie,” I say, cringing in horror at how I’d been that day with her.
“I didn’t tell you before the trip to Budapest because all I could imagine was being in the city with you, wandering around, unable to drink, feeling like absolute shit. Just so tired. And so conflicted about all of it.”
“I wouldn’t have minded,” I say, wondering, as I say it, if that is absolutely true. “Well, I might have minded a little,” I say lightly.
“But then it felt like every time I tried to get in touch with you, you were busy or away up north or in Vienna, and that’s not like you, and I realized we’d split apart somehow. I owe you an explanation.”
“It’s okay,” I say, reaching across the table, holding her hands. “How are you feeling now about it?”
She looks up at me and smiles weakly. “We had the twenty-week scan and everything changed for me. I just saw it and I was like,yes, girl, you can do this again.” She cannot hide the love as she says it. “It’s a boy.”
“I’m so happy that you’re happy,” I say, and I mean it. “And I’m so sorry I’m not more there for your journey to be a mum. I think about it all the time. It feels so unfair that we can’t share the journey together. I don’t want to sound dramatic, but sometimes it feels like I’m grieving and you’re not.”
Charlie smiles at this. “Believe me, there is a lot to mourn for when you become a mother. A lot of it is amazing, but how I long for those days with us together in that little flat.”
“So do I,” I say, feeling a little tear in my eye.
