‘I promise you, I didn’t,’ Leo assured her. ‘He just wanted to try on a wetsuit so I let him.’
She looked about to lose her temper with Jonah but instead pulled him in tight and whispered into his hair. ‘You’re safe.’
‘Of course he is. I always keep him safe down here.’ She might be wary of the sea but Leo begrudged her thinking he’d ever let a boy come to harm.
Maeve pulled back from her son and directed her question at Leo. ‘This isn’t the first time?’
Oops. ‘I told him I needed to speak with you or he couldn’t come down again.’
‘Don’t be angry at Leo,’ Jonah begged. ‘He asked me to tell you and I didn’t.’
‘Take off the wetsuit, Jonah,’ Maeve ignored her son’s pleas. She looked as though she was barely holding it together and she’d pulled her sunglasses back down, perhaps so nobody would be able to see if she was crying.
‘I’m really sorry, Maeve,’ Leo tried again as Jonah wrestled the suit off better than he’d pulled it on, and slunk off to put it on the rack with the others. ‘I did ask him to contact his parents, his mum. He stalled.’
‘He’s good at that. It’s a tactic I’ve learnt to look out for.’ Her shoulders fell a little.
‘I didn’t really put two and two together when he first stopped by because I never knew you were back. I keepmyself busy, but Steve told me you were in the bay just today. Welcome home.’
He ran a hand across his jaw, unsure what to say to defuse the situation. ‘He’s a great kid.’
‘I know,’ her voice wobbled. ‘He’s my whole world.’
And although he wasn’t sure whether it was the right thing to do, Leo pulled her into a hug and felt her body relax against his as she sniffed away more tears.
Chapter Six
Nina
Walt was up and about before Nina and had been every morning since she’d arrived. She was staying with him for the time being, and then perhaps she’d go and stay at the cabin once most of the redecorating and cleaning up had been done. She loved his company and she was sure the feeling was mutual, but she never wanted to be an annoyance, so giving him some space might be nice all round. Staying at the cabin would also mean she was on site to show any potential buyers around when she listed the property for sale.
‘Everything all right, love?’ Walt asked when she finally surfaced and set about making herself some breakfast. ‘I hope you’re not wearing yourself out already.’
‘Of course I’m not.’ She dropped two piping-hot crumpets onto her plate ready to spread with butter. ‘I’m enjoying time off work to be honest. It’s been a while since I had a decent break and lie-ins seem to have become a habit already.’
He returned her smile. ‘The sea air is doing you good.’
She spread the second crumpet before popping the lid back on the butter. Grandad might think her sleeping in was all about the fresh air down on England’s south coast,but last night it had been more the tossing and turning and thinking about Leo since she’d bumped into him that had led to a lack of sleep during the night and therefore a bit of a catch-up in the morning. Being back here and seeing Leo after all this time had knocked her sideways in a way she’d perhaps known was coming, but had still taken her by surprise.
Walt sat down with a cuppa opposite Nina. She always felt as though she was about ten years old when she was here at his bungalow that had a sea view if you stood in the converted loft room and peered out of the very top left corner of the window. As a kid she’d loved to get a stool, climb up and see the sea. And now, at a modest five-foot-one, she could manage without the stool as long as she stood on her tiptoes. She’d looked last night, catapulted back in time when she caught a glimpse of the water. It reminded her so much of her childhood, being in the bay, at the cabin, here with her grandparents in their home. It brought back the good times, but also the sad times when she’d missed having a normal, intact family so much it hurt.
Nina’s mum and dad had split up when Nina was almost an adult. Despite all of that moving around together and wanting to give their kids a stable future by not dragging them here, there and everywhere, they hadn’t even lasted just the two of them. They’d made the announcement they were splitting up and each of them moved into separate houses with neither Nina nor William having any desire to go live with either of them. They were settled with Walt and Elsie, they had lives, they were no longer interested, especially if it meant choosing between parents. Nina and William had talked about it and neitherof them wanted the drama that could occur if they chose one parent over the other, and Walt and Elsie had agreed – besides, they loved having both of them around and hadn’t wanted them to move away. And Nina was glad she hadn’t back then. And true to form, her parents had got on with their lives – their dad stayed in the forces and went away for long periods of time, their mum turned her attention to new relationships that never seemed to last. And Walt and Elsie, well they stayed the same, and Nina was pretty happy about that.
As Nina ate her crumpets and Grandad flipped through the newspaper at the table, Nina’s eyes wandered over to a photograph of her with her gran. It was on the pinboard Grandad still had in the kitchen, the board that had been up for so many years Nina was surprised it was still hanging on by its hooks. Upon it were plenty of old pictures lingering along with postcards, little reminders, random bits of paper Nina wasn’t sure all needed to be there. In the photograph with Elsie, Nina was holding an orange glass jar with a screw-top lid that her gran had bought for her at a time when she was missing her mum and dad, when school became a struggle, when she didn’t feel good enough for anyone, when she had no idea of her place in the world. Grandma Elsie had told her that whenever she had a worry she should write it on a piece of paper, fold it up and slot it into the jar. Then when she screwed on the lid she would know she didn’t need to think about the problems inside. Instead she was supposed to set aside a time to worry about everything she’d written down. They’d adopted a pattern of doing it regularly at the start – Grandma Elsie would empty out the jar’s contents, some bits they’d throw away as the problemhad gone, other worries they talked about, and over time Nina found she needed the designated worry time a lot less and then eventually, not at all. But she’d kept the jar and its contents for a long while afterwards, adding in her worries whenever she needed to. Even though she didn’t necessarily go through them again after the worry went into the jar, she’d found the very act of writing down the things that bothered her therapeutic and like ridding herself of a weight she no longer needed.
One day Nina and Leo had been playing Jenga at her cabin and when it had been him who pulled out the block that caused the tower to come tumbling down he’d crawled under the bed to retrieve the few pieces of wood that had been scattered beneath and discovered her orange jar.
‘What’s this?’ Leo had asked, pulling out the orange screw-topped jar filled with little pieces of paper.
‘It’s nothing.’ She took it from his hands and ran to the kitchen, where she pushed it into the back of the cupboard.
‘Why won’t you tell me what it is?’ he’d asked, mouth downturned. She hated keeping a secret from him. She never usually did. They’d told one another everything back then.
‘If I tell you, you promise not to laugh?’
‘Promise.’ He held out a little finger for her to link with her own, their promise between friends.
She mumbled just loud enough for him to hear. ‘It’s a worry jar.’
