‘A glazed doughnut please, you’ve no idea how much I’ve missed those.’ Molly and Arthur had always done such wonderful doughnuts and Jo’s were likely to be equally as good.
‘Coming right up.’ Maeve seemed just as pleased to see Nina as Nina was to see her.
Nina’s first bite of the doughnut brought back the memories of sitting in here many a day after school, a hot chocolate or a coffee along with a doughnut, plain glaze or with sprinkles added. And the sweet treat now, after all these years, still made her tastebuds dance with every bite.
When the rush of customers eased, Maeve wiped down the table that was vacated next to Nina and with one eye on the door for anyone else coming in they caught up, told one another a bit about their lives since they’d left the bay. Maeve told her all about the cold in Canada, how she’d loved the feel of an exciting new city to live, buthow her parents had missed Salthaven and the bay and her auntie’s call had come at the right time. She told Nina that her parents had also, bizarrely, managed to buy back their old house.
‘Obviously meant to be,’ said Nina, looking out of the window as the sun went in and ominous clouds began to gather. The rain wouldn’t be too far away. She wrapped her hands around the mug of tea Maeve had made her and looked across at her friend. She wondered why Maeve hadn’t mentioned Jonah’s father as they talked. Was he even in the picture? Was he still in Canada and missing out on being a dad now they’d left?
‘We’ve both been away for so long,’ Maeve sighed as though the weight of it all was still on her shoulders.
Nina nodded. ‘Twelve years. And I still occasionally dream about that night.’
‘Me too. Why do you think I’m so scared to let Jonah in the sea?’
‘I would be too. Whenever the weather clouds over, whenever a storm rolls in, no matter whether its close by or the other end of the country, it reminds me of that night and I breathe a sigh of relief when it’s over.’
‘Leo says he’ll keep Jonah safe at the boathouse if I let him go down there.’ She briefly explained how unbeknownst to her her son had found something to occupy himself after school. ‘He sounds as though he loves it there, he helps out too.’
Nina’s heart lifted at the mention of the kindness from Leo, the man who had once been the love of her life and who would make an amazing father one day. Already with Jonah it sounded as though he was getting some practice in. ‘Leo wouldn’t let anything happen to Jonah.’
‘He’d be careful, I know,’ Maeve nodded. ‘But I’m not ready yet.’
‘So don’t rush, take it slowly.’ She knew it was hard, she hadn’t wanted to go back in the sea for a long time after that night and she only had herself to worry about. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like to have the responsibility of a child, especially given what they’d all witnessed.
‘That’s one of the reasons I left, you know,’ Maeve said absently as her gaze drifted to the window. ‘This town, Stepping Stone Bay, both are beautiful. But every time I looked at the sea and its beauty I was reminded of its cruelty and how it took someone from us.’ Her voice caught and it was a few beats before she said, ‘I didn’t know Rhianne as well as you and the others, but it still got to me. I still wonder how it could’ve happened. Should one of us have noticed she’d gone overboard before we actually did? Would it have made any difference?’
‘It’s always easy to ask those sorts of questions.’
‘Not so easy to answer them though.’
Nina sighed. ‘No, it really isn’t. I bet Adrian asks himself whether he could’ve swum harder and found her.’
‘He did his best. The water was treacherous that night; there was no way, she was found quite a distance from our boat, as the current had taken her.’
Nina shook her head, closed her eyes. ‘Out of everyone, the tragedy had to have affected him the most, it was his boat, he’d jumped in the water and couldn’t find her. I can’t imagine what that would’ve felt like for him.’ She’d been too busy trying to fathom her own feelings, her own need to get far, far away from everything.
‘He should never blame himself.’
‘No, he shouldn’t.’ And just like that, as though bothof them had needed to for a really long time, they finally talked about that night. Nina hadn’t discussed it with anyone, not in detail, and yet here they were in a local café after all this time recounting the night that had haunted them both ever since, the process surprisingly cathartic.
Nina and Maeve both recalled Rhianne making a huge fuss about wearing a buoyancy vest. ‘She said the colour didn’t match her top.’ Nina smiled now in the confines of the café with Maeve. ‘She made me laugh, you know what she was like about fashion, she always liked to look her best. I’d always ask her opinion on clothes if we were going out, her advice on an outfit if I was unsure. Anyway, I told the boys she had a point when she said the orange clashed against the red, but I stopped laughing when Adrian clearly didn’t find any of it funny.’
‘I don’t remember him being annoyed.’
‘He wasn’t annoyed so much as frustrated. Understandable, he was skipper, safety was his priority. Rhianne was out for fun, she thought it was a bit of a laugh talking colour schemes.’
‘She was a bit drunk, but then we all were. I remember someone making a joke that we were at a party and we weren’t exactly white water rafting.’
Nina didn’t remember that. ‘Like I said, it might have been a party, but safety was his main concern.’
‘Rhianne seemed like she was a lot of fun,’ said Maeve, ‘but I didn’t know her all that well.’
‘She was what I’d call high-spirited, she’d always see the best in a situation, I’ll give her that. She never took life too seriously and I often wished I was a bit more like her rather than worrying about things all the time.’ She pulleda face. ‘Do you remember her laughing as she walked the narrow edge of the boat from the deck at the front around to the cockpit at the back? She made it look so easy, but none of us dared to try.’
‘I would’ve fallen in for sure.’ Maeve’s smile turned to a frown. ‘I’ve never forgotten the fear in Leo’s voice as he came from the helm where Adrian stood to tell us all that a storm was rolling in from nowhere.’
‘Me neither.’
