‘Come on, Jaimie. It really is time to go.’ And she’d have to be firm; he was pushing the boundaries, something her sister was always referring to when it came to the kids. It was times like this that Morgan really understood what that phrase meant.
But the little boy had no intention of listening and had already dropped another stick. He turned to dash across the other side of the road without her say-so at the very moment Jeremy’s ruby-red Robin Reliant reached the top of the bridge.
Morgan’s reflexes were good enough that she grabbed Jaimie by the hood of his bodywarmer just in time. Jeremy had slowed and gave her a wave, which sent his car across the wrong side of the road before he righted it again.
Morgan pulled Jaimie against her. ‘Are you all right?’ She released him and looked at his face to make sure he was still in one piece, as though she couldn’t believe it otherwise.
‘I’m fine, Auntie Morgan.’
‘Don’t do that to me again.’ She exhaled hard, pulling him into another hug before looking him in the eye. ‘You have to think every time you cross a road. Stop. Look. Listen.’ Those words were drummed into every kid. And you never forgot them. Unless you were over-excited like Jaimie clearly was. He’d had a fun time down here with some freedom, and sensibility had gone out of the window.
‘I’m sorry.’ His bottom lip wobbled.
She touched his nose gently with a finger. ‘You’re in one piece. I want you to stay that way so I can watch you climb those trees in the woods again and play more games of Poohsticks. Promise me you’ll do that.’
‘Yes, Auntie Morgan.’ He giggled when she cuddled him again overly tight and lifted him off the ground.
‘Do you know that crazy man?’ Jaimie asked her when she put him down. ‘The man in the funny car.’
‘He’s not crazy,’ she admonished and under her breath added something about it being time he surrendered his driver’s licence. His attention to his surroundings was questionable at best and taking a hand off the wheel to wave was something she hoped he didn’t do too often. ‘That was Jeremy. You’ve met him before.’
‘At the wake-up?’
‘The wake,’ she corrected and chucked him under the chin before, hand in hand, they started to walk back over the bridge.
The wake: the final part of her mother’s farewell. When she’d floated through the day on autopilot and barely remembered much at all, soon realising that when someone died, normal life carried on. Morgan hadn’t really appreciated what that would be like. The seasons came and went even when you lost someone. Elaina had died on Valentine’s Day, when the snowdrops were out in abundance around Sebastian’s cottage. Not long afterwards, the first heads of daffodils had emerged and sighed against a breeze and everywhere you looked in the village, it was gradually coming to life again, green and colourful, the air fresh with the scent of new blooms once spring came along. Life didn’t pause when you were up against it; the wheels kept on turning. There were fathers who could’ve been better, children who needed teaching about road safety, there were strangers who’d never heard of Poohsticks, a nephew who loved his auntie, a sister who seemed to be holding onto much more than she was telling Morgan.
‘Make sure you take your muddy shoes off at Grandma’s house,’ Jaimie instructed as they walked, him doing a little jump every now and then as though this still wasn’t enough activity for him.
Morgan looked down at her ankle boots, which had a good coating of mud on the edges. It must’ve come from Snowdrop Woods, where she’d taken Jaimie first so he could climb trees. It was a kids’ paradise in there; he’d loved every second and run off some of his never-ending energy, although clearly not enough as he was still wired. Perhaps that was what kids his age were like. Morgan had no idea.
‘I promise I will take my shoes off,’ she assured her nephew.
‘Grandma never let us keep our shoes on,’ he continued, as though needing to prove his point. ‘Lily did sometimes but I always told her not to.’ It was clear that with his fifth birthday looming, he had already assumed the hierarchy of age and taken on responsibility for ensuring his younger sibling did things the right way. It had been similar for Morgan. With Tegan being the eldest, she’d always thought she was in charge.
Morgan tried to scrape off some of the mud from the edge of her shoe on the grass nearby. It felt like such a shallow thing to be doing, worrying that her shoes were dirty, that she might bring mud into the house, when they’d lost her mother. But at the same time, as the sun ducked behind the clouds and made her shiver, she felt a warm sensation inside her because had Elaina been with them today, it would’ve been her mum’s exact concern too. Jamie had nailed it.
They headed back towards the high street and crossed the road to cut across the green which sloped up towards the Rose and Thatch as well as the odd bench dotted at the top of the grass. Elaina Reese had made her home in Forget-Me-Not Cottage. There were a few enormous houses on the same side of the street as well as the smaller, quaint, chocolate-box cottages like Elaina’s. With period features and a courtyard garden, Forget-Me-Not Cottage had three bedrooms, each of modest size, and an inglenook fireplace that seemed almost too big in proportion to everything else. There was no porch above the front step, so both Morgan and Jaimie took off their shoes and left them on the mat inside the front door.
‘Did you have a good time?’ Tegan held her arms open for her son as he raced down the hallway to give her a hug. She looked less tired and less stressed than she had earlier. Perhaps the tea, some toast and the rest while her daughter slept and her son was otherwise engaged had been the best remedy.
Jaimie talked at a hundred miles an hour about the woods, the games of Poohsticks, the almost getting run over. The last one had her sister’s eyebrows raised.
‘He’s exaggerating,’ Morgan assured Tegan. Although she hated to think what might have happened had she not grabbed his hood. ‘Promise,’ she added to her sister’s stern expression.
Tegan unrolled Jaimie’s car mat in the lounge in front of the fireplace. She had the same dark hair as Morgan, but whereas Morgan’s flowed freely in loose waves, Tegan had hers tied back in a ponytail at the nape of her neck.
Jaimie sank down on the floor with his bottom on his heels and began raiding the box of cars. Lily was still asleep upstairs and over a mug of tea each, the sisters got on with some of the admin they had to get through.
Once they’d made good progress, Morgan’s tummy rumbled so much, she couldn’t put lunch off any longer. ‘Let me get the food ready,’ she suggested. Jaimie had already come through twice and Tegan had managed to placate him by giving him a slice of bread the first time and a small packet of ham, cheese and crackers the second. ‘If it’s all set up, it doesn’t matter when Lily wakes up or when Jaimie gets hungry, as it’ll all be waiting for them. It’s a help-yourself cold lunch, I hope that’s okay?’
‘Of course it is.’
‘Thanks for driving down, Tegan.’
‘You don’t need to thank me. I always intended to be here to help; it’s just challenging to get away.’
‘I know.’
