‘What do you think?’ he asked when her eyes rolled heavenward at the first bite.
‘How have I never tried this before? It’s top-quality comfort food.’
‘So you like my cooking?’
She covered her mouth as she laughed. ‘I thinkcookingmight be dressing it up a little.’
‘Hey, don’t knock it. I’m not bad in the kitchen as it happens. Sometimes it’s hard to bother cooking for one but I’ve enjoyed making meals for me and Dad.’
She finished her mouthful, another piece poised between her fingers. ‘When Mum was alive, cooking for two was something I did without thinking. It’s crazy that it doesn’t take long to stop thinking that way and for one seems like too much effort when it shouldn’t. You’re going through the same motions, only with less food.’
As they ate, they talked about the food at the Bookshop Café, the way Sebastian and Belle seemed to be running the place with practised ease already.
‘Not always a good idea to be in business with another half,’ he said, ‘but they seem to be making it work.’
‘I once did a temping job – before I got into journalism.’ She licked her fingers to get a chunk of pickle that had escaped from the piece she was eating. ‘I was a typist somewhere way out in the country, middle of nowhere. I had to type up seed orders.’
‘Sounds riveting.’
‘It was not. And the husband-and-wife team arguedallthe time. With me there too. They yelled at each other, hurled accusations. I lasted a week before I was out of there.’
He put the empty plate out of the way and when Morgan urged him to carry on with what he was doing again and showed no desire to leave, he continued with the firewood box. He used glue and nails to assemble the piece and Morgan divided her time between watching him and making sure Branston wasn’t neglected.
‘What’s next?’ she asked when the box looked pretty much finished.
‘Now it needs to dry properly. Not sure if it needs staining. The wood is pretty nice as it is but maybe a light coating to protect it.’
She leaned against the workbench, her fingers finding the coil of rope. ‘What happened with the swing? You said you were going to make it but your mum deteriorated.’ She looked at him then. ‘I’m sorry, tell me to mind my own business if you like.’
He leaned against the workbench next to her. ‘Mum was suffering more and more. Every day, movement was getting harder for her and her tremors were worsening. I stopped making the swing because I wanted to make something for her instead.’ His voice caught. ‘But then she died.’
‘I’m sorry, I—’
When she went to step away, he put a hand on her arm and gently pulled her back next to him at the workbench. ‘I don’t really talk about it with anyone other than Dad.’
‘Try me; I’m not a bad listener.’
He appreciated having someone here, someone who’d experienced a similar loss all too recently. ‘A part of me shut down when Mum died.’
After a while, she said, ‘I think a part of any kid closes off when a parent dies. A parent is a part of you – or you’re a part of them at least – and then all of a sudden, you’re disconnected from an existence that up until that point, had always been the way it was. It was all you’d ever known.’
He hesitated but having her at his side, being back in the workshop and finally working through the emotions he thought he’d left behind, he admitted, ‘I felt guilty for a long time. It’s only recently, since coming back in here that I’ve started to let those feelings go.’
‘Why did you feel guilty?’
He had to wind back a bit to explain. ‘Mum had Parkinson’s. It took years to reach a point where she needed extra care and she got that living with Dad and then when I moved back in. We were fine taking care of her – I mean, we knew we might not be in the years to come, but we were taking it one step at a time. Her balance was affected – she lost her footing easily which frustrated her and the mental drain was a battle for her as much as anything else.’
‘Go on,’ Morgan encouraged when he faltered, disappearing into his own head for a bit.
‘We’d reached a point, Dad and I, where we knew she shouldn’t be left on her own for too long. She didn’t want to admit it, but she had declined enough that we could see it was risky. She refused to be moved to a room downstairs; she wanted her bedroom the way it had always been. She was stubborn.’ His frown deepened. ‘When someone needs you so much, you’d do anything to make them happy. Dad and I said we’d carry on as we were for a while. She never wanted to talk about it: what would happen when she really couldn’t manage. We helped her up and down the stairs, Dad helped her shower, going out in the garden was something to do with one of us.’
‘It sounds really tough.’
‘It was. But I’d do it all over again if I had to.’
‘Me too.’
‘Mum had this overwhelming anxiety; she’d cling onto my arm and on those days, I’d stay with her no matter whether I had a job. Some days, she wanted to stay in bed, other days in front of the television. Sometimes, I’d get her a chair and she’d come watch me in here.’
