‘I don’t really know what to say,’ she told the nurse.
‘Some people talk about the weather; others start spilling their deepest, darkest secrets.’ The nurse’s forehead rose up and down suggestively before she added, ‘You’ll think of something.’
She started talking about Anchor Island. He’d been hellbent on resisting her business success and too preoccupied with jealousy to ever come and visit and see what it might be like.
‘It’s so windy on some days,’ she shared with him as she wittered on. ‘It’s still beautiful, don’t get me wrong, but when that wind whips up it’s not so pleasant. I don’t like going out on the balcony, I think I’m going to get blown away. Do you remember the terrible storms when we were little and on holiday in Brighton, how we begged Mum and Dad to take us closer to the beach so we could see the sea?’
Before she could go on, she watched his mouth open slightly and out came a murmur. ‘Waves,’ he said.
‘Yes!’ A tear pooled in the corner of her eye. He had heard her after all. ‘Enormous waves! Oh, they were so big, weren’t they, Harry?’ She felt like she was that little girl again, him that little boy, that none of their conflict had ever happened, like this was all that mattered now. ‘As tall as skyscrapers, we reckoned. Or maybe that was the way it felt when we were three-foot nothing, or four-foot in your case. Mum didn’t like it; she only relaxed when we were back at the campsite wrapped in blankets and sipping on hot cocoa.’
She rambled on about the seasons, talked about the crowds in the city come summer, how they’d have extra ice-cream from the café and be allowed to stay out long past their usual bedtime with their parents working later than normal.
Her memories stalled when she saw her nieces coming into the ward along with their maternal grandparents.
Gayle went over to them. They’d grown, but they looked so much like Harry and Cynthia, Adeleine with Harry’s curly hair he’d never liked, Susanna with Cynthia’s smile.
‘You’re both getting so big,’ she said, addressing Adeleine, a dainty eight-year-old who barely looked up from beneath her fringe, and Susanna, the fourteen-year-old whose gaze darted from her dad to the machines, her dad again and then finally to Gayle.
Susanna reached for her sister’s hand. She led her past Gayle and closer to their dad.
Gayle picked up her bag from the chair. ‘I’ll let you have some time with Harry,’ she told the girls and Harry’s in-laws. Gayle hoped her beautiful nieces brought them some comfort, although she suspected nothing could really take away the pain that their daughter died before they did. It wasn’t the natural order of things, was it?
The next day when Gayle returned to the hospital, Harry was still drifting in and out of consciousness.
‘Promise me…’ he said all of a sudden when Gayle was almost dozing off herself. He hadn’t said a word in the last hour, and she’d found her eyes closing as she sat at his bedside.
She stood, got closer to work out what he was saying. ‘Harry, I’m here.’
‘Promise me…’ he said again.
‘What, Harry? What do you need me to do?’
‘Girls…’ he said. And then he opened his eyes wider than he had in days. ‘Susanna… Adeleine… They can’t fall out.’
‘Oh, Harry, they won’t. Of course they won’t.’
‘Like us…’ he said. ‘My fault…’ he added, his voice croaky with dryness.
She shushed him, told him not to worry. Her bottom lip trembled, and she tried not to burst into tears. ‘Your girls will be together forever. I’ll see to that.’
‘Promise…’ His eyes were closed but he was determined with his request.
‘I promise. I will do whatever I can to make sure Susanna and Adeleine are the closest they can be.’ She felt a sense of relief when he squeezed her hand back in response.
He stayed quiet for another hour as Gayle sat processing what he’d said. She wasn’t sure she had the power to steer two girls’ emotions, but she would do her very best. Things should never have gone this far with Harry. She wished they hadn’t, but all she could do was be here for him now and let him go peacefully, knowing his girls would be okay.
A few days later, Harry passed away. Gayle lost a brother, Susanna and Adeleine lost their only surviving parent, and what she’d never realised was that rather than his daughters going to live with their maternal grandparents, Harry’s wish was for Susanna and Adeleine to live with her. In all those years she’d thought he resented her, and yet his wish had always been for his girls to go to his sister if he died before they reached adulthood.
Gayle finished her tea when she heard footfall coming down the stairs in her cottage.
If she could change the past, she would have tried harder with Harry, even though he was stubborn. She’d have turned up on his doorstep, forced him to listen to her and see that just because she didn’t want to run a café with him and just because her business was a success, it didn’t diminish what he’d done with the café. Circumstances had played a part, she knew that, but she wondered had he ever realised it for himself rather than shouldering all that dreadful blame?
She wouldn’t change her pudding business if she had her time again – she loved everything about it – and she wouldn’t change meeting Jeffrey, either. Their time together was special, and he’d been her one true love. She wouldn’t have wanted to miss that, even though sadness ended up breaking them apart.
When Susanna came into the kitchen she rose from the table and took out another mug from the cupboard. ‘Tea?’
‘Yes, please.’
