And she stays there as we eat. She stays there as we drink more coffee. She stays there as I tell her about Arnie's favourite board game (The Game of Life) and mine (Mouse Trap) and she admits that Scrabble is the one that has a soft spot in her heart because she would play it with her mum. This makes me wonder if that's why Jake chose that game, and prompts me to ask her more questions about her mother.
Jenna talks about Cathy in a tone that is careful and tender, like she doesn't want to betray her mother's memory, but she also doesn't want to pretend it wasn't hard or that her mum didn't struggle. She talks about what it was like when her mum slipped in and out of depressive episodes, and how the last one, the one that finally took her life, was after a good stretch of a month or so where her mother was truly present, out of bed most days and doing the things Jenna and Jake didn't always have in preceding years; daily home-cooked meals, help with their homework, clean clothes folded and put away in their rooms, after-school conversations over cups of tea in the kitchen. I find comfort in the way she talks with both sadness and happiness, the balance somehow just right. I know the situation is completely different, but I hope one day I can talk about Arnie's diagnosis, his worst rounds of chemo and the last few days before he passed like that, with sweet fragility and even something like nostalgia. Most of the time, I can't even think about those days, especially not the end, without still feeling like my heart is rotting inside my chest.
“Did she look like you?” I ask, desperate to know.
Jenna stills in my lap and I wait, wondering what she's thinking. When she still doesn’t speak, I put my hand up and turn her face towards me. There's a tear slipping down her right cheek.
“Oh, Jenna. I'm sorry, I didn't want to upset you.” I kiss the tear away. I want to kiss all her tears away.
“I'm not upset. Just remembering,” she says, and she nestles down into me, sitting back to look at the horizon again. “It's been a long time since I cried about her, it's almost nice.”
My shoulders sink as I wrap my arms around her, bury my own head in her back.
“One day, you'll feel the same. About Arnie.”
I nod into her body and we fall into a thoughtful silence again. I'm not good at silences, at least not with people I don't know. But with people I love, I think maybe silence is how I say the most.
“Wait here,” Jenna says after some time. She then gets up and walks back into the villa.
When she returns, she's holding out her phone and showing me a photo of an old printed photograph taken on a sandy beach. The sun is shining, and the sea's blues meet those of the clear sky above. In the forefront of the image, there's a young girl, possibly around the age of six or seven, with a heavy fringe and impossibly big brown eyes. She's wearing a bright pink fringed T-shirt and denim shorts, weirdly an outfit I could imagine Jenna rocking right now. She's holding a young woman's hand - a woman wearing a long smock-style dress and oversized sunglasses - and both of them are grinning at the camera like their faces are incapable of anything else.
“You have the same smile,” I say, but after looking more, that's actually about it. Jenna's mother has darker hair and smaller features, and by the looks of it, not the same height or curves as her daughter now. But that full smile that stretches out of nowhere, morphing her plump lips into the warmest reward of a grin, I would recognise that mouth anywhere.
“I look more like my dad, or his mother to be specific. Jake looks more like my mum, but he got dad's light hair and colouring. It's really strange to think Mum is a few years younger than me here.”
“How old was she when she died?” I ask, taking her phone from her so I can zoom in and look closer at this adorable child version of Jenna.
“Forty-two,” she whispers.
“That's no age,” I say and then I move my eyes to Cathy’s feet, catching the faintest line of gold on one foot; Jenna’s anklet. I say nothing but reach out my hand to hold hers.
“No, it's not. I feel like her life was just about to come back to her too. Jake and I were getting older and were mostly independent. She would have had more time to do the things she enjoyed...” Jenna shakes her head suddenly. “Thank youfor letting me talk about this and share with you. I haven’t looked at this photo for a long time.” She takes her phone out of my hand.
“Fuck, now I want kids with you.” I reach for her again, she turns to straddle my legs, and I take her mouth.
“Marty,” she says to break the kiss. I expected a denial, but the way she just said it sounds more like an invitation.
“Have I waited long enough? Can I fuck you now?” I move her hair to the side and suck on her neck.
“First Scrabble,” she says.
“Are you fucken kidding me?” I lower my head to her chest all the while she rolls her pussy on my thighs.
“You have no idea how horny word games make me. I am a writer, after all,” she says into my ear before sucking the lobe into her mouth.
“I feel like I have a lot of words now and none of them belong on a Scrabble board.” I grab hold of her arse cheeks, unsure whether to use my hands to stop her or help her roll harder.
As soon as I deepen my grip and rock with her, she jumps up.
“Come on, O'Martin.” She adjusts her dress. “Whoever wins decides what position.”
“I don't give a fuck about positions, cupcake,” I say with my best smirk.
She narrows her stare on me. “Okay then, whoever wins gets one of my toys... wherever they want.”
My eyebrows shoot up. She knows I saw them. I pause only for a few seconds before I leap up, not giving a crap that my boner is probably pointing right at her, because I'm busy setting up the Scrabble board.
*****
