They each took a pebble. For a moment, the three stood in silence, staring out at the endless horizon.
‘I’ll go first.’ Sennen turned the stone over in her hand, then closed her eyes. ‘I want to stop pretending everything’s fine all the time. I want to be allowed to feel things and talk to either of you about it when I can’t process it myself.’
She threw the stone with a firm, clean arc. Rita looked up to quell her tears.
Thomas looked down at his. He swallowed. ‘I want to forgive myself and be forgiven fully for the way I treated my mother. I was angry, and I didn’t say the right things. I want to do better as a son from now on.’
He sent the pebble skipping.
Rita smiled at them both. ‘I want to believe I can still make good choices. To be always ready for open and honest conversationwith my children and believe in myself that it’s OK to let other people in.’
Her stone made a soft plop as it disappeared beneath the surface.
They stood together for a moment longer, the wind tugging at their jackets.
‘Right then.’ Rita brushed her hands together. ‘Tea and cake in Betty’s Tearoom?’
‘Always,’ Sennen shouted.
‘Can we listen tomymusic on the way there?’ Thomas asked.
FIFTY-TWO
Rita slipped quietly out of the farmhouse, the door clicking shut behind her. The world outside was hushed, suspended in that soft grey stillness of civil twilight, the fleeting time when night had loosened its grip, but day had yet to take hold. Even at this unearthly hour, she’d put on mascara and lipstick, a summery floral dress, and her old denim jacket.
As she crested the hill, a slow bloom of colour began to stretch across the horizon.
Jago was already there, sitting on Archie’s bench beneath the Singing Tree. Hands clasped between his knees, head bowed like a man in prayer. When he looked up, his eyes met hers, full of that complicated warmth that had begun to rise between them in recent weeks.
She walked the last few steps toward him, slow and cautious.
‘I wasn’t sure you’d come,’ Jago said, smiling softly.
‘I wasn’t sure either,’ she replied. ‘But I needed to know what this is. Whether it’s real… or just grief playing tricks on us.’
He tapped the bench beside him. ‘You timed it perfectly. Look.’
Slowly, the sun began to rise, inching up from the edge of thesea like a great golden coin being pushed through the surface of the world.
‘I’ll never tire of this,’ Rita murmured.
‘And I’ll never tire of you.’ He took her hand and kissed it gently. ‘A new start. A new day, Rita Jory.’ The dimple appeared. ‘And whenever you’ve got a spare second, minute, hour, month, year… I want to spend it with you.’ He looked at her through his impossible lashes. ‘I meant what I said the other night. My love for you is real. I didn’t plan any of this. But you’re just so damn beautiful, how could I not?’
Rita gave a sad smile, folding her arms against the morning chill. ‘You should’ve just told me everything.’
‘I know,’ he said quietly. ‘I was scared. Scared it would endthisbefore it even began.’
She let out a long breath. ‘I loved him, you know. With everything I had. And he loved me. He really did.’
‘I know.’ Jago’s voice was barely a whisper. ‘I saw it. I envied it.’
Rita brushed her fingers along the edge of the bench.
‘He’s gone, but he’s still everywhere. In the sea. In this tree. In Thomas’s stubbornness. In Sennen’s laugh. But he’s not here, not in this moment. Not in this… ache I feel when I see you and don’t know what to do with it.’
Jago reached out and tipped her chin up, kissing her softly on the lips. ‘I’ll never replace him, Rita.’
‘I know that.’ She nodded. ‘But I want you to know this isn’t just because you remind me of him. You’ve shown me who you are. Helping with the yurts, paying for Stan’s time, the marquee, delivering Vince and Billy, the flowers to wish me well… You’re a good man, Jago Jenken.’
