“No,” I insisted.
“What was it like?”
I turned to her, scrutinising her face, looking for any sign of scepticism, or judgement. But all I saw was open curiosity. Maybe a bit of concern.
I took a breath and shoved my hands into my pockets as I turned back to watching the bees, quietly, and unobtrusively going about their business.
“It was like the world was pushing us together. At almost every turn, there he was.” I smiled, snapshots of memories making my toes curl. “I couldn’t figure out why he’d be interested in me. I’m not saying that to put myself down, I just… it didn’t make sense to me – given who he is. But he saw me, made time for me. He prioritised me.”
“Ky, that’s the bare minimum you should expect,” Mum said softly.
“Yeah, I know.” I huffed, trying to figure out how to explain. “He chose me, despite every obstacle. The distance, the secrecy, all of it.” I paused, patching the words together in my head, trying to figure out how to put them together in a way that would make sense.
“But it took me a long time to choose him. For ages, I was sort of, I dunno, infatuated? I was anxious all the time, trying to figure out how to be the girlfriend of a famous pop star. Until one day, I just wasn’t anymore. It wasn’t this big, cataclysmic event. I just stopped trying to figure out how to fit into his world, and accepted that whatever we were would have to be something new. It was like…” I searched for the words to articulate a feeling, a knowing, something that just was.
“Belonging,” I said, eventually, nodding to myself. “I realised one day that I’d chosen him, and that I’d keep choosing him. Choosing us, our future, everything.”
I sighed. “I’m not explaining this well.”
“You’re explaining it perfectly.”
I turned to see Mum staring at me, a small smile playing at the corners of her lips.
“That’s how it was with your dad. I knew. He knew. Even that first day. We knew.”
Mum looked away, smiling wider, and I knew she was remembering the story of the day they’d met, a story I knew by heart. It was like an old jumper, worn soft from many washes, but warm and comforting.
When I was very little, just turned two years old, Mum had gone out for the evening – an occasion so rare as to be nearly unheard of. I stayed the night with a friend my mum worked with who also had a little girl.
The story wasn’t even dramatic. She’d gone out to the pub with some friends, who had swiftly left her behind when she hadn’twanted to go clubbing afterwards. Dad had been at the pub with some of his mates when he’d seen my mum being ditched. He had immediately abandoned his friends and offered to walk her home.
“It was lucky she let me,” Dad always said, “because I’d already told my mates to go on without me.”
“Well, he looked harmless enough.” She would joke. “And he bought me fish and chips on the way.”
Mum would look up at him fondly, as if reliving the memory.
“Always admired a woman who could finish a whole fillet of cod,” he’d say proudly.
“And then he gave me a piggyback all the way through Barrow Park-”
At this point, Dad and I would chime in with: “Because you lost a shoe.”
And Mum would echo fondly, “Because I lost a shoe.”
It was a story that usually came out on their wedding anniversary, and sometimes Christmas, depending on how much mulled wine had been passed around.
I sighed. “I would be lucky to have what you and dad have.”
I expected her to agree, but instead she scoffed.
“You’ve always seemed to be under the impression that we have this earth-shattering, magical love. Don’t get me wrong, I love your dad. More than anything, save for you. But we had to work for it, love. We still do. That is what real love is, I think. I think it’s something you choose every day.”
“Anyone can fall in love. That part is easy. But staying in love, choosing to make a life with that person? That’s work, and anyone who tells you otherwise is either woefully naïve, or lying to you, because sometimes ‘love’ isn’t enough.”
I stared at her in stunned silence. She made it sound so real. The relationship she and Dad had had always been themeasuring stick by which I held every romantic relationship to. Theirs was the kind of love I equated with ever-lasting happiness. It was a little strange to think they’d had to work at it when they made it look so easy.
It reassured me in a way I didn’t expect.
