Holly was quiet, pale, her hair needed washing and she looked tired. Her voice carried the faltering air of someone who was struggling.
‘Come in, love. I was just about to start my make-up; you know I’m not very good at all that.’
‘Would you like me to do your brows?’
Holly had done this before; her steady hand, young eyes and attention to detail meant Enya had left the house with perfectly full arches over her eyes that reminded her of the brows of her youth, before she had recklessly plucked at them whenever the fancy took her.
‘Yes, I really would. If you’re sure?’ Having done her best to shield the girl from all aspects of Aiden’s life, let alone mention the wedding, this act felt intimate and was, she knew, the way it had to be, a life less deceitful, but one that was instead open and inclusive.
‘I’m sure.’
Holly walked in and handed her the flowers.
‘Tell your mum, thank you – they’re stunning!’
Enya sat at the kitchen table, as Holly selected the eyebrow pen from her make-up bag. ‘Tip your head back a little.’
She did as she was instructed and sat very still as Holly first gently brushed her brows, then artfully filled in the gaps with the delicate tip of the pen.
‘There.’
Enya studied Holly’s work in the mirror. ‘Oh, that’s much better, thank you. Cup of tea?’
‘Please.’ Holly sat at the table as Enya flicked on the kettle and shoved a teabag into a mug.
‘Is... is he here?’ The girl glanced towards the hallway.
‘No, no, lovey, he isn’t. He didn’t stay here last night.’
Instantly, Enya watched her shoulders fall, her face crumple.
‘I just, I just need to see him, Enya, I need to tell him things.’
‘I know.’
‘The last time I saw him was at the scan.’
‘Yes, he sent me a copy. It was quite a moment. Did you get my text?’
‘I did. Thanks.’ Holly looked down, her blink rate slow. ‘It was odd, really. It wasn’t like it is in the movies, when a couple are excited and emotional and he’s holding her hand, and they are both grinning at the screen.’
‘I expect it’s rarely like that, Holly. I don’t think anything is like it is in the movies.’
Enya squeezed the teabag against the side of the mug and drizzled milk in as she stirred, before putting it on the table. Her heart flexed for the girl, who despite her fixed smile must be hurting.
‘I guess not.’ Holly took a slow sip. ‘I can’t tell you how I feel today, Enya. Can’t explain to you what it’s like, knowing the man I love, the man I’ve loved for most of my life, is going to marry someone else. It’s like a bad dream that I can’t wake up from.’
‘I can’t begin to imagine.’ An image of Dominic, holding Enya close before letting her go, flashed through her thoughts.
‘I’m glad you can’t imagine because I feel like I’m falling. I’ve felt like I’m falling since the day he came back from Rome and told me that he’d changed his mind.’ Holly looked directly at her now. ‘How can you just change your mind, how does that happen after all that time? We built a life together, we had a home, a future, and then in the blink of an eye it was gone, all of it. And I remember as he was speaking I had to hold on to the arms of the chair to stop myself from falling through it and falling through the floor and the ceiling of the flat below and their floor, down and down through the foundations into the earth. I thought I might fall forever so I sat very still, and I didn’t say anything at all, not at first. I couldn’t. And by the time I found my voice, and knew what I wanted to say, the questions I wanted to ask, he’d been gone for hours. I’d watched him pack a little bag and walk out the front door, and even though I knew it was the last time he was going to do that, I couldn’t believe it. It didn’t seem real. I still don’t believe it, even though I know it’s happening, even though I know it’s happened, and I know...’ she stuttered, ‘I know that today he properly stops being mine. He becomes hers in a way that he was never mine. Legally, and in the eyes of God if you believe in that, he is hers. Her husband and she’ll... she’ll be his wife and I’ll... I’ll just be Holly, his ex, someone he used to know.’
‘You will never just be someone he used to know, not to him and not to me either.’ Enya took the girl’s hand into her own, understanding what it felt like to see your role, your purpose, sochanged; it could leave you on the point of panic. ‘You will always be our Holly Hudson and you will be the mother of my grandchild.’
Holly lowered her gaze and cried silently, her tears sparse, as if she had cried them all away.
‘I want you to remember what Angela said, about how you will rise stronger from the ashes of this hurt. It’s important, Holly, to tell yourself that what isn’t meant for you passes you by. You’ll look back at this terrible time of hurt and you won’t forget it, never that, but you will be able to look at it objectively. I promise you that. You’ll come to realise that you only want to be with someone for whom you are their number one. That’s what you deserve, what we all deserve.’
Knowing she too deserved to be someone’s number one, not the name in the phone that was called secretly while his wife was elsewhere, not snatched chats in the bath, but someone for whom you were a priority, who you made a supreme effort to be with openly, and not someone whose life was inextricably and complicatedly linked to your child’s.
