Seven summers from now …
He sits down beside me on the bench and reaches over, gently taking my hand and staring out to sea. I don’t know how I have any tears left, but still they keep coming.
‘I’m so sorry, Liv.’
I fold over and begin to sob, and then I’m in his arms and all I can think is,Here we are again …
‘I’m living with ghosts, Finn,’ I tell him a while later, once I’m capable of using my voice.
Mum …
Dad …
Tom …
I even feel to some extent that I’m living with the ghosts of the children we never had.
I can’t cope when families come to stay any more. I’m seriously considering selling.
‘Come to LA with me,’ he says quietly, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear. ‘Just for a break. Come with me, Liv. I’ll sort your ticket, your accommodation, everything. You won’t have to think about a thing.’
He still looks more or less the same, if a touch older. His hair is a bit shorter, a little less wild, but only marginally. It’s still dark and dishevelled. His Celtic Sea green eyes are as beautiful as ever, his eyelashes just as dark. I’m sure his dimples still exist, though it’s been a very long time since I’ve seen them. His chest has filled out, more in keeping with the thirty-five-year-old man that he is than with the slim twenty-something rock star I sometimes still picture when I think of him.
And lately, I’ve been thinking about him a lot. He reached out to me after I lost Tom. He just wanted to let me know that he was there for me if I needed him.
‘Wouldn’t I stay with you?’ I ask him, thinking about his invitation.
‘I didn’t think you’d want to stay with me,’ he replies, his eye contact steady. ‘But I’d love that.’
‘Your girlfriend wouldn’t mind?’
He stares at me for a moment. ‘I haven’t had a girlfriend in almost two years.’
‘Oh.’ I barely hear the word coming from my mouth. ‘Do you have room?’
He lets out the smallest snort of amusement. ‘Yes, Liv, I have room.’
‘Can Michael come?’
‘Of course he can.’
We fly on Saturday, a week later, and Michael loves every second of the plane journey. He was delighted when Finn and I called on him to ask if he’d like to go to LA on holiday.
‘Yeah! Ace!’ he replied.
I’ve been much more aware of the way he tries to protect me since Tom died. We’ve watched many movies on his sofa and eaten a lot of lunches together. He invites me to his social club dances, but the one time I went I felt too sad to stay for long.
The sight of Michael and his friends on the dance floor could barely bring a smile to my face. My thoughts were consumed more with Finn than Tom that night.
Finn lives in a four-bedroom vertical house in the Hollywood Hills. It’s four storeys high, but only a couple of rooms wide. He doesn’t have much of a garden, just a long, narrow swimming pool with a living-wall backdrop. My favourite part of his house is the roof terrace, which has a view right across the hills towards Downtown LA.
So this is what a publishing deal with a major label gets you. I’m blown away.
Finn’s bedroom and study are on the fourth level, accessed via a small central lift. Two further bedrooms, which Michael and I have taken, are on the third floor, and on the second is a kitchen and dining room. The living room takes up most of the ground floor and opens right onto the pool. The fourth bedroom is down there too.
Michael is desperate to go swimming. I’m tired and not at all in the mood, but I hate to disappoint him. When Finn sees my conflicting emotions, he steps in, suggesting that I ‘sit on the edge with a glass of wine while the boys muck about’.
They soon have me laughing out loud with their antics. It is just the tonic I need.
