‘It’s a friend doing a favour kind of thing, actually,’ Mum replied in a tone I hadn’t heard for a great many years. ‘Tom brought the kippers round as a gift, and I offered to cook them. And for your information, he’s only a couple of years older than I am.’
There was a lot to assimilate in her reply and for once I was glad that muesli took longer to chew and swallow than other cereals.
‘So, are you and Tom friends now?’ I asked, trying very hard to keep the incredulity from my voice, but it crept in anyway.
‘Perhaps we are,’ Mum replied enigmatically. ‘Would that be so very strange? After all,youwere the one who introduced us.’ She made it sound as though I was guilty of matchmaking, and truly nothing could be further from the truth. I felt like someone who’d picked up a book, only to discover they’d somehow skipped several really important chapters.
‘And it will certainly be a comfort knowing there’s someone close by who can keep an eye on Amelia when you go back to New York,’ she continued.
I was used to the way my stomach contracted whenever I thought about going back. I thought the queasy feeling was because I was homesick for Manhattan, but lately I was beginning to wonder if it was because I was already missing Somerset, even before I’d left it.
‘You still haven’t explained what you’re doing here at the crack of dawn on a Saturday morning.’
‘Now we know Amelia could be out of hospital in a week or so, I wanted to make a start on getting the place ready for her. And it’s hardly the crack of dawn, Lexi,’ Mum added, her eyes dropping to her watch. ‘It’s after eleven.’
That surprised me almost as much as Tom and her being new ‘besties’. I reached for my phone to verify the time, but never got as far as registering it because the message on the screen brought me up short.Missed call. Nick.
Whenever I visited Amelia in the hospital, I automatically switched my phone to silent, and I must have forgotten to turn the ringer back on last night when I left the ward. It had been three days since our trip to the amusement park. Three days for me to interpret Nick’s lack of contact as a change of heart. I’d almost called him at least half a dozen times, but so far good sense had kicked in when I was still one number away from connecting to his phone. And now, on the day he calls, my phone was switched off. Was that just bad luck, or was the universe trying to tell me something?
My fingers itched to call him back, but with Mum sitting less than a metre away, I was going to have to wait. I still hadn’t told her what I was doing, and I wasn’t sure I was ready for the disappointment I was afraid I’d see in her eyes when she knew about it.
Mum was giving the kipper on her plate far more concentration than it probably deserved, and I wondered if I’d somehow hurt her feelings about her new friendship. Despite Tom’s prickly barnacle exterior, I really did like him. Some years ago, Amelia and I had asked Mum if she’d ever thought of remarrying, because we’d wanted her to know that if she did, we’d both be okay with it. I can still remember the sadness in her voice when she replied.Not everyone is lucky enough to find their true soul mate in life. But if you do, you realise you’re one half of a miracle. And miracles rarely happen more than once in a lifetime.
‘I’m glad that you and Tom are friends,’ I told her now, as she got to her feet and began gathering up our dirty dishes. ‘And I’m sure Amelia will be too – just as long as you don’t end up moving in three doors down from her.’ I crossed to the sink to give her a hug, so she knew I was teasing. ‘Seriously, Mum, Mimi and I just want you to be happy. She’ll be as pleased as I am that you’ve made a new friend.’
‘Speaking of new friends,’ Mum said in a neat segue, ‘I met one of yours this morning.’
She tossed me a gingham tea towel before plunging her arms into the sudsy water, her attention seemingly on nothing more than the dirty dishes. But she didn’t fool me for a minute.
Very slowly, as though each word needed to be carefully excavated, I turned to face her. ‘What friend? Who?’
She had exactly the same look on her face that she’d worn when I’d broken my grandmother’s heirloom flower vase and hidden the shattered pieces at the bottom of the wheelie bin. Two decades on and she’d lost none of her knack.
‘I think you can guess who I’m talking about.’
I swallowed noisily.
‘I must say, Amelia’s drawings of him were uncannily lifelike.’
‘Nick? Nick was here?’
Mum withdrew her arms from the suds and folded them across her waist. Never a good sign.
‘It might have been nice, Lexi, ifyou’d told me what you were up to, rather than having to hear it from a total stranger – albeit a perfectly charming one,’ she added, with just enough censure in her voice for me to know I was unequivocally in the wrong here.
‘He told you everything?’
‘I worked it out for myself from the things he said. I don’t think he realised that you’d not told me what you were up to.’
‘Why didn’t you wake me up when he was here?’
‘I wanted to. But he insisted that I let you sleep.’
She was looking at me very closely. ‘He seems like a very nice young man. With an extremely friendly dog.’
I’d been absently twisting the tea towel in my hands. Glancing down, it looked exactly like the rope I was busily hanging myself with.
‘Are you mad at me, Mum? Do you think what I’m doing is crazy?’
