“There’s a catch,” I say.
“Of course there is,” she replies. “What is it?”
“Now that we’re earning the same, the next cabana tits-out brunch is on you.”
Later, when the rooms have settled, someone puts Alex in my arms. He is warm and solid and delicious.
Alistair appears beside me. He puts his hand on the back of my neck, the way he does, and I lean into him and he pulls me in and we stand there, the three of us, our little precious family, while the room goes on around us.
I think about the last four days. The calls I made, the decisions I held together while he was somewhere else, somewhere grief had taken him that I couldn't follow. I didn't need to follow. I just needed to be there when he came back—and he always comes back.
“Thank you,” he says. Quiet. Just for me.
He is looking at me like finding me bleeding on that pavement was the luckiest accident of his life. We have been through more in six months than most people go through in a lifetime and we are still here, the two of us, standing in this room with his mother's potent absence and our son in my armsand the absolute rock-solid certainty of each other underneath everything else.
Whatever comes next, we will face it like this. Together, with our hands full, in rooms we didn’t expect to be in. At funerals we didn’t expect to attend so soon.
Our scars are healing, but there will always be new ones. It’s a terrible truth but I have accepted it. Isobel knew I could handle it, and that’s why she passed the mantle to me. I’ll try my best to make her proud.
Alex, who has been studying the room with great seriousness, suddenly goes rigid with excitement. He points at the entrance.
“Milly!” he says.
Brumilde is standing in the doorway.
She is in her good coat, slightly thinner than she was, and she has barely got through the door before Alex is reaching for her with both arms and saying it again,Milly, Milly, and I cross the room and I put my arms around her and I hold on for a moment.
“You came,” I say.
“Of course I came,” she says, eyes brimming.
And then all the ravens surround her. Alistair. Christopher. Ariana, carefully, Henderson at her elbow. Gregory, who says her name once and takes her hand. Alex, who reaches for her with such force I almost lose my grip of him before handing him over.
She is a little frail. We settle her into the best armchair—the one by the window, which has good light—and someone brings teaand a plate and she sits in the middle of the family with Alex in her lap.
After a while, when things have quieted, she looks at me and Alistair.
“There is something Mrs Ravenscroft asked me,” she says, cautiously. “Some time ago. In case anything happened. She asked if I would come to Ashworth. To be with Mr Ravenscroft.” She glances at Ariana. “And now there will also be a newborn.”
Alistair is quiet for a moment, then he looks at me. We’re moving back into our house and had both longed for Brumilde to return to us.
“Of course you should,” I say. “Of course. But we'll miss you so much. Alex will miss you!”
Brumilde looks sadly at the baby, but her expression changes when she sees him pulling himself up on the furniture.
He has been doing it all morning, taking one step, sitting back down, working out the mechanics of it. Now he levers himself up, stands, and looks around the room with the serious focused expression of a baby who has made a decision.
He lets go of the table. We all hold our breath. Christopher puts his glass down, perks up, the spark returning to his eyes.
One step. Two. Three. Listing slightly to the left, arms out, crossing the rug with absolute purpose toward the armchair by the fire—toward Christopher. Alex reaches him, grabbing his trouser leg with both hands and then looks up with pure delight.
We all clap and cheer, and my sore heart explodes. Christopher gives a whoop and reaches down. He picks Alex up and holdshim against his chest and he laughs and then he weeps—properly, fully, his face lost in the happy baby's hair.
CHAPTER 44
Epilogue
BRODIE
