‘Ah, to have youth on my side.’ Her green eyes, luminous as always, crinkled at their edges.
‘Oh shush,’ I said, flapping a hand. ‘None of that. You’re a beauty, and you know it.’
Rosie was only in her fifties, and she looked as gorgeous as she always had. Her hair curled in ways that made it perfect for wrapping with the bandanas and ribbons that she loved, and every colour somehow suited her complexion.
‘Well, that’s not my doing. I have my parents to thank for that. And Pandora with her magic way with the scissors. As you know well.’ She raised her own glass to our mutual hairdresser.
‘Noah had his cut as well,’ I added idly.
‘I noticed.’ She said it a tad knowingly, as though inviting me to say more.
‘It looks good,’ I promised. ‘We … bumped into each other.’
Rosie sipped her sangria. ‘There’s been a bit of that going on.’
Ah. I hadn’t been as subtle as I’d thought.
‘I mean, we’re all under the one roof,’ I said, prevaricating. Then I glanced down at my drink. ‘I don’t want to hurt anyone.’
Rosie squeezed my hand. ‘I know you well enough to know that you’d never do that. Love can feel like a complicated thing sometimes. With all the stories we’re steeped in as we grow up, we get it in our heads that it should be difficult. Worked for. Earned.’
She glanced over at the photo of her and Charlie on the wall by the fireplace.
‘But in my experience, love is simple. The circumstances around it might not always be easy – if you’re together long enough, you’ll go through a lot together. One of you demanding to sleep with the fan on high all night. The other one snoring like a chainsaw. One of you getting sick, and not just the sniffles or the flu, but something existential. Losing jobs. Losing pets. Losing family members. All these things that make it hard to be your best self. But when you’re with the right person, it’s easier. You make each other stronger.’
Rosie’s eyes brimmed with tears beneath her reading glasses.
‘I miss my Charlie,’ she whispered. ‘Every day. He was my person, and I loved every minute I had with him. Even when he absolutely insisted on putting peanut butter on his pancakes.’
I couldn’t help but laugh. ‘The horror!’
Rosie smiled at the memory. ‘I think he did it because he got a kick out of the boys’ response, honestly. Oh look, the sun’s going down. Come on.’
Sipping her sangria, she led me outside into the magnificentgarden to watch the watercolour dusk. Pinks and oranges striped the sky, which in turn striped the ocean.
We both marvelled at the magic of it all. There was nothing more beautiful than a Summerween sunset at the Pink House.
Rosie kicked back on one of the plush outdoor couches, baring her legs to the evening.
‘One of the reasons I love this place is that we don’t have to worry about mosquitoes,’ she said. ‘I can sit out, bare skin on full display, and look, not even one bite.’
She pushed back her loose kaftan, showing off her wrists and ankles. Tiny gold chains and beaded cuffs glimmered in the low evening light. Her new rose tattoo shone beneath its plastic covering.
‘Anywhere else and I’d be devoured,’ she said. ‘Exsanguinated. The mosquitoes would be thanking me for my generous blood-bank donation. But not here. Charlie spent months working on the deterrent spell. Almost as long as he spent on that guitar of his he never finished making.’
Her smile was brave, but under it was a tremble.
‘You don’t commit your life to someone because they make your life worse. Or keep it the same. You do it because they make your life better. Because you can’t imagine it without them. And Charlie really did that.’
‘I think he did that for all of us,’ I said quietly.
Rosie nodded, looking past me in a way that made me wonder if she was actually looking at Charlie. If her memories of him were so strong that he was still with her in this moment.
I wondered what it would be like to have such a love. I thought of Mom and Dad and their easy way around each other – how, as different as they were, they seemed to enjoy sharing a home, a life, a business. I thought of Pandora and the time she’d told me that she and her wife, Ulissa, left notes for each other to find. Of Tiff and Damien, and the way they’d discovered a way to be together despite having half the worldbetween them. Of Lara and Jack, who weren’t quite there yet, but who seemed to be dancing around something that might yet be love.
And then I thought of the Tucker boys, and how each of them in their own way made my heart sing.
And how absolutely terrifying that was.
