‘We made a sign for you!’ Georgia (?) exclaimed.
‘Then you made Mummy carry it,’ Fiona said, coming up behind them. ‘And Mummy did not consent to being covered in so much glitter. Hi, Jonah.’
She leant over her daughters’ heads to kiss Jonah on the cheek, hugging him one-armed, a pink piece of cardboard with WELCOME UNCLE JONAH AND AUNTIE SADIE written in big glittery letters in her other hand. ‘I hope you don’t mind us turning up like this, but we were all so excited to see you.’
She turned her attention to me. ‘And to meet you!’ Fiona handed the sign to her third, older child and wrapped her arms tight around me. ‘Hi, Sadie!’
I nearly burst into tears.
All I wanted was my sister. All I wanted was Chess to have somehow made it to this airport before me and to be here with a big glittery sign saying WELCOME SADIE, I LOVE YOU TO THE END OF THE UNIVERSE AND BACK AGAIN AND EVERYTHING IS GOING TO GO BACK TO NORMAL BECAUSE I DID THAT ETERNAL SUNSHINE SURGERY AND EXTRACTED THE MEMORY OF WHAT YOU SAID TO ME STRAIGHT OUT OF MY BRAIN and to put her arms around me until I complained about not being able to breathe but still not let go.
‘It isso niceto meet you properly.’ Fiona drew back and beamed at me.
‘You… you too.’
‘This is Lex.’ She ushered the tweenager now holding the sign forward.
‘Hello,’ Lex said, their tone a mixture of polite and prickly. ‘Nice to meet you. I use they/them pronouns.’
Jonah had warned me Lex could be a little touchy around new people –Matt didn’t react as sensitively as he could have to them coming out, he’d told me,which in retrospect, maybe should have been a warning sign– but they were coming in with about a tenth as much energy as their sisters, and I felt immediately grateful. ‘Nice to meet you too, Lex. She/her is fine for me.’
Lex gave me a look that was uncannily like one of Professor Fisher’s when he was watching me give a seminar paper, a penetrating stare designed to find the weaknesses in my arguments.
But then, unlike their grandfather’s, it morphed into approval. ‘Cool. Hi Uncle Jonah.’
‘Hi kiddo.’ Jonah bumped Lex’s proffered knuckles with his own.
‘I hope this is okay, but I sent your driver away,’ Fiona said. ‘I figured you’d be starving after your flight. I thought we could get some late-night fast food and then I’ll run you over to your hotel.’
My bones, which had felt like they were dissolving, suddenly felt like they were made of iron.
Jonah put his arm around my waist. ‘Food sounds great, Fi. But we’ll have to make it quick. I really want to catch up properly, but we’ve got a big day tomorrow, and I need to get Sadie to bed.’
‘I’m sure you do.’ Fiona’s eyes sparkled.
Jonah immediately turned crimson, but, ‘That would require a level of energy neither of us currently possess,’ was all he said. ‘Girls, how do you feel about pulling our bags for us?’
Rosie and Georgia, it turned out, were very excited about pulling our bags. ‘Look, I’m Daddy, off on a business trip!’ one of them declared as we made our way through the car park, which made Fiona look nauseous, and Lex make a scoffing noise, deep in their throat.
Jonah, though, kept his arm tight around my waist, holding me to him and holding me up simultaneously. I looped my arm around his waist too, anchoring myself in the fight against my creeping exhaustion.To sell the scam,I would tell him, if he asked.
He didn’t ask, though. He just let me lean on him.
He did the same in the fast-food place Fiona drove us to, arm resting on the back of the booth behind me, fingers brushing lightly against my shoulder as he ate fries with his other hand. He carried the conversation too – asking Fiona questions about the kids and what it had been like having Elias stay for a fortnight – while I drooped against him.
‘You all right?’ he asked me quietly, when Fiona got up to chase down Rosie and Georgia, who were sugar-high on soft-serve.
‘Not really,’ I murmured, cognisant of Lex sitting in the corner of the booth, engrossed in a book.
Jonah turned his head. The kiss he pressed to my hair was a whisper, so gentle I might have imagined it. ‘I’ve got you, okay?’
I leant into him. ‘Thank you,’ I said, so quietly that I might have imagined that too.
‘Oh God, I’m sorry for keeping you out so late,’ Fiona said, coming back to the table with the twins in tow. ‘Let’s get you two lovebirds to bed before you turn into pumpkins.’
Even with only about a twentieth of my brain working, I could see the tiredness carved into her face too, under the excitement.
The university was putting me and Jonah up for a fortnight in a hotel in the city centre as a stop-gap while we found a place of our own. Fiona dropped us off after making us promise that we would come to dinner on Friday and also send her our wedding pictures as soon as we got them: ‘I love Elias, but he’s no videographer.’
