25
When Ryan got homeafter walking Grace back to Foxglove Street, he found his grandmother in the kitchen, warming milk in a pan at the hob.
“I thought I’d enjoy a hot drink before bed,” she said. “Care to join me?”
“No thanks, Grandma. There’s hot chocolate in the cupboard if you’d like some.”
“Warm milk will be fine. I may add a little honey. Milk and honey together can be very comforting and help aid restful sleep.”
“Are you feeling okay tonight, Grandma?” Ryan asked, concerned that she might need a little help to get to sleep tonight.
“Yes, I’m quite fine. Perhaps I’m a little full after eating too much delicious pizza, but nothing more than that.” She gave him a reassuring look. “There’s no need to worry about me, Ryan.”
“Of course I worry, after everything you’ve been through.”
“If there’s any reason for you to worry, I shall tell you. Until then, stop fretting about me, boy.”
Ryan held his hands up in surrender, knowing he was at risk of irritating his grandmother with his constant questions abouthow she was feeling. He simply couldn’t help it. He adored her, and had been scared half to death when she’d been going through her cancer treatment. While she was a guest here in his home, he considered it his responsibility to make sure she was all right and, more importantly, not over-exerting herself.
“I take it you got Grace and little Stanley home okay?” Miriam asked.
Ryan nodded.
“I like Grace,” Miriam said. “She is a sweet young woman. She’s perfect for you.”
“Grandma, we only just met a couple of days ago. We barely know each other.”
Miriam waved this off. “You know enough. I think she does, too.”
“That sounds a bit cryptic.”
Miriam laughed and poured milk into a mug on the counter. “It makes me happy to see you spending time with a girl who makes you smile the way she does. When you get to my age in life, all you want is for your family to be happy and healthy. Out of all my grandchildren, you are the one I still worry about the most.”
“Me? Why do you worry about me? I’m all set.”
Ryan gestured to the house in which they stood to emphasise his point.
“Money and career success are wonderful, Ryan,” Miriam said, stirring honey into her mug of warm milk. “But those things don’t keep a person warm in bed at night. You need a partner, someone by your side, someone you love and who loves you in return.”
“It’s a bit premature to be thinking along those lines as far as Grace is concerned, Grandma.”
“No, I disagree. I know magic when I see it. After spending a lifetime with your grandfather, how could I not?”
Ryan felt a lump in his throat at his grandmother’s tender words. His grandparents had shared a love story for the ages, meeting when they were teenagers and remaining together for the rest of their lives. They’d been completely besotted with each other and had built a family that had always looked up to them as a model of what a strong and caring relationship between two people ought to look like. Quite how his grandmother had got through the loss of the man she’d known and loved since girlhood remained a mystery to Ryan.
That she’d had the additional trauma of a cancer diagnosis thrown into her life just a year after she’d lost him was a blow Ryan simply could not fathom.
The idea that his grandmother would compare the few short interactions he’d shared with Grace to what Miriam had shared with Ryan’s grandfather was so startling that it left him at a loss for words.
“I know you’ve had many relationships in your life, Ryan,” Miriam continued. “But I also know that none of those women have ever come close to what you’re looking for. And I also know that you still harbour dark memories about what happened to you when you were just a boy all those years ago on that stupid television music competition programme.”
Miriam’s brow furrowed in anger before her expression rearranged into her usual calm demeanour.
“But there’s no point dwelling on the past,” she said. “What’s done is done, and I don’t intend to drag all those unhappy memories back out into the light. All I’m saying is that I know that, even after all this time, whenever you meet a woman you like, you still find yourself waiting for the bubble to burst, as it did back then and with such spectacularly awful effect.”
“Grandma—”
“Let me finish,” Miriam interrupted, her tone kind. “There is a spark between you and Grace. It’s unmissable. Perhaps withGrace, instead of waiting for the bubble to burst, you should just enjoy the moment.”
