One of the Girls(93)
The past year had been hard on them both. She’d decided to tell Luca about his father, providing the broadest of outlines about his death. There was no mention of the hen weekend. No mention of a locked student bedroom years earlier.
Luca was furious that he would never have the chance to meet Ed. He blamed Ana. His anger and hurt and resentment were a vast ocean, and she had to simply wait out the storm – hold steadfast as rock – while those waves of emotion crashed against her. But, like any storm, it eventually subsided, and she was grateful that Luca could hold onto an impression of Ed that wouldn’t be challenged by meeting him. It felt important for a son growing up to have that, at least.
In the row in front, Lexi was holding Wren, murmuring to her softly as Wren began to fret.
Luca leaned forward, resting his hand on the back of Lexi’s chair. ‘I’ll take her for a walk.’
Lexi turned, cheekbones shimmering. ‘Really? You sure?’
‘Better than watching a wedding.’ He grinned.
Motherhood was a series of questions and doubts, Ana decided. She wrestled with whether she’d given Luca enough love – or indulged him. Whether she should be working harder – or be at home more. Whether she should have introduced him to Ed when she’d had the chance – or done the right thing by not. The worries and second-guessing were endless but, as she looked at Luca taking Wren carefully in his arms, light falling softly across the back of his neck as he talked quietly to her, Wren’s legs pumping as she awarded him an open-mouthed smile, she thought, I’ve done okay.
Returning her gaze to the front, she saw Lexi was watching them, too.
Ana’s friendship with Lexi was something tentative, fragile – the foundations of it having been built on a lie. It would have been easier to simply let each other go, but there were Luca and Wren. Half-siblings. The sweet relationship they’d watched growing over the past few months was something they both wanted to nurture.
Lexi caught her eye. They looked at one another. Mother to mother. Friend to friend. Woman to woman.
Smiled.
95
Eleanor
Eleanor wasn’t one for weddings. Sitting pin-straight on the wooden chair, hands clamped together, she thought, Too much can go wrong.
Look at her and Sam.
Look at Lexi and Ed.
Still, this one would be different.
The morning had gone well, so far. She’d booked her usual blow-dry, but when she’d arrived at the salon, Reece had steered her towards the mirror. He stood at her shoulder, smoothing her hair back from her face, as he said, ‘I’d like to try something different. What about we go a bit shorter today? Like this. Frame your face here and here? Bring out these cheekbones?’
She’d looked at herself in the mirror. Right in the eye. ‘Yes. Let’s.’
Two hours later, she’d returned to the flat, ducking as she crossed the lounge. ‘Don’t look!’ she whispered to Sam’s ashes before closing the bedroom door. She’d unhooked the dress that Ana had helped her choose – a maxi-dress in midnight blue that Ana claimed brought out her eyes – and she’d tugged it over her vacuum-packing underwear.
She inspected herself in her bedroom mirror (you could never tell if you really liked a new haircut until you’d checked it in your own mirror). There, she thought. Ready.
She swished into the lounge, shoulders back, making a slow twirl before the urn. ‘So, what d’you think?’
She could feel Sam’s smile warming her from the inside. Could hear his low whistle. Smokin’!
Eleanor grinned.
She’d have given anything for Sam to be sitting next to her at this wedding. To feel the heat of his hand around hers. To have him take her home at midnight so they could eat Frazzles standing in their kitchen, chatting about the day they’d shared.
But Eleanor knew that focusing on all that you don’t have was a path of suffering. It was one of the things her weekly sessions with a therapist had taught her. So instead, she thought about what she was grateful for. She looked around and saw Luca walking at the edge of the field carrying Wren. Her niece and nephew. Thriving.
She had that.
Then she touched the back of her head. And the good hair, of course.
After the hen weekend, Eleanor and Lexi hadn’t spoken for months. Eleanor had tried – she’d called, left messages, written long emails – but her efforts were met with silence. She understood: Lexi was torn apart by grief and anger and didn’t have the capacity to assuage Eleanor’s guilt and sadness.
When baby Wren was born, Eleanor had sent a card, along with a small music box which had once belonged to Ed. When the lid was opened, a tiny bird turned and turned on its perch, singing its brightening tune. Lexi, after seven months of silence, called the morning she received it, asking, ‘Would you like to meet your niece?’
Eleanor, voice solemn, hands trembling as she gripped the phone, said, ‘Yes. Yes, I’d like that very much.’
Eleanor didn’t know what to do with babies, but she knew how to do food, and it turns out that in the early months, that’s about the biggest gift you can deliver to a new mother: parcels of delicious, home-cooked meals with a simple note: Heat for twenty minutes and enjoy. Best served with WINE.
That’s what she did for Lexi. She drove from London to Bournemouth, twice a month, to visit her niece and deliver food. That was her way of saying all the things they couldn’t speak of. Lexi had her grief – and Eleanor hers. They didn’t need to talk about it. So instead they focused on other things, like the way Wren could now build a tower out of colourful blocks, or how she liked to bob up and down when music was playing.