One of the Girls(94)

Eleanor had made sure Lexi and the baby were cared for financially from Ed’s estate, splitting everything he had evenly between Wren and Luca. It was the least she could do: those two children would never know their father because of her.

Did she regret charging at Ed?

Absolutely.

He was her brother and, despite everything, she had loved him.

If the wall had been higher, he’d still be here. If Eleanor hadn’t been ablaze with anger, he’d still be here. If the others had chosen to reach for him, not her, he’d still be here. In the same way that if Bella had picked up a different vial, Sam would still be here. Life was fragile and fleeting and mostly out of your control, and all you could do was surround yourself with good people, do your best.

The music began to play. The guests rose to their feet. Eleanor turned to look at the bride.





96

Robyn

Robyn waited at the entrance of the aisle, palms sweating.

Her heart was racing with excitement, with nerves, with the giddiness that this – this was happening.

The sun had come out now, a warm burst of it, a relic of the summer that was ending. She thought, as she often did, of the tiny island of Aegos where this all began. It would forever be a place of two halves. An island where there was death and deceit and the cold sweat of lying in a police interview – but also the beauty of a kiss on a clifftop with a woman she’d fallen in love with.

That small, beautiful seed that had been planted on the hen weekend was too fragile to survive the trampling of police enquiries and Ed’s death. Robyn and Fen agreed not to see one another after they left Greece.

Instead, they wrote. Pen to paper, truths inked within envelopes and sealed with their tongues. By hand, Robyn found her voice. She shared news of how she’d finally moved out of her parents’ home and was renting a two-bedroom cottage in the New Forest. She described how, on Saturdays, her parents looked after Jack and she went hiking. She took those walks alone, pounding the wind-blown clifftops in the Purbecks, the slicing January cold stealing into her bones.

After six months of writing to one another, they met.

It was like nothing she’d ever experienced. Like magnets finding their opposing force. It was love in all the ways she had never known.

There was everything to learn about each other.

Everything to unlearn about herself.

Now, she took in the small group of guests gathered in the sunlight, searching out her parents. They were sitting in the front row, a little stiffly perhaps, yet as her mother turned to speak to her father, she could see she was smiling.

Earlier this morning, as her mother had placed the orchid in Robyn’s hair, she’d squeezed her shoulder, saying, ‘We just want you to be happy.’

Robyn could finally answer: ‘I am.’

Now, at her side, she felt a light prod against her hip.

‘Mummy,’ Jack whispered, face serious. ‘Time to do the walk.’

She held out her hand, and he put his soft, tiny fingers in hers. Then the two of them began to move down the aisle, to where Fen was waiting beneath an archway of flowers.





97

Fen

Fen could hear the music begin to play.

She smoothed down her white shirt. The cotton was crisp, freshly ironed, buttoned to the top. Her tailored trousers ended in a pair of tan leather Converse she’d deliberated over, deciding their informality balanced the suit.

In her peripheral vision, she could see her aunt seated at the front. She was dressed in a cobalt blue kaftan, an absence of jewellery setting off its clean lines. Over dinner last night, her aunt had told Fen and Robyn that the sale of the Greek villa had finally gone through after months of delays. As she’d been clearing out her belongings, she’d come across a photo of Fen tucked at the back of a cupboard. ‘I wondered if you wanted this,’ she’d said, taking it from her purse.

Fen had held the picture of her younger self, looking at the brilliance of her smile, the openness of her expression. She’d once hidden the photo away because, when she’d looked at herself, it was Nico’s voice she’d heard: No one will want you. But when she’d studied the photo again last night, on the eve of her wedding, with Robyn sitting beside her, she’d heard her own voice clearly. It told her that she was a woman who was both strong and vulnerable, who was brave and sometimes scared, who was loved and who loves. ‘Thank you,’ she’d told her aunt. ‘I’d love to keep the photo.’

Now, behind her, Fen caught the delighted murmurings of the guests as they rose to their feet. She couldn’t wait a moment longer.

She turned.

Robyn moved easily down the grass aisle, her hand in Jack’s, the two of them grinning wildly. She was wearing a simple cream dress, with flat shoes, her hair swept back into a low bun, a single orchid weaved within it. She was luminous.

There she is, Fen thought, eyes warming with tears.

Robyn moved to Fen’s side. Jack slipped his hand free of his mummy’s, lifting it towards Fen for a high five. She laughed as their palms connected, then watched him bound towards his grandparents, plonking himself on the seat between them, legs swinging.

Then it was just her and Robyn, hands joining, looking one another full in the eye.

She kissed the bride.





98

Bella