‘Do your parents still live here?’ I asked tentatively, as I couldn’t imagine Helen and Guy being nearly as welcoming as Jessie.
‘No. They moved to the Dales – Grassington – three years ago and Tom and I bought this place from them. We thought it’d be the perfect family home but Tom’s parents aren’t local and, four months into my pregnancy, reality hit us as to how hard it would be without either set of parents close by. So we’re moving to the Dales too.’
‘And your brother?’ I asked.
‘Living and working in Blackpool. And Jan and Colin from The Stables moved to Devon a few years back, so it’s all change here when we move out.’
‘You said your baby’s due later this month?’ Georgia asked. ‘My grandson is due on the 24th.’
‘Aw, congratulations! Mine’s a girl, due on the 20th so just under three weeks to go, although I wish I was resting rather than packing. The house sold in three days so we should have been settled in our new place by now but the chain fell apart. We found a new buyer quickly but they can’t move until May, which is frustrating but these things happen. Anyway, enough about me. I heard you’d moved to Newcastle, Mel. Are you just visiting or are you back for good?’
‘Back for good. I’m working on a project at Willowdale Hall.’
I told her more about it and was touched that she remembered how much I’d loved the place, and she shared a little about her life since I’d left – her job as a nurse and that Tom was a radiologist she’d met at the hospital. I noticed the way her face lit up and her eyes shone as she spoke about her husband. I’d wondered whether, if Noah had lived, he and Jessie would still be together but it felt as though she’d found the life and the person she was always destined to be with. And I was okay with that.
‘We’d better leave you to get on with the packing,’ I said when we reached the end of our drinks.
She screwed up her face in the direction of the boxes. ‘I suppose they’re not going to pack themselves. Before you go, I wanted to apologise for what I said about you not giving enough attention to Noah. I was upset and I think I might have exaggerated. Hedidhave moments where he felt like that but I did with my parents too. I think it’s a teenage thing – we want to be wanted but we also want to be let loose and I’m dreading trying to find that balance when this one’s a teen.’
I smiled at her as she cradled her bump. ‘I’m sure you’ll be a great mum. You always had a nurturing side.’
She smiled back at me. ‘I hope that what I said didn’t make things worse. You and Flynn…’ Her cheeks flushed. ‘When you split up, I wondered if?—’
‘It was nothing you said,’ I told her. ‘Flynn and I dealt with our grief very differently and we couldn’t find a way to do it together.’
There was no need for Jessie to take any blame. Granted, what she said had been the trigger for the start of the end, but I’d been so wound up about everything back then that, if it hadn’t been that, it would have been something else. The relief on Jessie’s face made me think she’d been carrying that guilt around for all these years and, for me, it was a relief to be able to say sorry for how I’d treated her too – something I reiterated strongly before we said goodbye.
‘Well, that was unexpected,’ Georgia said as we walked out of the close to return to the car. ‘How did it feel to see Jessie married and pregnant?’
‘Surprisingly okay. She looked happy, didn’t she?’
‘She did.’
‘You know when I came over for your birthday, do you remember me going outside with a coughing fit? That wasn’t the reason. I had a moment looking across at Keira and Johnnie, expecting their second baby, and it struck me that it could have been Noah and Jessie.’
‘Aw, Mel. Why didn’t you say anything?’
‘Because it was your birthday and I was being silly.’
She placed her hand firmly on my arm to stop me walking and stood facing me. ‘That wasn’t silly at all. That was grief knocking on your door. You’ll never forget Noah – none of us will – and moments like that are bound to creep up on you, often when you least expect them to. But do you know what you can do when they do?’
‘What?’
‘Talk to me.’
She drew me into a hug and we stood there in the lane for several minutes, holding each other tightly. Tears pricked my eyes but I blinked them back. I didn’t want to cry. If I did, I felt sure that the tears would never stop.
* * *
A little later, we parked in Whinlatter Forest and set off along one of the shorter walking trails.
‘Has visiting The Bothy helped lay some ghosts to rest?’ Georgia asked.
I pondered on that for a moment before shaking my head. ‘It’s brought a few things back. I was awful to Jessie. I’m so ashamed thinking about it now. I kept hounding her for information until she snapped and told me something I didn’t want to hear.’
‘Hounding? I thought you only saw her the once after you’d discovered it was drugs.’
Shame swept through me. ‘I wish. I only told you about that time, but there were others…’
