* * *
‘I can’t afford to lose my job,’ she told Ellie and Fi, a day or two later. She was sitting on the low stone wall that was part of the terracing of La Maisonette’s sloping garden, with Bonnie in her arms. ‘They’ve been very accommodating, giving me extra, unpaid, leave but I’ve got to get back. Goodness knows the kind of mess my garden is in after nearly two months of total neglect.’
Ellie was knocking the caked sand off the surface of one of the mosaic paving stones she and Fi had made this week.
‘You don’t really want to go back though, do you, Mam?’
Jeannie sighed. ‘I do and I don’t. I miss my wee house. I miss my job. But… if I go back…’ She paused for a long moment. ‘I’ll miss Gordon,’ she admitted. ‘It was so strange at first and I was all over the place but…’
Fi stopped the job she was doing, using a scrubbing brush and water to clean a stone that had already had the sand knocked off onto the plastic sheet so it could be used again.
‘You still love him, don’t you?’
‘Aye… I don’t think I ever stopped.’ Jeannie blinked away tears, focussing on the pattern on the stone Fi was cleaning as she tried to keep control. There was a flowerpot outlined with the thin edges of dark stones and filled with the round surfaces of paler stones. Three stalks were coming out of the pot and there were five small daisy-like flowers over the top of the stalks.
It was pretty enough to distract her and dry up any tears.
‘That’ssobonny,’ she said. ‘I’ll buy it myself, if you’ll let me, and take it home to my wee garden. Except it would be far too heavy for my luggage. And aren’t you working to get enough ready for the markets?’
‘I’m still thinking about whether I want to commit to going to markets,’ Ellie said. ‘If I did, it would just be for the evening summer markets in Vence, I think – like the one where I first saw Dad.’
‘When do they start?’ Fi asked.
‘Next month sometime. And they finish towards the end of August, so it’s only a few weeks.’
‘Maybe you could share Dad’s stall,’ Fi suggested.
It made Jeannie smile, how natural it sounded to hear them talking about their father when, for so much of their childhood, any reference to him was carefully avoided. It made her proud how willing they seemed to be to forgive him and let him back into their lives. It was harder for Laura, she knew that. She’d seen more during the bad times. Heard more and, more importantly, felt more. Her oldest girl had tried to help mother her younger sisters. She’d even tried to mother Jeannie at times. She’d lost too much of her own childhood, so she had a lot more to forgive, but she was trying. The love was still there, Jeannie was sure of it, but it needed more time for trust to allow it to resurface.
Bonnie was falling asleep in her arms, which made her feel heavier, somehow. Jeannie shifted her slightly, letting her knees take some of the weight.
‘I’m sure he’d be delighted to share his market stall,’ she said, ‘…if he’s still here.’
Ellie looked startled. ‘What do you mean? Where’s he going?’
‘Nowhere,’ Jeannie added hurriedly. ‘Unless he wants to. It’s just that I have to go home and it occurred to me that he might like to come and visit for a wee while. Being in Scotland again, where he could see the places in Glasgow where he grew up and went to school and our house in Oban where we were together as a family… well, it might help to bring back memories. The good memories instead of all those terrible nightmares.’ She swallowed hard. ‘He told me he was sure he’d killed me in one of those dreams. He knew he’d tried to hurt me and that there was blood and that he had to run – as far and as fast as he could – because he couldn’t bear to look at me, and he’s been fighting that fear and the panic ever since. That’s why he thought I was a ghost when he saw me. Why it was such a shock that he ended up having that terrible seizure.’
Ellie and Fi were staring at her.
‘You’re going to take him home?’ Fi whispered. ‘To live with you? You’d like to go back to your marriage?’
If Jeannie didn’t have the baby in her arms she would have reached to hug Fiona. She could see that this daughter of hers was still struggling. Oh, God… was she still blaming herself for being subjected to that horrific sexual assault? Or for defending herself physically when she was afraid it might happen again? That she’d tried to hurt someone, like her father had?
‘Aye,’ she said quietly, holding Fi’s gaze. ‘Everyone deserves a second chance, don’t they, hinny? And everyone is worthy of being loved, but I think it’s hard to accept that love when you can’t forgive yourself. To not forgive yourself for something that’s not even your fault would be too sad, so if there’s something I can do to stop that happening to someone I love, I have to try and do it. Don’t I?’
‘Oh, Mam… of course you do.’
Both Fi and Ellie scrambled to their feet. They sat on either side of Jeannie, putting their arms around her and their heads on her shoulders, the way they’d done when they were just wee bairns.
‘We love you,’ Ellie said.
‘Somuch,’ Fi added.
Jeannie could feel that love. So strong, and it was going in both directions. Not just between herself and her grown-up daughters but with the granddaughter she was holding in her arms.
‘It’s going to be okay,’ Fi whispered. ‘We’ll get there. All of us.’
Jeannie looked down at Bonnie’s face, with that delicious expression of peacefulness that babies had when they were asleep. The kind of peace that could only come from absolute trust and unconditional love.
