Three dots appeared, disappeared, appeared again.
Do you mean postpone for a while. Or indefinitely?
I don’t know
Indefinitely, then
And because he deserved to know this, even as we broke each other’s hearts, I said the words I’d been holding back for weeks. Thirteen years.
I love you
I know. You were worth it. Both times. I will always love you too
Did it help, knowing Jonah thought I was worth it? That he was as miserable as me? If I really loved him, should I be hoping he was happy?
Oh, it helped. Absolutely.
46
A week later Bigley Primary school broke up for the summer. There was a hastily organised leaving party for Janet, who had been there so long she’d taught two of the other teachers. I stood under the shade of an oak tree at the edge of the school field with some mums from the pub quiz, who invited me to become a regular team member. As we chatted and laughed, I kept one eye on Isla picking daisies and the other on Finn kicking a football with some friends.
I felt sort-of normal.
Apart from my wounded heart, of course.
It was a constant ache, all too often accompanied by tears, but it would heal. I knew this, because I wasn’t allowing myself any debate on the matter. Kick-ass Libby was kicking her ass back into the real world. After a few days to wallow in losing Jonah again, I had got back on the list of small but significant choices. The dining room was nearly sorted, I was eating, exercising and sleeping infinitely better, and we’d planted lettuce and carrot seeds in the new raised beds that Toby had built.
We spent Saturday picnicking with Theo’s family, after a very brief introduction to Platinum Precious – Isla declaring her the most beautifullest baby in the whole world, ever, while Finn announced that she looked like a cabbage. Both my parents came, and I took only minimal pleasure from observing Mum grasping quite how big a part of Nicky’s life her in-laws were.
I had even, in a flash of inspiration, stopped sulking about everyone else’s travels, and booked an adventure of our own.
Well, a week camping for me, the kids, Toby and Hazel in Devon at the end of August, but it was a start.
The first few weeks of the summer holidays passed in a blur. Dad had asked Janet if they could slow things down for the time being, but she’d been thoroughly put off by what she called his ‘family entanglements’, so he continued to look after the children while I worked. More often than not, Mum joined him, and they seemed to settle into a companionable partnership, although they were being very tight-lipped about whether at any point it might develop into anything more. I did note that no one had mentioned divorce, and one morning when Mum popped into the surgery, Nicky spotted her sneaking a leaflet about relationship counselling into her bag.
Hearing about the different activities Isla and Finn got up to with their grandparents, added to the thrill of a new sister to cuddle, I started to worry that a week camping would be boring in comparison. I didn’t protest, though. It was the least these grandchildren deserved.
When a terraced house went up for rent in the village, it seemed the obvious answer, and Mum signed a six-month lease.
She also started volunteering to look after the babies at the Bloomers Wednesday sessions while the single parents enjoyed their ‘fun time’. The new mums called her ‘Nana Helen’ and revelled in her stories about me and Nicky as little girls, some of which were even true. That led to a part-time job helping out at the Green House to top up her pension and the savings that Dad had set up for her when he’d sold the house. On a good day, I could appreciate that her relationship with our family was healing. On a bad day, I felt jealous and angry and wanted to yell at her for keeping it a secret when Jonah lived there. But as the weeks passed, the bad days were fewer, and the good days felt better.
When a man on one of the rival pub-quiz teams asked me out, for a stuttering, shocked second or two I almost thought about saying yes.
Instead, I settled on ‘not yet’, which he very graciously accepted.
We started clearing out the attic, and to my surprise found robust floorboards underneath the clutter, piles of dust and dead bugs. Toby’s uncle, who was a building contractor, sorted out the paperwork and admin – which was less than we feared due to it already being classed as a living space – and taught Toby how to install an outside staircase, while someone else completed the rewiring and made sure everything met current building regs.
Dad offered his DIY services, but Toby’s uncle had no patience for the kind of man who mistook a pair of pliers for an adjustable wrench, so Dad quietly got on with babysitting Hazel instead.
Overall, it became a summer of new starts alongside wrangling with old issues. Challenging, yes. Tiring, absolutely. But I felt – mostly – on top of it all. I was coping.
‘No, you are not!’ Nicky barked, on one of our now regular Saturday no-parents-allowed hikes, when I expressed this out loud. ‘Libby, look at you.’
I instinctively looked down at my new leggings and sporty top. I thought I was starting to look okay.
‘You’rethriving.’ My sister laughed.
I basked in that thought for a few more strides.
