I thought about Kennedy Swan, my birth mother, and the unknown man who fathered me. Unlike all the other times, I wondered whether I should do something to find out more of her –my– story.
‘There’s a lot the letters don’t say,’ I replied, dragging my thoughts back to the woman who had been my mother in every way that mattered.
‘You’re flying back in the morning?’
I nodded, snipping the last stem in the box.
‘Let’s find fifteen minutes or so later today, then. Now’s not really the time or place.’
‘Thank you.’ It was clear in my voice how much I meant it. If things had worked out differently, perhaps Gabe would have been my stepfather. The thought of his gentle, easy-going nature being there to alleviate Mum’s stern severity brought tears to my eyes.
But when I turned away to compose myself under the guise of fetching another box of flowers, I spotted Pip approaching the barn, and I had to appreciate that if Gabe and Mum had stayed together, there’d be no Pip – or his sisters – so things had worked out for the best.
‘Hey.’ It was embarrassingly obvious how he ignored everyone else and walked straight up to me.
‘Hi.’ I ducked my flushing face over the new box, fiddling with the parcel tape.
‘Philip,’ Gabe said, not bothering to keep the amusement from his voice.
‘Oh, hi, Da. What can I do to help?’
‘Your sister is in charge; I’m only here to do what I’m told.’
‘Which one?’
‘I’ve no idea. I daren’t ask.’
‘Lily?’ Pip called. ‘What do you need me to do?’
‘Those flowers want arranging into ten vases for the tables.’ Lily marched over. ‘Da, will you help me over here, please?’
‘Over where?’ Gabe got up, brushed his knees off and tried to work out what Lily’s vague hand gesture had been waving at.
‘Over anywhere that means Pip and Emmie can have some space,’ Lily hissed, loud enough to cause Celine, now hanging photographs near the barn entrance, to stiffen.
‘I’m sorry,’ Pip said, shaking his head with an embarrassed smile. ‘I have tried telling them.’
‘Once you islanders make your mind up about something, you really stick to it.’ I offered what I hoped was a light-hearted eye-roll in return.
‘Yeah,’ Pip muttered. ‘Something, or someone.’
Kneeling beside him on an old horse-rug, as I snipped and stripped the different flowers of their lower leaves, and Pip arranged them in the vases, that comment hovered between us like a cloud of static electricity. I had never been so acutely aware of another human being’s presence (not even when Mum stood over my shoulder the first time she let me roll out pastry).
It felt like the culmination of every conversation we’d had at Parsley’s, each sentence treasured like a precious stone. The thrill of racing through the airport, knowing he’d be on the first aeroplane I’d ever set foot on. Him jumping out of his truck to give me a lift to his sister’s, the picnic, the walks, all that talking but then the comfort of companionable silence… It all grew intoa realisation as glorious as the sunsets we’d watched over the sparkling Siskin sea.
I didn’t want to say goodbye to this man.
For the next hour or so, as we quietly got on with our task, I thought about his dad’s revelation in the second letter he’d written to Mum.
With every passing minute, I grow more convinced that this is that indescribable, mysterious force which others name ‘true love’.
This wasn’t a silly crush on the first lovely man to show any real interest in me as a person.
It wasn’t a holiday thing.
The way my heart trembled, my skin burned when his arm brushed against mine…
It was definitely not a nice friendship.