‘I can’t look,’ she said, covering her eyes. ‘It’s going to be horrific and I’ll cry.’
The car stopped and Amanda opened her eyes and gasped.
‘What in hell?’ she said, and she opened the car door.
Janet had parked on the side of the road, opposite the house, and Amanda came around and stood at the front of the car.
‘It’s done,’ she said aloud.
The house sat proudly amongst the most beautiful garden Amanda had ever seen.
The wisteria had been tamed into order, the vines enveloping the wall, while the pink roses climbed over the moon gate, framing the view to the house and beyond to the sea.
The lawns were as green as a billiard table and new plants sat amongst old plants in the beds, planted out as they were in the maps that Diana had drawn so long ago.
‘Who did this?’ Amanda turned to Janet but Janet was back in the car.
‘Go and see,’ she called from the car window and then drove away, leaving Amanda on the side of the road.
As though in a trance, Amanda crossed the road and opened the moon gate, and then entered another world.
She swore she could hear the bees announcing her return as she walked up the gravelled paths and touched the different plants as she passed them.
The vegetable garden was planted up with new seedlings, with the runner beans that Simon had planted weeks before now climbing up wicker tepees. There were nasturtiums falling from the beds onto the paths and Amanda smiled as she passed them, remembering her mom’s favourite flower.
Amanda looked around but couldn’t see anyone and so she walked towards the pond in the shade of the side of the house.
‘Hello,’ she heard as her eyes adjusted to the dark.
She jumped and then she saw him.
‘Simon?’ she cried, and she fell into his arms. ‘You came back.’
‘I told you I would finish the garden by the end of summer and I have.’
She kissed him over and over and then held his face in her hands.
‘Don’t you ever do that to me again. I’ve been a mess.’
‘I know. It was poorly done. I’m not good at endings but then… I didn’t think we were ending, I just wanted to face Charlie and Anika. And then I had to get this all arranged.’ He gestured to the garden.
‘But how? How did you afford it?’ she asked.
Simon sighed. ‘Let’s just say Charlie came to realise the error of his ways and my suggestion that I make a call to Revenue and Customs to get them to audit his personal accounts wasn’t well received. He suddenly remembered he owed me a lot of money.’
‘And Anika?’ she asked.
‘Anika? Oh I didn’t see her. I called her and told her that she did me a huge favour and I thanked her.’
‘A favour? I don’t understand.’
‘Well if she hadn’t run off with Charlie, and if Charlie hadn’t ripped me off, I wouldn’t have come here and I wouldn’t have met the woman who I want to spend every day with for the rest of our lives, in the most beautiful house and garden in the world.’
Amanda cried in his arms and he held her tightly.
‘I’m so sorry about Diana,’ he said. ‘I should have been there.’
‘How did you know?’ Amanda pulled away from kissing his neck.
