Lily remembered the pleased look on Gran’s face. ‘Darling, I’m sorry to say that I don’t know everything but I do like to learn and I read a lot. There are teachers everywhere if you look.’
‘Teachers?’ Lily became more alert. ‘Like at school?’
‘Sometimes.’ She nodded. ‘But a teacher can also be the lady up the road who has chickens, who can tell you what to do when your chooks stop laying, or the bin man who might know how to stop snails from eating your cabbages. People know lots of things; you just have to ask them.’
‘I would like to be a teacher. My piano teacher, Miss Weston, is so pretty and she wears pink nail polish when she plays, and she smells like roses.’
Gran gave a little laugh. ‘She sounds lovely,’ she said.
‘But I don’t know what I would teach?’ Lily pondered out loud.
‘Well, what do you love most?’ Gran enquired.
‘Singing!’ Lily responded without any hesitation. ‘Singing yes, and playing the piano.’
‘Then teach that,’ said Gran. ‘Now come on, let’s water these so they can have a drink and get growing. They need all the help they can get.’
Lily was back in the present as her mother cried.
‘I have wanted this for so long, Mum, and I didn’t know how to tell anyone, but being at the cottage with Gran – I can’t explain it – it’s like I’m my truest self.’
‘And you can’t be that with me?’ Denise asked. ‘You can’t be that in London?’
‘No, Mum, I can’t.’
Peter leaned into them. ‘I understand this is important, but we do have to discuss Gran,’ he said. ‘She can’t go home. We do need to consider a nursing home,’ he said.
Lily glared at her father. ‘She’s not going to a nursing home,’ she said. ‘She wants to be in her own home.’
‘She can’t be. It’s out of our hands,’ he said. ‘You’ve seen how she looks and if you’re working, who will be there to care for her if this happens again? No, she needs to go to a home.’
Lily felt the rage returning. ‘No, she will be at Pippin Cottage.’
‘And you will give up your new job to care for her? And not do the show, which we haven’t even discussed,’ Denise snapped.
Lily looked at Nick who was silent. ‘Do you think she needs to be in a home?’ she asked him.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I think she needs to be in her home because older people don’t like to be moved.’
‘Like the carrots,’ Lily burst out. ‘They don’t do well if you move them. They die from the shock.’
Her parents looked at her as though she was insane and turned to Nick.
‘You honestly think she will cope at home?’ Peter asked Nick. ‘She’s ninety-seven.’
Nick took Lily’s hand in his and held it tightly and she paused before he spoke.
‘We have a while before she can be home. They’ll do everything they can to help her but you have to be prepared. She will need an oxygen tank and lots of support.’
Lily nodded but looked at her parents. ‘We can arrange things at the cottage, I’m sure of it.’
But Denise shook her head. ‘She won’t be able to make it up the stairs.’
Lily looked to Nick. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think we have to do what she wants, which is to return home. We’ll have to make it as easy as possible for her but they’ll be able to work out what’s wrong with her heart and if they can improve the blood flow.’
‘We have to do this,’ Lily said. ‘We have to get her home again.’
