It wasn’t that they were deliberately trying to be hurtful when we were together – it was just all those tiny little digs, those small comments that acted like paper cuts to my self-esteem. I usually meditated by the sea before I saw my parents so that I felt centred, so that I could react to things calmly, accept that they didn’t understand and not let them get to me. But right now, meditation simply wasn’t an option. I couldn’t clear my mind of Heath’s voice, no matter how hard I tried. And if I gave my subconscious any leeway at all, I was back there underneath him, feeling him all around me, my body more alive than it had ever felt in my life. So no, there was no chance of my achieving a Zen state and being centred today. I would just have to make it through a family get together with no prep work. At least Mia would be there. Thank God for Mia. Family meals were way more tolerable with her around.
As I approached the massive door to Max’s house, I heard a loud thud from behind it, followed by Roger’s frenzied barking and whining. I didn’t have time to see who had opened the door before sixty kilograms of over excited Alsatian knocked me off my feet. I laughed and hugged him around his thick, furry neck as he proceeded to lick my entire face with his paws on my shoulders.
“Come on, buddy,” I said as I pushed him so I could kiss his head and ruffle his ears. “No tongue before nine.” A hand was held out to me and a shiver went up my spine. I followed the hand up the muscled forearm and my throat closed over when I realised who was standing there. “Heath.” I said his name on an exhale. It felt like all the wind had been knocked out of me. “What are you doing here?”
“Your mum and dad invited me and Verity. I haven’t seen them in ages.” His hand was still outstretched to me, but I ignored it and pushed myself up instead. He lowered his voice as I regained my feet. “I can leave if it makes you uncomfortable.”
“Don’t bother, Mum and Dad would be crushed. They always thought you were the bee’s knees. They’d probably much rather have you here than me, to be honest.”
“Midge, that’s not true. They’ve missed you. They said you’ve been busy the last couple of family meet ups.”
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever,” I muttered under my breath. I would not waste time explaining why interactions with my parents were best kept to a minimum. Last time we were all together, Heath had agreed with them when they’d indulged their habit ofaffectionate teasing,which was basically crapping all over my life choices and calling me a waste of space. I had no idea why it should come as any surprise to him that I might want to limit my exposure to that sort of self-esteem bashing.
“I mean it, Yaz. If you want me to leave, I will.” Heath’s voice was still lowered. He touched my arm as I passed him, but I flinched away and darted in through the door.
“Stay,” I said over my shoulder. “You’ll just disappoint Mum and Dad if you go.”
Before he could say anything else, I had opened the door at the end of the corridor and was in the huge double-height, open-plan living space. Light poured in through the wall of glass that stretched up to the second story, and fell onto Mum, Dad and Verity all sitting at the kitchen island. Opposite were Max and Mia, who was cooking while she smiled at my parents.
“Yaz!” Mia dropped the wooden spoon she was using to stir the pasta sauce and jogged around the island to give me a hug. I smiled and hugged her back, her bump was starting to really hinder hugs now which I found exciting. Mia was one of my favourite people. I was so glad my brother had found her. She’d come a long way. Spontaneous affection did not used to come naturally to her after long years of abuse from her ex-husband. But that was changing now thanks to my brother and, according to Mia, thanks to me too (spontaneous affection was definitely one of my strong points). “I haven’t seen you in ages. Where have you been hiding?”
I laughed. “I’ve not been hiding.” That wasn’t strictly true. To a certain extent, I had been avoiding Max and Mia in an attempt to avoid Heath at all costs. It wasn’t fair to Mia, but my self-preservation instincts had kicked in. “I’m just busy right now with everything.”
“Hey stranger,” said Verity, she looked effortlessly glamourous as always – her hair swept up in casual bun, beautiful face perfectly made-up, four-inch heels on her feet. I don’t think I’d ever seen Verity in flats. Her only concession to today being a supposedly relaxed Sunday was the fact she was wearing jeans. She gave me her standard two kisses and a hug. As she pulled back I noticed some dark circles under her eyes despite the make-up. I opened my mouth to ask her if she was okay but Mum cut off what I was going to say.
“The wind’s been good, has it, love?” Mum said, as she stood from her stool. Verity released me so I could move to hug Mum and then Dad.
“Well, it’s not just that. I’ve–”
“Max sent us this latest video, sweetheart,” Dad said as he gave me a squeeze, then set me back to frown down at me. “It all lookedverydangerous. Your mother and I were a bit shocked.”
“These television crews will encourage you to do all sorts, love,” Mum put in. “I’m not surprised that they just want to get your pretty face on camera, but I’m sure they could sell swimsuits without you doing all that stuff out on the water.”
“I know what I’m doing,” I said with a forced smile. Mum looked at my father who sighed.
“Maybe you think you do, but you’re taking too many risks–”
“Listen, let’s eat, shall we?” Mia, ever the peacemaker, interrupted. Mum opened her mouth to speak again, but Max, who’d come up behind me to ruffle my hair, moved to Mum and steered her towards the table. Thankfully the conversation moved onto Max and Verity’s new environmentally friendly affordable housing project. They’d been back onBetter Homeslast month. Mum was nearly bursting with pride.
“It’s the talk of the Women’s Institute,” she said. “That Carole Taylor is always banging on about her human rights lawyer daughter, and here my son is housing the nation and saving the environment.” She beamed at Max and he shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “And I was so proud of you too, Verity, love. And we heard about that huge campus building for the London School of Economics. Max tells me you’re the driver behind that project.” Verity flinched at the mention of the campus building that the business was pitching for in central London. She returned my mum’s warm smile but it didn’t meet her eyes. To be honest she’d seemed distracted all meal, and had hardly touched her food.
“Well, the chap behind that one’s a right piece of work to be honest, Mum,” Max muttered, eyeing Verity carefully. “Might be better we have nowt to do with him, arrogant tosser.”
Verity looked down at her lap. Her face had drained of all colour now.
“Oh dear,” Mum said, reaching over to rub Verity’s shoulder. “Don’t you put up with any nonsense, love. Plenty of other projects.”
“Thanks, Fern,” Verity said after clearing her throat. “But don’t worry – I can deal with idiot billionaires.”
“Of course you can. Best negotiator there ever was. Nobody’s a match for my Verity. Billionaire or no,” Mum said proudly. Verity gave her another weak smile. “And you, Mia, so brave what you did – speaking out like that.”
Mia had recently spoken at a conference about her experiences with domestic violence.
“It was nothing,” Mia said in a quiet voice, shrugging a little.
“Don’t say that, Mia,” I said, my tone so fervent that she glanced up at me with her eyebrows raised. “That was so brave and so important. What you did will help change lives. Don’t play it down.”
“Okay. Okay, honey.” She reached over the table and squeezed my hand, a small smile on her lips but also a frown line between her eyebrows. I nodded, then realised the entire table was looking at me after my outburst. Maybe I’d come on a little strong, but I couldn’t stand Mia putting herself and her achievements down like this. It wasn’t only the work she was doing for domestic abuse charities, she was also the tech wizard at my brother’s company and without her a lot of his projects wouldn’t have been able to go ahead.
