‘What can I say? I bribed her. Sorry.’
I smile at my niece’s efforts. Having another little lady in our lives has been the most wonderful gift and she’s given us all a brand-new focus and direction in our lives.
‘Why are you sad, Mummy?’ she asks me. ‘Were you crying? What is making you sad? It wasn’t an expensive balloon.’
I gently pull my little daughter towards me and sit her on my knee as Mo folds her arms and looks away with tears glistening in her eyes.
I take a deep breath, feeling the warmth of her soft skin on my face as we sit cheek to cheek.
‘I’m just sitting here waiting on you and I was thinking about how proud I am of you,’ I tell my daughter. I push her hair behind her ears and smile at how it’s sticky with ice cream. ‘You can have all the balloons in the whole wideworld, no matter how expensive they are, and you can ask as many questions as you want to all day every day.’
‘Really?’ she asks, looking up at the sky.
And at that, she lets go of the balloon, and it drifts away from us before any of us can scramble to catch it.
‘Oh no!’ Mo exclaims, and we wait for the inevitable meltdown.
‘It’s OK, Aunty Mo,’ says Hope, licking her ice cream. ‘I did that on purpose so I’m not going to cry. I’m giving my balloon to Granda Peter up in heaven.’
My mouth drops open in wonder, as does Mo’s, and as Shannon joins us the four of us girls watch as the balloon floats up into the bright blue August sky.
‘I swear it’s like she can read my mind sometimes,’ I say in disbelief. ‘My daughter has this crazy sixth sense and sometimes it really does freak me out.’
‘What’s a sixth sense?’ Hope asks, and Shannon shakes her head at the idea of answering another question, but my phone ringing lets me off the hook this time.
It’s David, just as I hoped it would be. I take a deep breath and thank the heavens that I’m still able to hear his voice every day of my life.
It was almost, in the blink of an eye, so very different.
‘I was just thinking of my dad,’ I say to him when I answer the phone. I look at the clock and smile at how he promised he would ring me to mark this date and time and my grand arrival at our doorway, the very spot where oursurvival story first began. Mo and Shannon discreetly distract Hope to give us our moment together.
‘Your dad’s watching over you, Kate,’ he whispers. ‘He’s watching over every single one of us, every step of the way. I totally believe that.’
And I know that’s true.
David might frequently be bedridden with chronic pain from the serious injuries he sustained; he may suffer horrific flashbacks and post-traumatic stress after all he’s been through; he may never be able to travel back and forth to our childhood home town like we once loved to, but he is a living, walking miracle and I thank God that he’s still with us every single day.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ I tell him as I tuck my hair behind my ear and watch him on my phone screen. ‘You look tired.’
‘You look amazing,’ he says.
I roll my eyes but they fill up when I predict what’s coming next.
‘Ask me a question,’ I whisper, gulping back tears.
‘Why are you so beautiful?’ he says, which makes me beam into a smile.
‘Charmer,’ I whisper, touching his face from afar.
We both take a second to drink in this precious milestone and be grateful to be still alive and, more importantly, still together.
‘The last person who asked you that question also asked you to marry him, didn’t he?’
I feel a warmth in my belly just by seeing his handsome face and by hearing his familiar voice, especially as I sit here in this doorway again and think of all we have been through since the horror that brought us together twenty years ago on this very day, at this very time.
‘He did,’ I say, remembering our wedding day fondly. It wasn’t as we’d planned but it was immensely beautiful and special, with Hope in our arms and love in our hearts. ‘And I promised that man I’d be there for him always, just as I promised to find him again after we first met.’
His face wrinkles around the eyes as his mind goes back in time.
