‘Morning, Edith.’ Pearl Draper smiled at her as she set the latte and croissant on the table, along with a napkin. ‘It’s nice to see you here so early on a Monday.’
‘I thought I’d come here to work for a bit while I have breakfast.’ Edith smiled at the kind café owner.
‘Any reason you were up earlier than usual?’ Pearl asked.
Edith looked down for a moment. There was something about Pearl that made her seem so wise. Yes, she was in her seventies and had lived a colourful life, but she could — Edith often thought — read people like books. Either that or she had a deep-seated intuition. Running the café for a long time meant she spent a lot of time talking to customers, listening to them and learning about them. Edith believed it had made her even more empathetic than she would already have been.
‘I had a busy weekend with Thora, Finn and Titus, and I slept well last night but woke early. Perhaps it’s because it’s light earlier now.’ Edith offered a small smile, but she saw Pearl’s eyes flicker over her in an assessment.
‘If you’re feeling stressed, dear, we still run yoga sessions, so please do come along and unwind with us all. It’s a very helpful way to relax the body and mind.’ Pearl looked out through the window and across the gardens. ‘In the perfect setting too.’
Edith followed her gaze and felt instantly soothed by the lush greenery beyond the glass, where foxgloves and bluebells swayed beneath the clear blue of the May sky.
‘There’s more to life than work, you know?’ Pearl said. ‘Like family? How is your mum?’
‘She still lives in Devon,’ Edith said. ‘We speak every few weeks, but she’s busy with her work managing a care home and with her new partner and his family. Mum did it all on her own until she met Harrison, so I can’t really blame her for never slowing down.’ She smiled faintly, though her chest ached with old affection. ‘I suppose I got my work ethic from her.’
Pearl gave her a thoughtful look but didn’t press. She never did. Somehow, she always seemed to know when a story was best left folded away.
‘But yes, back to yoga. It really is the perfect setting here,’ Edith agreed. ‘And I will join your classes soon.’
‘Wonderful!’ Pearl beamed. ‘How’re things going work-wise?’
‘Really well. We found some suits for Finn and Titus at the weekend, and they both seemed happy with them, so that’s one thing ticked off the list.’
‘Thora told me this morning.’ Pearl nodded. ‘And I hear Titus has his best man sorted.’
Heat filled Edith’s cheeks, and she blinked rapidly. Without meaning to, Pearl had just hit a raw nerve. ‘Y-yes. He has an… an old friend whom he met years ago when he was in America, and h-he’s going to be his best man. He’s something big in hospitality and high-end event planning, I think.’ She waved a hand as if she couldn’t recall the details. ‘And he… he seems to have plenty of contacts.’
Pearl’s eyebrows had risen just a fraction as she looked at Edith, and not for the first time that morning, Edith felt exposed. But not in a threatened way, just that she was being seen and understood.
‘Edith, dear, if you have anything you’d like to talk about, I am always here. Sometimes it’s easier to speak to someone outside of your immediate circle of family and friends, especially if it’s about a difficult topic. We’ve all been through heartbreak in our lives, and sometimes simply talking about things can be very helpful. I’m not prying, just letting you know my kettle’s always ready to boil and I have plenty of cake to provide sweet comfort.’
‘Thank you so much.’ Edith’s eyes stung as she gazed up at Pearl. Why she was getting emotional, she wasn’t sure, but since she’d seen Wyatt again, she’d felt quite vulnerable. It was comforting to have an older woman as kind and compassionate as Pearl noticing that she might need to share how she was feeling.
Age brought, for the most part, knowledge and wisdom that came from life experiences, and Edith believed it could help to speak to someone who’d been through some tough times. Pearl had endured her fair share of pain, including the loss of her husband, and Edith knew she had plenty of sage advice to share.However, she also didn’t feel that she knew where to start with unpacking her current feelings, and so she needed to let them simmer for a while.
‘No pressure, but I am here, dear.’ Pearl reached out and gave Edith’s shoulder a gentle squeeze, then she walked back to the counter where Thora was serving a customer.
Edith breathed in deeply, then entered her password into the laptop and stared at the screen. She had a fingerprint scanner on the keyboard, but it rarely worked, and so she found it easier to simply enter the password than fuss about waiting for her fingerprint to be recognised.
Opening the search engine, she was about to browse wedding flower ideas when she found herself typing inWyatt Simmonsinstead. His face appeared on the screen surrounded by a few other men of the same name, and her heart stuttered. In the photograph he looked beautiful, but nowhere near as beautiful as he did in person when she could listen to his deep voice and watch the light bring out the amber in his eyes.
The soft hum of the frothing machine and the conversation of other patrons anchored her to the present even as her mind wandered. Glancing over at the counter, she saw Pearl and Thora examining something on Pearl’s phone. Their easy friendship was a balm to her restlessness. Since she’d seen Wyatt, she’d felt this way, as though she’d left something unfinished and it needed her attention.
Pearl’s kindness had roused that sense of needing to finish whatever it was. She wished she could stand up and go to the counter, open up and let the words bubbling in her chest pour out like froth from a shaken bottle of fizzy drink. But where would she start, and what would Pearl think? Was she madfor even thinking about Wyatt in this way? Their relationship had been over years ago, and although she still had this deep heartache whenever she thought of him and of what might have been, he had walked away from her, and so she should have let him go. Made her heart forget about him and let the feelings she had for him fade away. All good sentiments, surely, and yet not so easy to do. Not easy at all.
Perhaps sharing would help with that if she could just work out how to explain what had been, what had gone wrong and what she felt now. But what had gone wrong? She had never worked that out because, in her eyes, it had all been going so well. Until Wyatt had returned to New York, and things had changed. The man she’d loved and adored had changed and now… Now he was back and she had to deal with that, to deal with seeing him regularly and to work out how to be near him without caring about him and what he thought, and about what it felt like to be close to him.
But for now, work beckoned. She had a job to do, and she needed to focus on it. Work had grounded her through the uncertainties of life. Creativity was her anchor, and she would embrace it and put her worries and concerns from her mind.
She exhaled slowly, inhaled and pushed back her shoulders, then settled her gaze on the soft glow of the laptop screen. With a click of the mouse, she banished Wyatt’s face, wishing it was as easy to banish him from her heart and mind.
Her inbox showed new messages, so she opened the first one, easing into the familiarity of a daily task, grateful for the reminder that life, despite its difficult times, continued. One day, one relationship, one wedding at a time…
11
WYATT
