swell of my stomach.
‘Didn’t I tell you to trust me? Didn’t I say it would all work out eventually? We just had to wait for the right baby to come along.’ He was thrilled. ‘This one is special … this one wants us to be her parents. His parents. Whatever.’
‘God, I hope so.’ I touched his face. ‘I’ve been a nightmare, haven’t I? Absolutely barmy.’
Luke caught my hand and held it. ‘Not barmy. Clinically insane. Make that certifiable – joking!’ He doubled over at the bicep punch I threw him, his expression sobering. ‘You want this badly, that’s all. We both want this badly. This one wants to stay in your perfect, perfect oven. This is it, Lucy. This is it.’
I held Luke’s hand against my stomach. A baby of our own – part me, part him. After eight years of trying and after eight, sad little boxes in a cupboard, a baby of our own. At last.
Sitting alone in the florists, Patricia found herself staring down at her notepad. She should be making a funeral wreath for tomorrow morning, but she had been putting it off. It was getting dark outside and Gino, busy putting the chairs inside Café Amore for the night, noticed her from across the street and waved.
Patricia slowly held a hand up in response. She felt weary. And desperately alone. True, she was on her own – in the physical sense – having sent Lucy home hours ago to plan an elaborate anniversary dinner (although with Lucy’s track record, Patricia privately felt more than one evening’s practise might be in order), but still. She felt alone in all senses of the word. Isolated, forlorn, solitary. It was unnerving after all this time to be knocked sideways by this familiar, suffocating feeling, Patricia thought. She steadied her hands on her notepad.
She had felt so disconnected since Bernard’s death. Even after all this time. It was as if she felt set apart from other people much of the time, unable to fully get involved in her surroundings … or involved in life, in fact.
It was Luke and Lucy’s fifth wedding anniversary on Sunday. Their fifth. Five years without a … Patricia forced the thought away and focused on Lucy. She loved Lucy. Not in a ‘you’re-the-daughter-I-never-had’ way, of course, because she had Nell, but there was a genuine closeness between them. Wasn’t there? Sometimes Patricia wondered if she had prevented a real connection from growing. She didn’t mean to be aloof, but she found it hard to be openly affectionate. Patricia wasn’t really sure why. Was that because she had lost Bernard? Had the lack of physical contact made her cold towards others? It was possible, she supposed.
Working together helped; she and Lucy had forged a good relationship over flower arrangements and awkward customers. Lucy had only started working at the florist’s after meeting Luke as Patricia had needed an extra pair of hands and because Lucy was at a crossroads, career-wise. But she had stayed and she seemed to love it.
And now Lucy was properly involved in the business. It irked her that Lucy moaned about the lack of a credit card machine, as did Lucy’s desire for order and symmetry with everything. ‘Getting with the programme,’ Luke jokingly called it and although he took a gentler, more persuasive line, he obviously agreed with Lucy.
The truth was, Patricia didn’t trust modern technology. You always knew where you were with cash and cheques; that was what Bernard used to say and he was spot on. But she was doing her best to embrace new ideas – like those flannel flower baskets Lucy had shown her some months back. It had taken her a little time to see them as a viable prospect, but she was in her fifties; she liked to mull an idea over before she could get her head around it.
If only Bernard were still here; he’d know what to do about all these … Patricia faltered. If only Bernard was still here. Not just to listen to her reservations about the state-of-the-art business ideas she was struggling to understand, but to stop this awful loneliness.
Patricia rubbed a hand over her eyes. She felt faintly foolish. Funeral flowers always did this to her. Despite the length of time Bernard had been gone, she missed him. Every single day. She would wake up each morning and, as she’d read in some of those women’s magazines where they always went on about deceased partners, there would be seconds of blissful, sleepy forgetfulness. Then the haze would clear and she would remember. He was gone. And the anguish would consume her. And she would miss the smell of him, the sound of his laughter and, most of all, the easy history they shared.
They had been a cliché of sorts: childhood sweethearts, married young, devoted to one another. Their lives had lacked notable drama or incident and that was just the way they had liked it. Bernard had worked as a GP in their local surgery, with just the right blend of kindly firmness. He had been well-liked in the community and she had been happy to bring up their three children and be a traditional housewife. When the children were older, Bernard had inherited a sum of money after the death of his parents and, knowing how much she loved flowers, he had bought an empty shop space for her. Patricia had taken a floristry course, even though taking such a step had filled her with anxiety, and Hartes & Flowers had been born. It had been the single most romantic thing Bernard had ever done for her. She thought of him each time she opened and closed the shop. Each time she trailed her fingers along the cream, distressed-effect counter he had chosen.
What made it so difficult was that Bernard had dropped dead one day. Just like that. No warning, no prior symptoms, no goodbye. Just … dead. In a flash, in a heartbeat. Or not, as the case may be. The doctors said Bernard had had an undiagnosed heart condition, that his condition had made him the equivalent of a ticking time bomb. Patricia detested this expression; it made Bernard sound like some sort of sinister terrorist threat. Apparently, it was quite common for people in the medical profession to miss their own health problems – they couldn’t see what was under their own noses.
Thank goodness for Luke, Patricia reflected. Quite simply, he had been the lynchpin of the family since Bernard had died. He shouldn’t have been, but he had stepped up admirably when Ade couldn’t. Just for a nanosecond, Patricia’s heart ached at the thought of her eldest son. But she steeled herself and put that feeling right back in the box it belonged in. Ade was gone and he wasn’t coming back.
But Luke. Luke had gritted his teeth and got on with it. Barely twenty-one and probably ill-prepared for the responsibility of supporting his mother and younger sister through their grief, Luke had knuckled down and coped. It had been Luke’s idea to send Nell to a therapist when all of her problems had started, and thank God they had. Thank God.
Patricia placed the wreath carefully in the fridge in the back office and paused, her hand on the cool, metal door. Her life seemed to be on hold at the moment, had been for some time, in fact. She always seemed to be waiting.
As Patricia drifted back into the shop to tidy up, she noticed a harassed-looking woman wielding a futuristic-looking pushchair with a baby in it. A stroppy toddler tugged at her hand, whining loudly, neither of them noticing when he dropped his cuddly Buzz Lightyear toy.
Patricia dashed outside and picked it up. ‘You dropped this, sweetie.’
The boy took it sulkily, saying nothing as his sticky fingers closed around the green and white figure. The mother turned, frowning. ‘Say thank you,’ she reminded her son, tiredly.
‘Thank you,’ the boy mumbled.
Patricia
