arms. Roma’s blonde curls tumbled loose around her shoulders; Patsie’s darker locks were swept up behind her head. Both women wore comfy jeans and big smiles. ‘Hey, gorgeous!’ Roma welcomed Lily with a huge, effusive hug.
Patsie’s ‘Lily, darling,’ was more restrained but just as warm. Lily couldn’t remember an occasion when Patsie had treated her any differently to the daughter she actually gave birth to, Zinnia. Nor did Roma ever give a sign of favouring Lily over Zin.
Lily beamed as she returned the hugs. ‘Glorious smells coming from the kitchen.’ She lifted her nose to sniff.
‘We made your favourite chicken and chorizo bake once we knew you were coming.’ Roma put on her glasses and regarded her daughter through the turquoise frames. ‘Always wonderful to see you but you sounded as if something was bothering you on the phone.’
Patsie’s pansy-dark eyes fixed themselves on Lily too.
Lily had been wondering how best to broach what was on her mind so decided to offer a direct answer to their direct questions. She licked her lips. ‘I came to make sure you know I love you.’
That caught the attention of both her mothers. ‘What?’ Roma’s grey eyes grew round. ‘Yes, we do.’
Patsie’s brows lifted. ‘What on earth’s brought that on?’
Lily made herself meet their eyes. ‘Zinnia’s upset with me. She minds me living in Middledip, or, at least, the reason I’m living there – to get to know Tubb and work for him. She says that’s hurting you.’ She looked from Roma to Patsie and back again. ‘Is she right?’
Patsie and Roma exchanged glances and Roma sighed. ‘How can I complain when it was me who precipitated the situation?’
‘Let’s not rehash the history,’ Lily suggested hastily, worry inching its way through her tummy as she noted tension on Patsie’s face. ‘Is it harming our relationship that I’ve sought out a member of my natural family? You see,’ she went on honestly, ‘I think Zinnia feels I should leave Middledip and start again somewhere else and it’s affecting things between us. But I like Middledip. I like the community, working part-time at the pub, the friends I’ve made and singing with the Middletones. And I like my half-brother.’
Roma looked stricken. ‘We haven’t asked you to give those things up.’ Patsie took Roma’s hand comfortingly.
‘No, nobody’s actually asked me to. But is my living there hurting you?’ Lily persisted.
Patsie sighed. After a moment, she spoke in what Lily thought of as her ‘lawyer’s voice’, careful and thoughtful. ‘You want to know your family. The same could have gone for Zinnia because children of anonymous donors look for ways to find the male too. That Zinnia doesn’t feel that need shouldn’t be relevant to what you do.’
Lily gave her gaze for gaze. ‘But is it hurting you?’
Roma’s smile was tremulous. ‘It’s you not telling your half-brother who you are that’s tricky to deal with.’
Lily shifted restlessly. ‘Zinnia said something similar,’ she admitted. ‘But you know why I haven’t decided whether to tell him.’ She’d meant to … until the day when she’d been working with Janice getting ready to open for lunch and Tubb had stormed in after a visit to his Aunt Bonnie. Lily shuddered to remember standing there as Tubb opened his heart to Janice, obviously barely registering Lily’s presence. His aunt, with the confusion of age, had spilled some family beans, all about how her brother Marvin had had an affair with a woman he’d considered leaving his family for. Tubb had exploded to Janice that he hoped to hell his dad hadn’t done anything awful like leaving bastard kids around and Lily had wanted to sink through the floor.
She swallowed, reliving that hideous moment when she’d known what it was like to feel despised for merely being alive. ‘I don’t want him to hate me.’ She heard her voice quaver. ‘And, to be honest, I don’t really see why it should make any difference to you or Zinnia whether he knows.’
Roma glanced again at Patsie before once more addressing Lily. ‘It’s dangling over us. What will happen if you finally confess? Will you get hurt? I’m worried what it will do to you if he reacts badly and, being honest, I quail at the idea of ever having to meet him myself. He’s not going to have any love for me, is he?’ Perhaps realising she was being too frank she added, ‘However, you’re the one it affects most.’
Then Patsie’s phone began to ring and she glanced at the screen and sighed. ‘Damn, that’s Andrew from work. I’d better take this.’ She rose gracefully as she answered the call and Lily listened to her voice moving out into the hallway, growing fainter.
Lily changed sofas so that she was sitting next to Roma and lowered her voice. ‘Is it causing trouble between you and Patsie?’
Roma gave a pensive smile, brushing Lily’s hair gently back from her face. ‘When I was so headstrong and unfair as to have an affair with a man in order to get pregnant it took Patsie a while to forgive me and I suppose we’re hearing an echo or two of those horrid days.’
Patsie came back into the room, dropping her phone on the table. Lily’s unhappiness was growing but she hated the idea of her actions bringing tension into the relationship between her mums so she asked, ‘Do you both agree with Zinnia that after I’ve been to Switzerland I should leave the village to make things easier on the rest of you?’ A lump jumped into her throat even at the thought of leaving Middledip behind.
Roma and Patsie exchanged looks. It was several moments before either answered and then it was Patsie. ‘Darling, I don’t think anyone can make that decision but you.’
‘So,’ said Roma with the bright air of one determined to turn the conversation. ‘What else is going on with you? You’re so pretty, Lily, and it has been over two years since you and Sergio said your goodbyes. You ought to be out having lots of lovely dates.’
Lily submitted to the change of subject, needing time to digest her dismay that neither Roma nor Patsie had dismissed the idea of her leaving Middledip as totally unfair. She managed a smile. ‘I haven’t had a date for ages – although a man in The Three Fishes asked me on Thursday. He was drunk and horrible.’ She decided not to go into the part of the story where she’d politely refused and he’d sneeringly declared she must be a lesbian. Roma and Patsie were capable of groaning loudly and moving on but Lily believed that every cut left a scar and didn’t see why she should be the one to add to their number.
Patsie wrinkled her nose. ‘You definitely don’t want a drunk and horrible man. Zinnia says your new boss is hot. How about him?’
‘Wouldn’t argue with Zin about his hotness. I’ll ask him out and tell him one of my mums said I have to, shall I?’ Lily managed to smile again.
Her mothers laughed together as they all moved into the kitchen to dish the pasta, pour wine and talk about the plans Roma and Patsie were making for the garden next year.
On Sunday evening, having driven home and snatched a quick nap in front of the TV, Lily turned up to begin her shift at six at The Three Fishes. A rumble of conversation was already coming from the other side of the bar and a clinking of cutlery from the dining area. Baz, at twenty the youngest staff member, was supposed to be on with her but he raced in five minutes late, his trendy long-at-the-front haircut flying.
She grinned at him as she poured a glass of rosé for Melanie
