Page 66 of Road Trip to the Riviera
‘What for?’
‘I know we’re young and it’s sudden. But you’ve made me feel so welcome. Even when Louis and I first started dating. You’ve been so kind.’
‘It’s nothing.’
‘But it’s not. That help you gave me with my CV. And giving up your time to drive me to that appointment when Mum was sick.’
I looked at her. ‘Oh, Summer, of course!’ I moved closer and put an arm on her shoulder.
As if the touch were the signal she needed that it was OK, she stepped forward and gave me such a tight squeeze that it nearly pushed the air out of my lungs. Tentatively, I put my arms around her back too. ‘Welcome to the family, Summer.’
Somehow, in that moment, all the tension that I felt about the wedding melted away. Because I realised it wasn’t the ending I’d thought it was. But the beginning of something wonderful.
I slip into my robe, grab my crutch and make my way to the back door, which is already unlatched. Crossing the grass, I quietly slip onto one of the sunloungers which is damp with dew. My leg is hardly hurting at all now and I’m hopeful that the bone is finally starting to knit together properly again. It will be such a relief to slip off the boot for good.
Hal notices me on a turn and swims to the ladder, water pouring off him as he climbs out of the pool. ‘Couldn’t sleep either, eh?’ he says as he roughly dries himself with a towel.
‘Yeah. Big day.’
‘Huge day,’ he says. He sits down on a lounger, turning his body so he’s facing me. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Weird?’ I suggest.
‘Well, yeah. That goes without saying!’
‘You know, I had a bit of a conversation yesterday with Mum.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah, I was worried, I guess, that she’d kind of forced those two into getting hitched before they were ready. Oh, I know they had plans, but being engaged and actually tying the knot are two different commitments, aren’t they, at twenty-two?’
He raises an eyebrow. ‘And did she?’
I laugh a little. ‘Maybe she gave them a nudge. But you know, they seem pretty committed. Happy. And I guess it’s a way to really celebrate the day in style.’
‘Still,’ he sighs. ‘It’s a bit… backward of her in a way. Judgemental.’
I make a face. ‘Maybe a bit. But I don’t think it’s so much to do with them having a baby, as to do with Mum.’
‘What do you mean?’
I sigh. ‘She had a health scare a couple of months back. Didn’t tell anyone of course – typical Mum. Had a lump, a biopsy. Everything turned out to be benign. But I think it really shook her. Especially after Dad. You know?’
‘Oh. Poor Vivian.’
‘Yeah. She felt confronted by her own mortality. And I think she realised she was kind of lonely. I know she has lots of friends out here already. But essentially, she is an older woman living on her own. Even if she’s living in paradise.’
‘Yeah, I guess so.’
‘I know she’s in her late sixties, but I don’t think she actually thought of herself as particularly old until the scare.’
‘Well, I can definitely understand that. I’m forty and won’t accept that I’m in midlife.’
‘Midlife is fifty,’ I tell him firmly.
‘It is?’
‘It is,’ I say. ‘At least, I’ve decided it is. Ask me when I get to fifty and I might have revised it a bit.’
