Page 78 of The Second Chance Bus Stop
‘You’re back!’ She hugs me and when my face is leaned against her shoulder, I notice the second unusual thing, and that’s a pair of men’s shoes next to the doormat.
‘You have company,’ I say, my voice deflated despite me willing it to sound excited.
‘I met someone.’ She looks so pleased that I hug her a second time. ‘Please may I introduce you to Tim.’
‘Hello, Americano,’ I say and stretch my hand out to the tall, handsome coffee customer my best friend has had her eye on for months. ‘Nice to meet you.’
He laughs, and the grumpy attitude that we would joke about seems to belong to another person entirely.
‘Usually it’s just Tim, but I accept in a small town like this I’d stand out enough to earn that nickname.’
‘How did this happen?’
‘Remember that he started to buy two drinks? And we thought he’d lost his mind as we saw him go to his car and there was no one in the passenger seat?’
I nod. We had plenty of theories. Including that he just wanted to show off his disposable income and that he found life choices so hard he bought two different types of drinks. All of them turned out to be wrong.
‘Well, the other drink was forme,’Lina says, unusually flushed and pink-faced. ‘He just couldn’t bring himself to give it to me.’
‘She was always so busy and stern-looking. Every day I’d tell myself I’d offer it and ask if she’d sit with me and every day I bailed,’ Tim chips in.
‘That’s the cutest thing I ever heard,’ I agree.
‘Right?’ Lina says and clings to his arm.
‘Do you want a drink?’ Tim says. I think how quickly he already seems to feel at home here, and my stomach sinks at the memory of how I shared a space with someone too, just a couple of days ago.
I give them the bottle of wine I brought.
‘I’ll leave you to it. I’m so happy for you guys. Actually, this wine also goes well with lamb and new love, I’ve been told.’
Lina promises to call me tomorrow and that we’ll have wine night this week now that I’m home. I walk back to mine, the now wine-less shopping trolley rolling behind me like a dark shadow bouncing and struggling over the rough pavement, with a strange mix of happy and sad that I can’t categorise. But then suddenly I can, because this is a feeling I know well: happy for them, sad for myself.
And I thought it had finally changed.
Blade
London
Five days after her accident Mum gets to go home. She’s made an incredible recovery. Unprecedented, the medical team told me. A physio will be coming twice weekly and a nurse every day to begin with but she’s fit enough to be home. Eliza got a cleaner to come in while we were in hospital and Mum has spent the first hour rearranging items and moving them back to their original place. I hold onto the letters and sit with the words they contain, waiting for a moment to speak to her. Zara left a lasagne in the oven and a bowl of rocket in the fridge, but once we got back she headed home. Now it’s just Mum and me again.
This time I know I’ve got it right. The story. Mum’s story.
My anger is gone. Can you even be angry at someone for forgetting? For sending you to look for someone they deep down knew died years ago? When you know how much she never wanted to forget?
I sit down next to her on the sofa.
‘I need to talk to you, Mum. I met someone in Sweden. Someone I really like.’
‘A girl?’
‘A girl. She’s called Sophia.’
‘That’s a lovely name.’
‘It’s a long story, and I think I better start at the very beginning. With Sven.’
‘He didn’t turn up.’
