Page 3 of Hope and Happiness in Bluebell Wood
‘Don’t be silly, Mum,’ Matt says, hugging me this time. ‘We wouldn’t have let you come here alone.’
‘I know. But I’m still very grateful.’
‘And you’re sure you don’t want any help unpacking?’ Hannah asks, looking back at the cottage, where boxes and suitcases full of my belongings await. ‘We don’t mind.’
I shake my head. ‘No, it will give us something to do, won’t it, Merlin?’
Merlin barks.
‘See? He agrees with me.’
Hannah sighs. ‘And you’re still sure?’ she asks again. ‘About being here all alone, I mean. I don’t think I’d like it.’
‘You’d hate it, Han,’ I agree. ‘And so would you, Matt. So would I a couple of years ago, but things change. What I need right now is peace and solitude, and you two to promise me that you’ll be careful.’
I beckon them over and I put my arms around them – marvelling once again at how tall they both are now. When had they stopped being my babies and grown into such wonderful,kind, caring adults? ‘Promise me,’ I say again. ‘Promise me you’ll both take extra care at all times – you never know what’s around the corner, what people might be thinking . . . ’
‘Yes, Mum.’
‘Of course, Mum,’ they both say at the same time. They’d heard me say something similar a few too many times before.
‘I mean it. I totally understand you both wanting to live in busy cities – you’re young, why wouldn’t you? You think you’re invincible. I certainly did at your age. But none of us is – not these days.’
‘Mum, we’ll be fine,’ Hannah insists. ‘Don’t worry.’
‘Keep in touch, won’t you?’ I insist. ‘And you too, Matt.’
‘Of course,’ Matt says. ‘I’ll text you and speak to you on Facetime as often as I can – although we’ll have to get used to the time difference . . . ’
‘What time difference?’ I ask. ‘What do you mean?’
Matt looks uneasily at his older sister.
She glares back at him.
‘What’s going on?’ I ask, looking between them both.
‘You’vegotto tell her now,’ Hannah says, looking and sounding annoyed.
‘Tell me what?’
‘I’m going to New York for six months,’ Matt blurts out, his cheeks flushed. ‘As part of my university course. We talked about this ages ago, didn’t we, before the . . . thing.’ He glances at Hannah, but she simply shakes her head dismissively. ‘Only I didn’t know where I was going to go then. But now I’ve been offered a work placement with a firm in Manhattan, and I’ve accepted it.’
I continue to stare at Matt. I’m trying desperately not to show it, but inside I’m horrified. My little boy in New York.Yes, I’m pleased for him, of course I am. But why did it have to be there?
‘I’m sorry it had to be New York, Mum. I know you’ll worry about me in a big city – even more than you usually do. But it really is an amazing opportunity.’
‘Yes, yes, of course it is,’ I say, recovering enough, on the outside at least, to speak. ‘I . . . I’m pleased for you, Matt; honestly I am.’
I reach forward to hug him, and suddenly his twenty-year-old, six-foot-two frame feels like it’s shrunk, and in my arms I’m holding a wiry, short-for-his-age eleven-year-old boy, who needs his mum because he’s scared of his first day at secondary school.
‘I’ll be fine, Mum,’ he says, trying to reassure me just as I’d been the one reassuring him back then. ‘I’ll be as safe there as Hannah is when she visits London for her job.’
I hear Hannah sigh heavily behind us at her brother. She clearly thinks he’s said the wrong thing . . . again.
‘Look,’ I tell them both, taking their hands in mine, ‘you’re adults now. I know I can’t tell you what to do, where to go and where to live. But I’m your mother, I’ll always worry about youwhereveryou go, you have to understand that. All that I ask is—’
‘We be careful!’ they cry in unison.
