Page 55 of Every Christmas Eve
‘Thanks? What for?’
‘This,’ she says. ‘Tonight. Everything. For asking me to help out with the party. For being you in the way I always loved and remembered. I know I’m being a bit of a nettle overGracie, but I can’t tell you how much I enjoy being around you again.’
‘Ditto,’ I tell her.
‘You always seemed to have this way of helping me find the right track, or at least you made me feel like my world wasn’tactuallyfalling apart when I thought it was. Thanks for what you said earlier about Gracie too. It helped me a lot.’
I raise a glass and we clink together, in a quiet nod to whatever comes next for Lou and me. She orders monkfish with a total change of heart, which is so Lou Doherty, while I stick to my fillet steak, and as we eat together, we fill in the many gaps of what we’d learned and loved about the twenty years before.
‘It’s the morose stares that get to me,’ I tell her, making a very sad face to illustrate my point. ‘And they’re still everywhere. The school gates were the worst, and don’t even start me on parents’ night. Or the Christmas concert when in junior school. Ava always seemed to have a lead role, making it even more of a pity party, but people forget you’ve got functioning ears when you’re a single parent. The kindness, don’t get me wrong, that was immense too, but the whispers of pity have become a little bit tiring, especially in front of the child.’
Lou covers her mouth as she tries to chew and laugh at the same time.
‘I know my situation was different, but sometimes it was no easier in New York, believe me,’ she says, much to my surprise. ‘I sent Gracie to the smallest school I could find inBrooklyn, where I even made it on to the PTA. There were all sorts of families at that school, yet when it came to the crunch, the kids with anything other than a standard mum and dad and a white picket fence were looked upon ever so slightly differently.’
‘In Brooklyn?’
She pauses, fork in mid-air.
‘Actually, no,’ she says with a giggle. ‘But I felt it was like that. Only because it was common knowledge among parents that John had made off with Gracie’s kindergarten teacher. Yes,that’swhat made me a prime case for morose stares.’
We both make a pitiful face at the same time, which makes us burst out laughing again when we stop.
‘What is it about us?’ she asks me when we finish our main course. ‘Even after all this time, there’s no one and I mean no one in this whole world that makes me feel like you do, Ben Heaney?’
I smile at how she uses my full name.
‘Ditto,’ I tell her. ‘I feel like that when I’m around you too. Maybe it’s because we fit.’
‘We fit? You always used to tell me that. You still think so?’
‘Yes,’ I say, doing my best to think of how to explain it further. ‘We understand each other in a way that can feel intuitive. Everything feels effortless and right, like we can communicate without having to say the words. You get me, and I get you. I suppose that’s it in the simplest terms. We’re not perfect, but we fit.’
She reaches across and grabs my hand.
‘How about we buy some ice cream in the supermarket,grab a bottle of something nice and take it back to my place?’ she asks me with a twinkle in her eye. ‘I’d love to show you around some more.’
I shift in my seat, my eyes searching for the waiter to grab our bill.
My voice croaks when I try to speak.
‘I think – I think that’s an excellent idea,’ I tell her.
‘If you’re in no hurry to get back to Ballyheaney House tonight.’
I raise an eyebrow. ‘I’m – I’m in no hurry to get back to Ballyheaney House tonight,’ I reply.
‘I was hoping you’d say that,’ she says. ‘After a very delicious dinner, I’m feeling in the mood for dessert.’
I wasn’t expecting this at all. My hands shake. I can barely pay the bill quick enough, especially when I look at her glowing so happy by my side.
The cold barely touches me when we make our way out on to the street, and with every step we take, the distance feels unbearable.
I stop on the footpath. She does too. And then, without saying a word, she comes into my arms and we kiss.
It isn’t gentle, not at first.
Instead, it’s everything we haven’t said for over two decades. All the longing, the ache, the what-ifs, crash into this single, breathless moment.
