Page 32 of Summer in Sunset Harbour
‘All right, if that’s what you want.’
Josie took a couple of steps backwards, then stopped again, watching the door. No further sound came from inside the cabin.
Josie waited, slowly counting to ten. She had reached nine when the handle twisted and the door opened. Lindsay, still wild-haired and dressed in little more than rags, peered out. She spotted Josie standing on the path, let out a groan and slammed the door shut.
‘Just leave me alone,’ she shouted through the door.
Josie said nothing, just stood where she was on the path. After a couple of minutes, she heard Lindsay’s voice, but quieter this time: ‘You’re still there, aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
The door opened again. Lindsay, barefoot, stepped outside, closed the door, and sat down on the stone steps in front of the cabin.
‘It’s my mother’s birthday,’ she said, eyes on the gravel at her feet.
‘Why don’t you call her?’
Lindsay shook her head. ‘It’s been twenty-seven years.’
Josie walked over and sat down beside her. ‘That’s a long time,’ she said.
‘Yeah.’
They sat in silence for a while. A thousand things she could say came to mind, but none seemed anything more than hollow advice from someone who had no clue as to the situation.Just call her.Was it that easy? Twenty-seven years was a long time to be estranged from someone. Not something to be taken lightly, brushed off, repaired with a simple phone call. And who was she to give advice? She couldn’t even manage her own life.
The wind rustled through the branches of the trees overhead. May had been unseasonably warm and the last week had been dry, but under the trees, out of the sun, the wind still carried a chill.
‘I….’ Lindsay began. ‘I … I didn’t….’
Josie said nothing. She sat in silence, feeling the breeze on her cheeks, neck and bare arms, wondering if it could fix her, whether it could fix them both.
‘I … I didn’t mean … I didn’t want … to … be so angry.’
Whether she meant angry at Josie, angry at her family, angry even at herself, Josie didn’t know, nor felt she had permission to ask. She nodded to show she had heard, then waited, wondering if Lindsay would open up further.
‘It … it was always that way,’ Lindsay said at last. Josie glanced up, saw the older woman looking out into the forest. ‘I just … things … I felt … frustrated.’
Josie smiled. She understood.
‘I wasn’t … the best … daughter,’ Lindsay continued. ‘I wasn’t the best … mother. And I … wasn’t the best … wife.’
Josie looked down at the backs of her hands. She rubbed at a blemish that had appeared on her skin just behind the knuckle of her ring finger. The skin there no longer felt so supple either, as though it took time to fall back into shape. She glanced at Lindsay and suddenly saw herself in twenty years’ time if she didn’t take the actions to change things now. She wanted to offer the older woman advice, but perhaps there was nothing she could say that Lindsay didn’t already know.
‘I was wondering about something,’ Josie said quietly. ‘That old helter-skelter. I was wondering whether you can see over the top of the trees? Shall we go and find out?’
For a few seconds, Lindsay neither replied nor moved. It had taken an effort for Josie to speak; if Lindsay hadn’t heard, she doubted she could muster the strength to repeat herself. She waited, again counting silently to ten.
She had reached eight when Lindsay stood up. ‘Let me just put some shoes on,’ she said.
17
Sticking Together
Tiffany looked dressed for mid-winter,with a scarf wrapped around her shoulders and a designer woolly hat pressing bunches of curly, unruly hair against the sides of her face. She peered out of round spectacles as she alighted from the bus, giving a wide grin at the sight of Josie standing under the bus shelter, arms open wide.
‘There you are,’ Josie said, and all her fears and nerves evaporated as Tiffany let out a squeal of delight and practically danced down the steps and into her mother’s arms.
‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ Tiffany mumbled into the shoulder of the windcheater Josie wore.
