AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I hesitate. Then I smile. “Love you, too.”
“Good girl,” he replies, and then he ends the call.
I roll my eyes and pocket the phone. I check my reflection quickly—my eyes are a bit red, but I’m sure hers will be too—then go back out to the living room.
She’s still in her chair, resting her head on a hand, looking sad, but she lifts her head as I come out.
I go straight up to her, sit on the arm of the chair, and give her a hug. “I’m sorry,” I tell her.
“I’m sorry too.” She squeezes me back. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I know.” I kiss her cheek and then pull up the stool she rests her feet on and sit beside her. “Look, I’ve just spoken to Kip.”
She brightens. “Oh?” Then she looks wary. “What did you say?”
“I told him what we’d been talking about.” I take a deep breath. “And he said we’re going to find a way around it. He said he wants to be with me, and he’s willing to wait until Charlie’s graduated and moved up here.”
She inhales, her eyes widening. “Oh, Alice.”
“Yeah, I know. He said until then, we’ll see each other whenever we can, and to start with he’s going to come here for Gina’s wedding.”
“Oh my God!”
“He wants to meet you. And… I hope it’s okay, but I said he could stay here, if you didn’t mind.”
“As long as he sleeps in the spare room,” she says. Then, when I bite my lip as I think how I’m going to tell him that, she adds, “I’m joking, Alice. You’re twenty-six. Do you really think that I believed you went down to Wellington to play Scrabble with him?”
I grin. “He told me a joke about that. Why is it impossible to keep Oedipus from cheating at Scrabble?”
“No idea.”
“Because he’s always trying to look at his mother’s rack.”
“I like him already,” she says. “Oh wow, I can’t wait to meet him.”
“He said he’ll fly up the Friday before and stay until Wednesday, so we’ll get to spend some time with him. He said he’ll hire a car and take us out if we want, or just stay in and watch TV.” For some reason, that makes my eyes prickle again.
“He sounds very sweet,” Mum says, also emotional.
“He is.” I try not to think about his statement regarding putting me over his knee. “I hope you like him.”
“I like him already, Alice, because you like him.”
“He told me we’re a couple, and he said he loves me.”
“Aw.” She pulls me toward her, and I give her another hug. “I’m so pleased for you,” she whispers. “If you can have even a fraction of the love I shared with your father, it will be amazing.”
“I’m sorry he’s not here, Mum. I’m sorry you’ve had to spend all these years without him.”
“I know.”
“I miss him, too.”
“I know, darling. I know.” And we sit there like that for a while, mother and daughter, holding each other in the warm summer sunshine, thinking about the men that we love.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Kip
