Ruth begged Dominic not to risk driving on the icy roads to get home for the weekend, and in the end he agreed to stay in the city. Snowed in for several days at Summerbourne, we made popcorn and watched movies and built snowmen, raiding the freezer for fish fingers and pizzas, going to bed early and getting up late. On the day the snow finally melted, I had to suppress a twinge of disappointment that our mini holiday was at an end. But the Summerbourne woods had never looked more beautiful than on that day: snowdrops huddled in clumps on either side of the path, and the dark skeletons of the plum trees showed off delicate white blossoms against the palest of gray skies, promising that spring was on its way.
When Dominic returned the following Friday evening, he was full of plans for booking a real holiday for the three of them before the baby came.
“I don’t want to go abroad,” Ruth said. “And I don’t want to leave it too close to my due date. And I’d rather take Laura too, to help with Edwin.”
I was in the kitchen with them, but I abandoned my washing up and moved to the door, avoiding eye contact with Dominic.
“Wait,” he said. “Laura. It’s not that I don’t want you tocome.” He turned toward Ruth again. “I just think it would be nice to be just the three of us. Special.”
Ruth sighed, and Dominic shot me a pleading look. I rested a hand on the doorframe.
“I could do with a week at home, to study,” I said.
“Well then,” Dominic said, turning back to Ruth. “There you go. Let’s take a look at the Center Parcs brochure.”
As it turned out, I went home to Mum’s for longer than originally planned. Edwin came down with a cold and a cough, and then Ruth and I both caught it. It left me feeling drained and lethargic, and I spent three weeks recuperating at Mum’s, during which time Ruth, Dominic, and Edwin had their holiday. Thankfully, Beaky went down to Kent for a couple of weeks on a job, so Mum and I got along better than we had for ages, but I still kept to my room for much of the time.
A certain reluctance to return to Summerbourne began to grow in me. I wasn’t sure I could summon enough energy to face more of Ruth’s mood swings, Dominic’s awkwardness, or the ridiculous jolt of desperate hope I felt every time the doorbell rang, wondering if it might be Alex. I browsed local job adverts, and considered applying for part-time waitressing or bar work.
“But I thought you loved it there?” Mum asked when she caught me underlining phone numbers in the local paper.
“I do. I did. But this would bring in money too, and I could pay you rent. I could study at home then, for these last few weeks.”
“You don’t need to pay rent, love.”
“Beaky thinks I do.”
Mum sighed. “He just wants you to learn to take responsibility for yourself.”
I slammed the paper onto the coffee table and stood up. “I made one mistake. How long do I need to keep paying for it?”
“He just thinks—”
“I don’t care what he thinks.” I glared at her. “You sound just like him, you know that?”
I barricaded myself into my bedroom for the rest of the afternoon, shoving Beaky’s wine boxes up against the door. I half hoped Mum might attempt to coax me out, but she didn’t. I pulled out the resignation letter I’d written to Ruth and Dominic that morning, and it trembled in my hand as I read it through. I hadn’t signed or dated it yet.
When Beaky got back a few days later, I turned up the television volume to drown out the noise of him ranting to Mum in the kitchen. He stalked in and turned the set off with a snarl.
“We’re not a hotel. You’re well enough to work. You need to go back and get on with it.” His lip curled as he looked me up and down. “Your mum says you’ve barely moved since you got here. I thought you were gonna get fit at this posh mansion, playing tennis all day with your snobby friends. Got fed up of you, did they?”
I rang Summerbourne that evening, and headed back the next day. The unsigned resignation letter remained tucked at the back of my biology ring binder. I dozed on the train, but my spirits lifted as the taxi approached the house. Edwin burst from the front door and flung himself into my arms with a whoop of joy.
“He’s been rather difficult,” Ruth told me a few minutes later, out of the little boy’s earshot.
“More than ready to go to school,” Dominic said.
Ruth gave my arm a quick squeeze. “It’s good to have you back.” She smiled, and I was sure then that I had made the right decision in returning. My life was tied up with Summerbourne now. It was in my blood. It wasn’t the sort of connection I could just walk away from.
When I found Ruth sobbing over a box of baby clothes a few days later, distressed by the mold that had bloomed onthem in the attic, I took charge. I rang Vera and arranged for her to come and look after Edwin the following day, and Ruth and I went shopping in Norwich together. After months of baking and curling up indoors, with no daily training sessions at the pool anymore, I had lost the sharp angles I’d arrived at Summerbourne with. When I looked in the mirror, I was pleased that I no longer had dark smudges under my eyes, and I relished the idea of buying some new clothes and makeup, and perhaps even a floppy sun hat to match Ruth’s.
Ruth and I spent a happy couple of hours trying on clothes and then cooing over rompers and choosing a whole new set of essential nursery items. Ruth bought us coffee and cake in the department store restaurant afterward.
“Thank you for doing this,” she said.
“It’s been fun. I can’t wait to find out if it’s a boy or a girl now.”
She gave me a sudden intense look. “You will stay with us the whole summer, won’t you? After the baby comes? It’ll be perfect—lazy days in the garden, down to the beach every day. We must make the most of it, before Edwin starts school and you have to leave us.”
