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‘Mmm?’
‘Why did you tell me that Mama had asked me to stay at the hospital with her when Jay had his heart attack?’
The old closeness between Amber and Rose had returned to such an extent that Rose was now back to calling Amber ‘Mama’ again.
‘Oh, good heavens, Rose, that was months ago.’
‘That’s not good enough. You and I both know that she didn’t ask for me, and that it’s thanks to you that she and I are back to where we were.’
Emerald looked at her cousin. ‘Very well. Do you remember the night you took me to A&E after Max had hurt me?’
‘Yes,’ Rose said.
‘You left your jacket with me, it smelled of you and it made me feel…it made me feel that I wasn’t alone. Yo u made me feel that I wasn’t alone, Rose, despite the awful way I had treated you when we were growing up together. I clung to that jacket like a baby, but then you know that, don’t you?’
The question slipped in so unexpectedly had Rose’s eyes widening.
‘I saw you, you see,’ Emerald told her. ‘There was a mirror near to me and when I looked into it I saw you stop and then step back because you knew I wouldn’t want you to see me crying like a baby clinging to a rag comforter. That’s why I told you that Mummy had asked for you. I owed you. I had a debt to you I wanted to repay, and just as you’d seen my pain and misery, so I’d seen yours.’
‘Oh, Emerald.’
‘Oh, Rose.’
They looked at one another and then they both started to laugh.
‘You OK?’
Rose nodded her head and smiled up at Josh. This was their first outing together since Pete’s death six weeks earlier.
Rose still didn’t know just what had woken her that night, what had caused her, impelled her, to go to Pete’s bedroom, but as she had told Josh, she liked to think that it was love. Not the love she had for Josh–that was his alone–but a strong love nevertheless, a love that Pete had known she had for him and which he had called upon so that she would be there with him for that precious short time before his life slipped away. She had seen immediately that he had had some kind of seizure, or stroke, and had called out the emergency doctor, who had arrived within fifteen minutes. He had told her that he felt that Pete didn’t have very long to live and had asked her if she wanted him to send for an ambulance to take him to hospital. Rose had looked at Pete and something in his eyes had given her her answer.
She had reached for his hand and held it tightly, keeping her gaze on him as she told the doctor, ‘No, I think he would want to be here.’
Pete’s fingers had moved within her clasp and Rose had known she had done the right thing.
The doctor had nodded his head, said that he would see himself out and that she was to call him if she felt she needed to. They had had two hours, not a long time in which to say all that Rose wanted to say, but somehow it had been enough. She had told him of her guilt, and her sorrow, she had asked for his forgiveness and given him her own, and once she had started to open her heart to him the words had flowed in a cleansing healing flood that washed away what wasn’t needed.
She had talked of the first time they had met, the night they had spent together, and she had seen him smile at her with the side of his face that could still move.
She had seen that he was sinking, his skin becoming soft and waxen, and she had got up from the bed to go to the windows and open them wide. Wasn’t it said that the soul needed to fly free?
It had taken her only seconds, but when she returned to the bed she could see that he had slipped further away from her.
She had held his hand, told him how special he was, and then kissed his forehead as he breathed his last breath.
They had never spoken of his death or his wishes, but somehow it had been as though they had and that she knew beyond any doubting what to do.
There had been a simple church service, and then a wake that was a magnificent celebration of his life to the sound of his music and the voices of those who remembered him best.
Life was such a precious gift. Rose smiled again at Josh.
They had agreed that she would sell the house and that they would be together without making any concrete plans. There wasn’t any need. They knew their own hearts too well to need them. It was enough that they were together.
‘I still feel I’ve let you down.’
‘Well, you haven’t,’ Janey told John fiercely. ‘Marrying you has brought me so much happiness, John.’
‘When I damn near bankrupted us?’
