Page 67 of One Last Gift

They found a little café nestled up on the road above the beach and sat outside there on a blue picnic bench, under bunting on the old stone building. A woman, who Cassie guessed was in her fifties, came out beaming, showing off very white teeth, which weirdly matched the white top she was wearing underneath a blue apron. “What can I get you, my loves?”

“Err…” Cassie began, and looked at Sam, who was sitting opposite her.

“Cream tea is one of our specialities, if you’re looking for something nice and tasty? I can make it an iced tea on a day like this, do a couple of sandwiches to go with your scones?”

“Sounds brilliant,” Sam said.

The woman brought out the iced teas first, the glasses already beaded with condensation, and Cassie took a sip, realizing she was thirstier than she’d thought. She hadn’t thought to stop for a drink along the way, too caught up in this weird fairy tale of a day. When the woman brought out the scones and sandwiches, set it all down between them on white plates with flowers around the edges, they thanked her. Cassie ran her eyes over the spread as the woman walked away, her stomach tightening a little in hunger after the walk. Then she laughed out loud.

“What?” Sam was looking at her with that little crooked smile, trying to figure out the joke.

She shook her head. “I just can’t believe I’m here, sat outside in Cornwall, with you, having afternoon tea, of all things.”

His smile got bigger. “Me too. A week ago I was in New York, with no idea where I’d be next.”

Cassie bit her lip. So far, they hadn’t really talked about the last few months, had carefully avoided the subject of when they’d last seen each other. “How was it?” she asked after a beat. “New York?”

“It was…” He reached out, took a cheese and cucumber sandwich, but didn’t eat it right away. “It was brilliant, in lots of ways. I ended up working at this youth-center-type place, teaching kids to climb.” He shrugged a little, like he was embarrassed to admit it.

Cassie cocked her head. “I can imagine that.”

“You can?”

She nodded. She could imagine this Sam, the one she liked, doing something like that and being good at it. She remembered, with excruciating detail, how patient he’d been when he’d tried to teach her how to ski. “I can,” she said firmly. “I bet you were good at it.”

He looked down at his sandwich, a slight flush at the base of his neck, all flustered and uncomfortable.

She hid her smile, decided not to press the subject. “I bet your mum missed you,” she said instead.

“Yeah. I bought her a spa day, to try to make up for it. I think she’s going with Linda, actually.”

“Really? Linda didn’t tell me.” She needed to ring her, check in, see how the pub was doing. Linda was working to convert the upstairs to proper rooms, Cassie knew, taking one of her suggestions on board. “And…Your dad?”

Sam looked out toward the ocean. “I haven’t spoken to him.” His face tightened, like he wanted to end it there, close the discussion off. But then he seemed to make a decision and sighed, looked back at her. “He was at…the hotel, back in March.” It was carefully phrased—the word “wedding” very clearly avoided, though Cassie still had to fight to control the way it made her stomach turn.

“Really?”

“Yeah. He wanted to…I don’t know. Apologize. Be there. Whatever. But I, well, I left.”

“I remember,” Cassie said, a little wryly. Her tone made Sam grin, and some of the tension left her body. “Have you tried talking to him since?”

He shook his head. “I’m not sure I know how to, after all this time.”

Cassie considered him. “I know it’s not the same,” she said slowly, “but I’d give anything to speak to my parents again. There’s so much I wish I could ask them, so much I wish I knew about them that I don’t, that I never will.” He reached for her hand, but she shook her head. “It’s OK. I’m not…I’m OK,” she repeated. “I just meant…Will you regret it, not at least trying, while you have the chance? Maybe you won’t—I don’t know your dad, and maybe he’s truly not the type of person worth giving a second, or third, chance to. But if you know, deep down, that there’s a part of you that will regret it then…” She smiled gently. “Well, then maybe you should try.”

Sam said nothing for a moment, just looked at her, brow a little furrowed. Then he sighed. “I’ve been so worried, my whole life, about ending up like him. That I’ll do what he did—have a kid and let them down or something. I travel, sure, but up until recently I did it for holidays, and stuck to one place, held down a job.” His face twisted into a little grimace. “I’ve been trying so hard not to be him, but what if I am?” Jessica’s name was there again in the offing, but it was like neither of them wanted to mention her directly.

“Well,” she said, as calmly as she could, “maybe the fact that you’re aware of it, aware of his mistakes, means that you won’t make the same ones.” They both looked out at the ocean for a moment, then Cassie picked up a sandwich of her own, turned it round and round in her hands. “Amy’s pregnant,” she said quietly. Sam’s gaze snapped to her face. “It’s Tom’s.” Sam nodded slowly, and Cassie stared at him. “You knew,” she said.

“Yeah. Yeah, I knew.” She remembered, then, how he’d told her to drop the subject of Amy, back in the bar, the last night she’d spent with Tom before he’d died.

She felt tears burning the back of her eyes, but blinked them away. “Then you know…” She took a breath. “You knew he was going to leave her. He had left her. He left her, because he didn’t want…” But it felt too damning to say it out loud.

Sam looked at her for a long moment, eyebrows pulled together. “I think he would have changed his mind, in the end,” he said eventually.

She looked down at her sandwich again. “You can’t know that though, can you?”

“No, but…Look, he didn’t tell me exactly what he was thinking. I knew that Amy was pregnant, and I knew Tom was freaking out. I think he idolized the idea of your dad, growing up, but he, I mean, you guys, you never actually had one, did you?”