AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Knowing she’s likely home, I open up the double doors leading to her stone balcony. It takes me all of five seconds for my eyes to seek her out.
I plant my hands on the cold granite, watching as she manoeuvres a small caddy and trailer down the boundary of the meadow, her body bouncing as she moves across the bumpy ground. Her lavender hair is pulled up into a ponytail, and she’s wearing a pair of jeans and a black T-shirt that makes my fully dressed frame shiver.
She stops and jumps down, reaching for something in the back of the trailer. I squint, trying to see what.
“Is that a fucking shovel?”
I watch as she starts digging into the ground. Over and over. Once she’s done, she goes back to the trailer and heaves up a small tree in her arms.
My jaw slackens, and then my eyes quickly run back along the boundary of the meadow. A pained frown draws my brows close when I see the row of planted trees running the length of the field.
My heart aches in my chest.
“This one,” she tells me, leaning down and holding her mum’s diary out to me. “It’s one of my favourites. Skip to the part she says she feels sick. Or further down when she talks about Dad taking a knee.”
I take the book and rest it on her legs, giving her a lazy smile as the sun breaks through another cloud and dances across her flawless skin.
I look down at the page and read the entry aloud.
“I feel sick today. I don’t like to admit it, but Anthony seemed to know the second I woke up that I wasn’t okay. We walked the grounds together as a family, and I could barely hold Scarlet in my arms without feeling like I was going to collapse. Anthony had to take her from me, and for the first time since I was diagnosed, I felt like I could feel death on my tail.
I sat in the middle of the meadow and cried in front of my children. Something I always promised myself I would never do.
Anthony took a knee beside me eventually. I knew he was struggling. But he lifted my chin and told me it was okay.
And then he made me laugh through those tears when he told me he was going to plant twenty-four trees around the meadow. He has the most elaborate of ideas. He said… One for every year of your life, Ellis, so that I can look out across here for years to come and be reminded of the happiness I’ve felt during every single one of them.
I’m crying all over again just thinking about it.”
I stand and watch her for a while in awe, the ache in my chest never easing in the slightest.
She eventually finishes on the tree and jumps back into the caddy, turning it around and driving back to the gate where she loads up another two.
I smile and walk into her room, closing the balcony doors behind me.
I plug her phone into the charger and then head to the kitchen.
Once I’m done, I make the walk across the first field toward the meadow gate. Scarlet’s on her hands and knees halfway up the field, and I make quick work of pulling my sweater over my head, placing it in the bed of the wheelbarrow along with the cheese toastie and lemon water I’ve made her. I wedge the note between them.
Your love for life and everything in it knocks me on my ass every single day. Soon, sunshine x
It takes everything inside of me to turn around and walk away from her, but I do it.
And it’s not until hours later, when I’m climbing into my bed, still on a head trip over leaving her out there aloneagain, that I know it was the right thing to do.
Scarlet: Thank you, Lance x
Scarlet
One month later
“Oh.” I spin on the spot and smile, taking in Lucy’s face. “Umm, I guess with the right accessories, it might work.”
“Luce, it’s awful,” Megan says, looking at her friend as if she’s gone mad.
I look down at the full-length dress and chuckle. “I agree it’s doing nothing.”
Lucy places her hand on her chest and reaches for the next bag. “Thank the lord. I thought you were vibing, and I didn’t want to upset you.”
