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She continues talking, and I feel a flood of thankfulness that she’s with me, taking over, because at this moment I don’t think I can put two words together. I take deep, shaky breaths. Get a grip, Fitz. Pull yourself together. But it’s impossible. I can’t believe it. My mother died. She was alone, without her family, without her partner. I think she loved Luke, but she never got over the death of my father, and she never really recovered from her alcoholism. It’s plagued her all her life. What a vicious disease. And now she’s gone. I hope she wasn’t in too much pain. Oh God, I can’t bear to think about it. Both my parents are gone now. I’m completely alone, except for Izzy. Oh Jesus, Izzy. I’m going to have to ring her on her honeymoon. My heart aches at the thought of having to tell her. She’ll want to come home. They’re due back in two days anyway, so she might as well hang on. She’s going to take it hard.
My thoughts are jumbled, like a kite in the sky, being tossed by the wind. I straighten as Poppy hangs up the call, and she comes over to me.
“Honey, I’m so sorry,” she says, touching my face.
I wipe my mouth, conscious of having vomited. “Sorry about that.”
“It’s shock. It’s okay. Come on, we need to get you sitting down.”
“I should have finished the call; did you apologize to Wendy for me?”
“She’s fine, she understands. Everything will be okay.”
“It won’t.” My throat tightens. “Mom’s gone.”
Poppy’s eyes glimmer with tears. “I know.”
“I can’t believe it. She died.”
“Wendy said it was in her sleep. She didn’t even know about it.”
Is that a consolation? Just drifting away one night, not even being aware you’re going?
“What I mean is, at least she wasn’t in pain,” Poppy corrects.
I nod. “She’d been in pain for so much of her life. I should have been there. At the end. Nobody should die alone.”
“We all die alone,” Poppy says. “It’s those who share their lives with someone who are the lucky ones.”
I meet her eyes. I’d been about to propose to her, but I can’t do it now. I can’t think of anything except the gaping hole that’s suddenly opened up in my life.
“Come on,” she whispers. “Let’s get back to the lighthouse and pack, and I’ll call for the plane to pick us up and take us to Hamilton.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Poppy
After telling Ashton and the others, who are all as shocked at the suddenness of the announcement as Marc and I are, we say our goodbyes, and I drive us back to the lighthouse. I’ve already rung the pilot of our plane to come and collect us, and we have about two hours before we’re due to take off.
Marc is silent beside me, looking out of the window, white-faced. I can’t imagine what he’s going through. He’d already lost his father, and now his mother; he’s an orphan at thirty-two. It shouldn’t happen that way. Your parents should live into their seventies or eighties, and get to play with their grandchildren. This is all wrong.
We arrive at the lighthouse, and I ask him whether he wants to stay in the car while I pack, but he shakes his head and comes inside with me. We move around quietly, packing up our stuff. I don’t speak, and neither does he.
He goes upstairs while I finish putting the groceries into a box, and I hear him unzipping his case and putting away his clothes. I stop for a minute and look out of the window, tears pricking my eyes. Not for Jocelyn, not really, as I’d never met her, but for him and Izzy, and also for myself, that the week had to end like this.
At the Ark, he told me he loves me, that he wants to be with me, and then he said, And that’s why I want to ask you… Poppy, will you—
Maybe he was just going to ask me to continue seeing him. But something tells me he was going to propose.
Holy moly.
What would I have said if he had? I think I knew deep down that this was a risk if I agreed to us sleeping together. Not a risk that he’d propose, but that he’d want to continue with a relationship. Of course I did. I like him, a lot, and even though I turned him down back in July, the thought of sleeping with him was too tempting to refuse.
