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‘It’s the mattress, it’s very good.’
‘No, it wasn’t the mattress.’
Jonah put a plate of pancakes down on the table. Put, not dropped as was Bruce’s style. She’d barely thought about her life back in Sheffield these past days, but it was nibbling at her now there was space in her head for it. Sunny’s wedding was looming; and, though she’d rung the care home to check her father was stable, this was the longest time she’d been apart from him. She didn’t know if she’d feel differently about him, feel a fraud, she was a little afraid of the emotions that might rush to the surface when she was in his presence again. She had also to sort out her mum’s house and belongings, lay her ashes somewhere fitting and lovely; she wouldn’t ask Paula for her opinion about where that might be. Even now, she was still very much in the middle of the family sandwich and felt duties begin to press against her sides. But, there was a difference between duty and servitude. She’d learn to step back from Courtney and Sunny, because it was a skill to be acquired. She did not want to breathe into their sails and divert their ships onto courses they were not destined for. And she had to concentrate on finding her own place in life now; it was her turn for the light.
As if Jonah’s thoughts were in tune with hers, he asked, ‘You’re going back soon aren’t you, now that you’ve got what you need?’
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I have to.’ She’d decided to go today,meet her duties head on, get them out of the way, the sooner the better.
‘Is there any chance that your divorce won’t happen?’ He poured her an orange juice from a giant jug.
‘Not a chance.’
Jonah’s head jerked.
‘I mean not a chance that it won’t happen. I’ll try very hard not to do rude drawings on the next set of papers I’m sent so it doesn’t hold anything up.’
Jonah laughed then, made a pretence of wiping his brow. Then he nodded his head towards the carrier bag on the counter.
‘I stayed up and read all of Denny’s diaries. I’m glad we made him happy, Shay. It made me think, especially what he said about us being a circle. I’d like to start some sort of charity for teenage kids in his position, who need help but don’t know where to get it from. What do you think?’
Shay smiled. ‘I think that’s a wonderful idea.’
‘I’d call it Denny’s Circle. Or is that too corny?’
Shay picked up her juice and sipped it. It tasted of new morning.
‘No, it’s not corny at all; it’s perfect.’
‘I wouldn’t know where to start, though.’ Jonah coughed. ‘So if you fancy helping me… sort of, do it together. I know you work remotely. We can Zoom.’
Shay’s turn to laugh. ‘I’d love to help you.’
‘Please stay in touch,’ he said then, suddenly serious. ‘You have mended parts of me that I’d forgotten were broken. I don’t know what this is between us, or where it might go, but I do know that I don’t want to lose you from my life again.’
He’d just said the words that were in her heart.
When she reached Candlemas, she packed her case, locked everything up and got in her car. Her lips still carried Jonah’s goodbye kiss, full of affection, warmth, flavoured with times past and hope. They had made each other no promises, but they would stay in touch, work on Denny’s Circle together and see where it led them. There were almost thirty years between the young people they were then and who they were now and they were both much changed. Time would tell if they had grown apart too much to come together again.
Shay drove straight to the care home and saw that Barbara had signed in twenty minutes before. She entered Harry’s room to find her there, sitting by his side holding his hand, talking softly to him.
‘Hello, love,’ she said to Shay.
‘Hello, Barbara.’ Shay leaned over, gave her dad a kiss. She waited for something to slam into her from left field but nothing did; she just felt the same constant love for this man, her daddy.
‘We were just reminiscing, about when we met.’ Barbara lifted Harry’s hand to her lips and kissed it. ‘I never smashed up their marriage, Shay. It’d been broke for a long time.’
‘I know,’ Shay replied. There were so many pieces in the puzzle put together now; the picture was much clearer. Her father had really fallen hard for this woman, as much as he had for Roberta in the beginning. But, with Barbara, there had been true parity. He’d been loved as much as he loved and Shay was happy he’d found someone, even if they’d been properly together for too short a time. If ever there was a lesson to seize the day, it was here in this room.
‘We used to laugh so much, me and your dad. We crammed so many memories into our years. I could never have had enough with him,’ said Barbara. ‘I know your dad felt guilty about leaving your mum alone and I thought my husband wouldn’t have been able to cope by himself, but we couldn’t give each other up and one mad day we decided to take our chance before it was too late and I don’t regret it. I love him so much, but I’ve told him it’s okay to let go, I’ll be all right. I don’t want him to suffer any longer.’ She smiled away the wash of tears in her eyes, touched Harry’s cheek, smoothed her fingers over his pale, smooth skin, a gesture indicative of the tenderness they must have shared; she’d given him what he wanted to find in Roberta, to be first-best.
‘I found out recently that he’s not my dad,’ said Shay, saying it without any filter stopping her. ‘I don’t know if he ever knew that.’ She pulled a tissue out of the box on the storage cabinet at her side. ‘I wanted to tell him that it doesn’t make any difference to how I feel about him.’
‘Oh, love, he knew,’ said Barbara, as if it had been a weight inside her given up. ‘He always knew. And it didn’t make a jot of difference to him either.’
Shay’s head swivelled to her father’s new wife. ‘He did?’ she asked.
‘He told me. He and your mum never talked about it, but he must have guessed as soon as she came back from that place where she was teaching. He said that he wasn’t really sure what he’d feel until you were born and when you were… well, it was all there – you were his.’
