‘Sorry, Rhys, I’m visiting family after that.’ It was a plausible lie to have plucked from thin air.
There’d been a long pause on the line, during which I could almost hear him trying to rearrange his life around mine. Don’t do that, I silently pleaded. Just let me go.
‘I have Tasha all day tomorrow, so that wipes out the rest of the weekend,’ Rhys said, his voice full of regret.
‘That’s okay.’
‘No, Ellie, none of this is okay,’ he said, sounding genuinely concerned. ‘But I don’t know how to fix it over the phone. I need to see you. I need to convince you that there’s something special here – or at least there could be.’
In the end I’d suggested that we grab a quick lunch in the week, which had been the least romantic scenario I could come up with.
‘I’ll take whatever time you can spare. I’ll fit in around you.’
Everything he did, everything he said, made it almost impossible to remember that we were a lost cause. There was no point trying to fight for us, because we weren’t meant to be.
It was something I should try telling my feet, because as much as I wanted them to walk away, all they wanted to do was run straight back to him.
I could smell the flowers even before I’d pushed open the street door. Their scent filled the communal hallway. One of my neighbours must have propped them up on the narrow table where we left the mail, and they lifted and brightened both the entrance hall and me.
There was a card stapled to the cellophane wrapping, but there was no need to tear it open straight away, because I already knew who they were from. No one else in the world called me ‘Shoe Girl’. It must have confused the hell out of whoever had taken in the delivery, but it made perfect sense to me and was an advance warning that there’d be no sappy message inside the small square envelope. The flowers had been sent to make me smile, something they’d already achieved, I realised, as I bent to burrow my face in the exotic blooms. I regularly bought flowers and plants for clients, but there were several stems in this bouquet I’d never seen before.
As I filled the biggest vase I owned with water, I finally tugged the small white envelope from the cellophane. There was a quote on the card, one I’d never heard before, despite having studied American Literature at university.
‘Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.’
Mark Twain.
Every time I tried to convince myself that there was nothing special about this man, he revealed yet another facet of his personality that drew me right back to him all over again. On a whim, I used the app on my phone to identify the unfamiliar flowers in the arrangement. I couldn’t help smiling as my phone recognised them as Thunder Roses and Lightning Bolt Jewel Orchids. Who took that much time, put that much effort into preparing such a perfect gift? And what kind of fool walks away from a man like that?
Chapter Twenty-Four
I’d told Rhys I would be visiting family that afternoon, and suddenly it felt important to turn the lie into truth.
There’d been too many flowers in the bouquet to fit in the vase, so I bundled the remainder up in their cellophane wrapper. They were tucked beneath my arm as my feet followed the familiar pathway that led to the only family I had in the world.
‘Hey, Mum,’ I said, no longer feeling self-conscious saying the words out loud as my fingertips grazed along the cool, smooth black granite headstone.
I adjusted my sunglasses more comfortably on my nose and scanned the immediate vicinity. It was a sunny Saturday afternoon, and the cemetery was much busier than usual, but I could see no distinguished-looking silver-haired gentleman among the clusters of visitors.
What I did see, however, was evidence that Henry had been there since my last visit. Discreetly positioned behind my mother’s headstone was a brand-new bright red watering can. It was a thoughtful gesture and said a lot about the man who had left it there.
The can was conveniently full of water, so after giving the peonies a generous drink, I dropped the flowers inside it and positioned it beneath the gold engraving of Mum’s name.
She’d always been house-proud, even when the homes we’d lived in hadn’t been the kind of place anyone would be proud of. She’d made the best of even the shabbiest one-room accommodation, working endless hours of overtime until she could upgrade us to something better. Having one of the most attractive plots in the cemetery would definitely have met with her approval. It was very her.
‘Ahh, I see you found the watering can.’
My eyes flew open behind my sunglasses. I hadn’t heard him approach, but the sun was warm and the bench had been surprisingly comfortable. It wasn’t like me to take an afternoon nap, but then a lot of things in my life weren’t like me these days.
‘Hello, Henry. It’s nice to see you again.’
‘And you, my dear,’ he said, taking a seat on what I was fast coming to think of as his end of the bench.
‘Those are very exotic,’ Henry observed, his gaze going to the flowers in the red watering can.
‘Someone sent me a bouquet, so I thought I’d share it with Mum.’
‘That’s a nice thing to do. I’m sure she would have liked that.’