‘I think it’s probably okay to call her Elizabeth,’ I said with a gentle smile.
‘Not Liz, or Lizzy?’
I gave a mock shudder. ‘God no. She hated it when anyone abbreviated her name. It was one of her pet peeves.’
‘Then Elizabeth it is.’
Dark clouds had been slowly building on the drive to the cemetery and were now starting to buddy up in the sky. I glanced up. It looked like the Met Office had been right. Rain was clearly on the way.
‘I should probably start searching for Bee’s plot before it rains,’ I said.
‘Do you mind if I take a moment or two with your mum before I join you?’ Rhys asked. He must have read the questions in my eyes. ‘I can’t expect her to approve of me just on your say-so.’ His eyes swivelled to my mother’s name. ‘She needs to form her own opinion as to whether I’m worthy of her daughter.’
‘You are,’ I said, my voice no more than a whisper. ‘Just saying what you did proves it.’
I got to my feet, fumbling a little when I bent to pick up the bag with Bee’s roses. As I headed towards the other side of the path, I strained my ears and just managed to hear Rhys’s voice carried by the wind.
‘Before I say anything else, Elizabeth, it’s only right that I tell you that what I feel for Ellie is like nothing I’ve ever known before.’
We’d agreed to search separate sections of the graveyard to maximise our chance of success, messaging each other every fifteen minutes or so to see if either of us had found Bee’s plot yet.
I walked up and down the first few rows, trying not to let myself get distracted by the poignant memorials that I couldn’t help but read in passing. There were many that could easily have moved me to tears: Adam, husband and best friend hit a chord, as did My beloved Grandmother.
Had my mother ever secretly longed to be a grandparent? It was a question that simply hadn’t occurred to me before now. I tried to summon up an image of her cradling the grandchild she’d never get to know in her arms and was shocked by an unexpected ache of longing for something I’d never wanted. The image haunted me as I went up and down several farther rows of graves.
Grey clouds continued to gather overhead, and when a strong breeze began whipping through the trees and foliage, I knew the rain wouldn’t be far behind. The first drops were thick and fat, decorating the concrete walkways with polka-dot splatters.
‘Do you want to take a break until it passes?’
It was a perfectly reasonable suggestion, and the fact that I’d had to wipe my phone screen clear of raindrops to read it should have made my answer an easy yes.
Think I’ll keep going, I rapidly typed. But I can meet you back at the car if you like?
Rhys didn’t reply.
The grass had become slippery underfoot, and my trainers skidded more than once as I trudged through puddles. I glanced back across the sea of black and white headstones and saw how far from my mother’s plot I’d travelled. Did Henry really walk this farbetween his wife’s resting place and Mum’s? It seemed unlikely. A niggling doubt that I’d been trying to ignore was starting to grow more insistent.
The rain began falling with a vengeance and it didn’t take long for it to plaster the hair to my head and stick the clothes to my body like a second skin. The moment when I should have abandoned the search for today had clearly been and gone. It was now raining so hard it was difficult to read the names on the grave markers; I could easily miss the one I was searching for.
I straightened at the end of a row, on the point of messaging Rhys, only to see there was no need. Blurred by the deluge, he looked like a mirage as he strode towards me. But the hug as he drew me into his arms certainly felt real enough. He was every bit as wet as me, but whereas I was giving out drowned-rat vibes, he was definitely more Mr-Darcy-coming-out-of-the-lake.
I felt a pang of guilt, knowing he’d only stayed out in the rain because I had.
‘I’m done,’ I said, looking up into his face and seeing something that looked an awful lot like concern in his eyes.
‘Come on, let’s get back to the car.’ I was right. Something was definitely troubling him. I could hear it in his voice.
With his arm still around me, we ran through the rain to the car park. Raindrops had found a gap between the back of my neck and my hoodie and were trickling down my spine, making me shiver. At least I think that was the reason.
We fell into his car, and I sent a silent apology to his upholstery for my sodden jeans and saturated sweatshirt. The latter at least I could remove, or at least I tried to, until I got stuck in the wet fabric and needed Rhys to tug it over my head. Once done, his hands rested on my ribcage. I could feel the heat of his palms through the thin fabric of my t-shirt. Inches above his fingers, my nipples were sharply outlined from the chill. The fact that his handsnever strayed northwards should have alerted me that something was distracting him.
There was a towel on the back seat that he insisted I use first. It wicked most of the water from my hair, even if it did leave me looking more like a scarecrow than a person.
‘I don’t think we’re going to find Bee’s grave,’ Rhys said carefully.
I nodded. ‘No, I think you’re right. It’s too hard in all this rain.’
He shook his head, and I caught again a strained look on his face before he buried it in the towel that I passed him.