As ever, she found it hard to offer reciprocal words. ‘Don’t worry, it’ll pass!’ she laughed.
‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that.’
She could feel his gaze on the side of her face, but kept her eyes on the road. Merrin had never been anything other than honest with him, knowing how shitty it was when one of you thought you were heading in one direction while the other had an entirely different plan. The first time they had had such an earnest discussion, tears had accompanied her words as she explained how it had felt to be sitting in the vestry, knowing she was going to have to venture outside and face the music and how her heart broke as she drove away from the gossip, the scandal and her beloved Port Charles, which grew smaller and smaller in the rear-view mirror. How there were days when it felt easier not to think about the place and all that she might be missing, just to be able to function.
‘I am happy to be going home, really excited to be seeing everyone, but I’m nervous too, and kind of looking forward to getting it over with and leaving again.’
‘I think it’s normal. Home has that unique pull to it, but it doesn’t mean that’s where you can live your best life. Sometimes you have to go far away to do that. Especially after what you went through.’
She nodded. ‘I guess so. I’ve stayed away for so long, and even when I talk to my family on the phone, I kind of hold my breath, waiting for a comment or a word that will pull me back to that bloody day.’
‘It’s self-preservation, Merrin. Like going back to the scene of an accident. I think it’s going to be painful for you, of course, but it’ll get easier the more we do it.’
We . . . This word, uttered so easily, made her more than a little nervous. It felt like a pressure that she was at that moment ill equipped to handle.
‘I’ll be right by your side,’ he tried to encourage.
‘I don’t want to dwell on it, Miguel, but . . .’ She paused and swallowed, wary of raising the topic. ‘People might, you know, want to talk about what happened to me.’ She kept her eyes fixed ahead as her mouth went dry. ‘What with my sister getting married and everything. It’s bound to draw comparisons.’
‘Will it make you sad, do you think? I can’t stand the thought of you being unsettled or on edge, not on a rare weekend off.’
‘I don’t think I’ll be sad, but I guess it’ll be weird. I think I’m as prepared for it as I can be, and, I mean, I have to do it sometime, right? And at the end of the day, it’s Ruby and Jarvis’s time to shine. Plus, Port Charles now has an abandoned single mother to talk about.’ She thought of her beloved Bella and shook her head at the tragedy of it all. ‘So, hopefully, me getting ditched at the altar will be old news.’ It was easy to joke but her throat constricted and her palms ran to sweat at her words.
‘Good.’ He reached out and touched his fingers to her cheek. ‘Got to be honest, I’m still more concerned with trying to figure out how we have sex in your parents’ cottage without your dad coming after me with a shotgun!’
‘A shotgun? Hardly! I told you before, it’s an axe.’ She turned her head to kiss his fingers. Her stomach churned at the thought of what lay ahead: her sister’s wedding preparations and walking up the road to the church. With the sting of tears at the back of her throat, she sniffed, and focused on the road ahead, doing her best to subdue the emotion that threatened, and ignoring the temptation to find the nearest exit and turn the car around.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
MIGUEL
Miguel had fallen asleep, a miracle in his girlfriend’s less than comfortable, ancient car, only to be woken by her excited shouts.
‘Look, the sea! I can see the sea! God, it’s so beautiful!’ Merrin yelled with child-like energy.
He sat up straight, rubbing at the crick in his neck, and looked over at Merrin, who was bouncing up and down in the driver’s seat. Her joy was infectious and a good thing to see, worried as he had been about her returning home for a wedding when the last one she attended was the disaster of her own. He was also aware of how he would be judged, eyed up and no doubt rated against the one that got away. But he could take it – especially when the prize was Merrin.
‘Yes! It’s the sea! But I don’t want to end up in it. Please keep your eyes on the road.’ He covered his own with his fingers as the car jumped down the lane. ‘Tell me when it’s safe to look.’
‘Don’t be such a baby; I know these roads like the back of my hand.’ She threw her head back and laughed.
This, he figured, was the excited phase she had mentioned earlier. The car rounded the lane and they began the slow descent into the village of Port Charles. He looked over at her smiling face as she rolled down her window to let the atmosphere of the winding streets and narrow terraces fill the car. How he loved the way her short hair curled under her ear and showed off her heart-shaped face. A face he never grew tired of staring at. One of the things he loved most about her was how unaware of her beauty she was.
‘Look, a rainbow!’ He pointed at the house on the corner of a narrow junction with a rainbow painted in glorious colours.
She laughed. ‘That’s Nancy Cardy’s house, Jarvis’s mum and Ruby’s future mother-in-law. She got so sick of the paint scrapes on the corner of her cottage that, a few years back, she decided to embrace them, adding to them with her own acrylics, and the result, as you can see, is a four-foot rainbow on the corner of her home. Jarvis told me the paint scrapes were probably worth more than the house itself when you take into account the fancy metallic finishes of the Porsches, Land Rovers and suchlike that flood the place at the first sniff of sunshine!’
‘I love it!’
‘Me too.’
A voice called out. ‘All right, Merrin! Beautiful day!’
‘All right, Mac! ’Tis that.’ She waved her hand at a man who was carrying a crate of Coke bottles up the steep pavement. Turning, she smiled at him, almost in recognition that this greeting had been uneventful, nothing awkward about it, as if she had seen him only yesterday. She sat taller in the seat, as if it had given her confidence.
She had told him this, how everyone in the area knew everyone else. The Kellow family was, he had learnt, part of the fabric of the place and, as such, everyone knew not only Merrin’s history, but her present too. He was looking forward to meeting the wider Kellow clan and wanted to make the best impression. It was important. He could see a future with this girl and knew that would be so much easier if her parents approved.
Merrin parked the car on a square of tarmac next to the cobbles and honked the horn. He took a moment, slowly unclipping the seat belt, flattening his hair and rolling up the window, wanting to give her a second or two to run into the arms of her squealing mother and the woman holding a baby – Bella, he assumed – who had run from the cottage. He could not have predicted Merrin’s reaction. This girl who was always contained, efficient, quiet, mostly – it was as if her body concertinaed with loss, and she clung to her mother and friend as if they were her life support; great, gulping sobs left her body as she fought to catch a breath, as her face, instantly blotchy and twisted, spoke of such sadness it tore at his heart. Her dad, thankfully axe-free, came out of the house next door, where he knew Ruby had lived with her fiancé since their gran had passed away the year before. The man hesitated for a beat, as if he could barely cope with the intensity of emotion on display.