Текст книги "After Forever Ends "

Автор книги: Melodie Ramone

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Текущая страница: 25 (всего у книги 39 страниц)

And so there we were again laughing it up with another child. Only this time instead of being horrified the nurse laughed with us.

After a few more minutes they brought the baby down to the nursery, set me right, and took me to my recovery room. Once again it was filled with flowers, balloons and cards. I got settled in.

“Is Alexander still here?” I asked, wondering why no one was popping in for a visit. “Where are all my children?”

“Yes, Love, Alex is down the corridor with the rest of your adoring public. I’ll let them all know it’s safe to come,” He gave me a quick peck on the forehead, “Be right back.”

Ana and Edmond were the first to enter. Carolena and Nigel followed close behind. Alexander came next with a sleeping Natalie on his shoulder. I allowed Nigel to have one of my bears and pulled Caro on to my lap. I gave her a balloon to yank at. My dad rang to say he could not come, but he was very, very happy and relieved that Gryffin and I were well. Lance tossed us a bell as well, telling me that he’d love to come, but he had to mend a fracture in his leg.

“You grew too fast,” I told him, “Your bones became brittle!”

“Oh, you, Silvia!” He laughed. “If you must know I tumbled off a stool trying to get clotted cream from a shelf!”

“Well, that’s what you get for having tea at the home of the Jolly Green Giant!”

“Ah, Sil! What am I going to do with you? Always knowing my secret get a ways!”

“At least you didn’t tumble down the beanstalk! You might have broken your neck!”

“So true!”

“Oh! Lance, I love you, but Sandy’s beeping in on the other line!”

“Of course! Ring me anytime, Silvia! Tell Sandy hello!”

“I will! Cheers!” I switched lines, “Sandy! How are you?”

She had three children of her own now. “A boy! Oh, Silvia…it’s just been too long!”

“I know. I’ve seen Lance, but not you or Merlyn since Bennington. I think we need to plan to get together. Lance says hello, by the way!”

“Oh, I should ring him up. I think we need to plan a get together, too! In advance so no one can argue!” She sounded so close that I felt like I could reach out and hug her, “Bennington welcomes their graduates back once a year. We should rent a hotel nearby and have an all-out do. Do you want me to plan it then?”

“Yes!” I told her, “And I’ll help if you need!”

“Oh, Sil, I can’t wait!” She squealed, “It’ll be so fantastic!”

“I couldn’t get Merlyn,” Oliver told me after I’d hung up, “I left him a message, though.”

“He’ll call back.” I said, “Did anyone get Lucy?”

“Alex left her a message, too.”

Lucy had been nearly impossible to get a hold of recently. She was busy as all girls in their early twenties are, figuring out how to make her way through the world on her own terms. It made me sad that she wasn’t there, that she wasn’t part of our happiness, but I understood she had her own life. I just hoped it wouldn’t be like that forever and that sooner or later she’d come back to us. I missed my little sister terribly, but I forced it from my mind and focused my attention on my husband and my new son.

The room had emptied by the time she called to wish us congratulations. “I’m so sorry I can’t come,” She told me, “I have this new job. My supervisor is a complete pillock and he won’t give me the time off.”

“It’s all right, Sissy. Come when you can though.”

“I will,” She sounded uncertain, “I miss you all. How is Ollie?”

“He’s awesome!” I glanced at my husband, who was holding the baby in his hands smiling down at him.

“How is Xander? I worry about him. He seemed so down the last few times we spoke.”

I sighed, “He’s doing his best to keep his chin up.”

“Tell him hello for me. Tell him I think of him often.” Her voice was hushed, as if she didn't want somebody to hear what she was saying. I was quite certain it was her new boyfriend.

“Call him and tell him yourself. You know his number.”

She was silent for a few seconds, then sighed, “Yes, I’ll do that.”

I didn’t believe her. We only spoke for another minute or two before she had to go.

“Everything all right?” Oliver asked as I clicked the phone shut.

“She sounds stressed,” I told him, “Speaking of stressed, I hope Alex is OK.”

Oliver grinned and nodded.

Alexander had bravely taken all three of the children back to the cabin by himself. Nigel, satisfied with his bear, was content to go, but Carolena was giving her uncle quite a hard time about leaving. She’d chucked a wobbly halfway out the door and he’d dragged her out dangling from his sleeve and kicking at him. Carolena was a little more than something to contend with when she’d missed a nap.

“Don’t you dare get her ice cream when she’s behaving like that!” Oliver warned Alex as they left, but we both knew that was exactly what he was planning on doing. It was his tradition that anytime he had the children all to himself they gorged on French vanilla ice cream with gummy bears and crushed Oreo biscuits in it. Something as infinitesimal as wobbly wasn’t going to deter Uncle Alex from indulging in that creamy goodness.

Finally it was just me and Oliver and our new baby boy sitting side by side on the bed the same way we had when Carolena was born.

Gryffin was sleeping like an angel.

“He really looks different than his sister,” I observed, “He’s not squishy at all. He’s all round. Newborns are supposed to be ugly, but he’s so cute!”

“He’s gorgeous,” Oliver whispered into my hair, “Thank you so much. You are so much more than Just Silvia, have I told you? You’re absolutely amazing.”

I laughed, “Oh, am I?”

“You’re a fantastic muffin maker. All your muffins are magic.”

“You help a lot with that.”

“Maybe, but the way you love them, that’s the real magic.”

I was quiet for a long moment, “We waited a long time, didn’t we?”

“We did.”

“Now we have a girl and a boy. Do you think they’ll be others?”

“God willing.”

I sat there and stared down at my son. The same sense of being beset with all of the things I didn’t understand washed over me as it had only when I had lost my first child and then again when my daughter was born. There are only certain times in your life that it happens. Times in your life when you realise that you are truly alive and you let yourself feel the blood rush through your veins or pay attention to the way your heart feels in your chest. I closed my eyes and remembered everything that was real. New life, children, laughter echoing around the trees, my family, the winds, the whispers, love, elves, magic… Oliver and me…

It had begun with Oliver and me and it always seemed to end there as well. “Who would have thought,” I asked my husband, “When we walked out of that constable’s house at seventeen and married that we’d still be together and as happy as we’ve always been?”

“Carolina Pennyweather,” Oliver whispered, “She’d have been the only one who’d have been certain of it.”

“She told us that life could get tough and ugly, remember?” I asked. Oliver nodded, “But in not so many words she told us that it was beautiful, too, didn’t she?”

“She did.”

“I miss her. I wish I could thank her,” I said sincerely, “I wish I could go and see her or ring her up and tell her about our children. She’d be so happy for us.”

“She is happy for us, Love. She didn’t have healthy children of her own. She only had the ones who let her love them in her own way while she had them at her school.” He sighed, “She was good to Alex and me. Strict, mind you, but good. Personally, I think the woman was a saint and when she died she got wings and she’s fluttering around Bennington with a detention pad, taking notes for Saint Peter.”

“Well, we have healthy children,” I caressed my son’s head, “And to honour our headmistress, we shall cherish them.”

“Love this one to bits, just like his sister.”

“And promise to teach him all about the wood…”

“And the trees and the winds and whispers.”

“And how to go looking for elves…”

“And how to listen to them in the still of the night…”

“And trust that there is always love. So much love all around him.”

“All around him, yes, and we’ll teach him faith to keep him strong.”

“Oh, Gryffin!” I was so filled with love I began to weep, “You have no idea how much fun you’re in for! Your father’s a loony! He’ll keep you laughing for days!”

“And your mum’s an excellent shot with a hunk of dirt! She’ll keep you on your toes, she will! It’ll be so much fun, Lad!”

“It will be. All of us in our little wood.”

“Just like heaven,” Oliver looked into my eyes. “Marry me again, Silvia? Please?”

“As many times as you ask, Oliver.”

“Then I shall keep asking.”

We slept that first night with our son as we had with his sister. The three of us piled on to a bed that was far too narrow, our arms around each other and our baby boy cradled safely between us.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The twins and I spent the next year as we always had, running about the wood playfully bickering with each other and laughing as though the whole world was funny and anyone who didn’t live with us there were fools. Alexander took his trust fund and opened Double Vision, his own architectural design and building company. His partner was a woman called Becky, of whom he was quite fond. He often took her to dinner and had her to the house. I was certain that there would be an affair, but found out later that Becky was a full-fledged lesbian and was the first female friend he’d ever had without designs. It was refreshing to Alex. Natalie, Alex said, was the only woman he was interested in carrying around in his heart. Anybody else exceeded weight limitations.

Xan was a wonderful father and his children adored him. When Nigel was small and Alex would work late, Nigel would go to bed for me early, but he’d make it a point to wake up in the middle of the night just so his dad would come and gather him up. Alex would plop into the glider in the corner with his son, toss a blanket over the two of them, and rock him until both of them were asleep. Sometimes I’d go out into the front room in the morning and find Alex so zonked he’d be slipped halfway off the chair with Nigel tucked under one arm and Natalie clutched in the other like a gilbert. I never bothered them. When three people are that tired, there is no sense in not letting them sleep.

As it had always been, Oliver and I were happy. Our time was spent being surrounded by four children who filled every moment with action. We stole private moments when we could. We’d get off in the office at his practice and go on “dates” when his parents would watch the children. Those consisted of an occasional dinner out and sometimes a film, which we never actually saw since we got off in the theatre as well. We had fun, Ollie and me. No matter what was happening, in the end we always managed to enjoy each other.

We took a weekend trip to France on our thirteenth wedding anniversary. It was loads of fun darting about Paris, but as the first night settled in it seemed very strange not to be home. I knew Oliver, just like me, was missing the children.

“I just thought of something,” He told me suddenly as we lie in bed awake.

“What?”

He turned his head to me, “I’ll be thirty in a few days. I met you when I was fifteen. I’ve known you exactly half my life. Fifteen years I’ve know you and we’ve been married for thirteen of them. I’ve been married to you almost half my life.”

“Wow. You’re right.” I let the thought wash over me.

“I’m so lucky,” He caressed my belly, “I’m so bleeding’ lucky.”

But I knew that it was me who was really the lucky one. Any sane woman alive would have fallen for Oliver Dickinson, with his handsome features, his intelligence, his charm, and his affectionate nature. For whatever reason, he’d chosen to stick with me. I refused to question why. I just thanked him and thanked the universe by loving him and his children every day with everything I had.

As far as the children, it was easy to want to knock their heads and even easier to love them all. Nigel and Carolena were only six months apart in age. Racing toward four years old, it seemed that the both of them had it in mind that they ruled the roost. Poor Natalie, at not quite two, was getting the stuffing knocked out of her on a regular basis. They’d run into her and knock her down, steal her toys, and take her snacks away. When she’d get hurt by some other means and cry, however, both of them would hurry to her rescue.

“Oh, Nattie, you bump you head!” Carolena would rub her back.

“Mind the door frame, Nattie,” Nigel would lift her to her feet, “There now! You’re right as rain!”

Then it would go back to constant screaming, constant banging about and utter chaos.

I loved every second of every day.

“She’s my mummy!” Nigel tried to pry Caro off my leg while I cooked, “You let her be!”

“She no you mummy! She you auntie!”

“Mummy!”

“Auntie!”

“Now, you two stop it or I’ll pop you both down for a time out!” I threatened, “I’m as good a mummy to Nigel as I am to you, Carolena, even if I am just an auntie! Now, come on, let’s go wash up…Oh, heavens! What is that on your face, Child?” She looked like a deranged middle aged housewife.

She had the same sparkle in her eyes that Oliver did, “Nigel make me cute, Mummy!”

“Did you paint Caro with my lipstick, Nigel?”

Nigel grinned at me, proudly nodding. He tucked his hand into his pocket and produced my lipstick, putting it into my hand. “Check out Nattie. She’s posh.”

“See me pwetty!” Nattie spun in a circle, holding her skirt out. She had deep purplish, crooked lines all over her. Caro joined her in spinning. A moment later so did Nigel.

I slapped my hand against my forehead and found my camera. What else was I supposed to do? At least he hadn’t painted the baby.

Gryffin, like his sister before him, was an easy going, happy baby. In the looks department, he was the opposite of Carolena. That is not to say that he did not resemble her, which he did in the face to a great extent. It was that where Caro had inherited her father’s dark eyes and my red hair, Gryffin looked like a shrunken Oliver. His hair was the colour of wet earth and his eyes were soft coco brown. Thanks to the other three, he had an uncanny ability to sleep through anything, which is why I was surprised when he would wake up whenever he would hear the elves.

I was not sure whether they had stopped coming by or the simple exhaustion of keeping all the children had me in such a deep sleep at night that I missed them, but it seemed to have been awhile since I’d heard Lord Copse and Lady Folia chattering in the house. Occasionally, I would hear a murmur or two from the trees when I was alone in the garden and I would say hello, but that was all the noise they made. Oliver, Alex and I had never stopped visiting the circle or leaving them sweets, nor had any of the children. Nigel was convinced that they adored peanut butter and would set crackers with it smeared on them out every afternoon. I think the ants got more of it than they did. Still, with as quiet as they had been, so many of the children’s toys went missing so often it was impossible to forget their presence. When the toys didn’t reappear after a day or two, I’d comfort the children by telling them that the boon must have really liked that particular item. “Elves can’t get toys at a store like we can.” I told Nigel once when he’d lost an elephant. “It must be special.”

“Then when we buy toys we need to buy two!” He wailed back at me. “I love my lellyfant!”

One night I awoke to the sound of voices from the nursery, which was straight across from our bedroom. Nigel and Carolena had moved upstairs to take two of the rooms there, so it was only Natalie and Gryffin sleeping downstairs. I knew immediately it was the Lord and the Lady. They were speaking loudly and I could hear them laugh from time to time. I lie in bed listening carefully, trying to gather what they were saying, but I couldn’t make out a single word.

Suddenly, Gryffin began to gurgle. A moment later he let out a giggle that woke Oliver.

“Is the baby laughing?” Oliver sat up and scratched his head, “What’s happening?”

“Shhhh, listen…” Their voices came again. Oliver nodded, leaning toward the door. Gryffin squealed with giggles. A second later Natalie laughed, too. We could hear her shifting in her bed, “No, tha’s OK,” She said aloud in a sleepy voice, “I tell him tomonnow. T’ank you. Nigh’ now.”

Oliver and I lay there smiling and listened for a while before the voices stopped. There was a crack as if someone had stepped hard on one of the floorboards and the baby was quiet again.

“Should we check on them?” Oliver whispered, “We’re up.”

I shook my head. “No, they’re sleeping,” I yawned and curled my body around my husband’s. “They’re happy and fine. Like me.”

Oliver rubbed my back. After a few moments we were both asleep.

The next morning I found something in my son’s crib. It was a small purple elephant.

“Well, there you go,” I said out loud though no one was in the room, “They must have realised it meant more to you than it did to them, Nige.”

My sister came to visit us that summer. It had been nearly three years since I’d last seen her in person. She’d finished with university, which she had attended more for fun than to pursue a career. Lucy had spent the last few years gallivanting around the United Kingdom, hopping from party to party, and when she’d graduated she really had no idea of what she wanted to do with her life. She’d ended up in Glasgow with a boyfriend who was none to kind to her, although she didn't tell any of us that until after they'd split up. If any of us had known, particularly the twins, I am quite certain the lad would have ended up with broken legs, lying in a pool of blood on a dark road some place. Still, she'd made it through somehow and remained in that city, not in a very savoury neighbourhood, now living in a rented flat with four other girls. She worked in an advertising office as an assistant for a woman she despised. She’d been through a series of short term boyfriends since her split. She was burned out on her life and tired of the scene.

“I don’t want to drink and smoke anymore,” She told me over the phone one night, “I don’t want to discover every boy who’s interested in me is a scumbag. My flatmates are sluts and slobs. This street I live on stinks! It smells like something died in the gully! A few nights ago a girl was raped a block away from my flat. I don’t want to be here, Silvia! I have to make a change before it‘s too late, but I don‘t have any money!”

“You can come here, Lu,” I told her. My heart ached for my sister.

“Do you have space?”

“For my sister, yes! We’ll make space!”

“Will I be imposing?” She gulped the words, but sounded hopeful, as if somebody had just switched on a torch in a dark room and she could faintly see a door out.

“Lucy Cotton! Imposing? Good Lord, what are you talking about? It’s no imposition!”

“Well, maybe I’ll stay a week or two then?” I could hear a tissue rub across the receiver. Lucy cried easier than me and that was saying something.

“You can stay as long as you like.” I promised, “You always have a home with us.”

“Oh, Sil! Home! Do you know how long it's been since I've really had a home?”

She rang me the following evening to tell me that she’d booked a ticket on a train.

“I’m so happy!” I squealed, literally jumping up and down, “The Cotton sisters teamed up with the Dickinson boys once again! Oh, Lucy, I hope nobody gets hurt! “

She laughed, “It’ll be too much fun! It’ll be sick! “

I ran out into the garden where the twins were standing the moment I got off the phone, “Lucy will be here on Saturday!” I shouted as I skipped crossed the lawn, “She’s really coming this time!”

“Sweet Little Lucy Cotton!” Alexander grinned, “I haven’t seen her in donkey’s years!”

“That’s excellent, Love!” Oliver shaded his eyes from the setting sun, “Little Lucy Cotton here with us in the wood once again! We’ll have to do something special!”

“I’m going to buy her chocolate,” Alex nodded in agreement with himself.

“Well, aren’t you thoughtful?” Oliver patronisingly observed.

“Goddamn right I am! She loves that crap!”

Oliver was on call at hospital on the day she came, so it was Alex and I who dropped the children off with Ana and went to get her at the rail stop. We were quite early so we grabbed a bite and had a nice chat in a pub down the road. Alex was in good spirits that day. He reminded me of the old Alex; engaging, funny and bright. It was great spending the afternoon with my best friend. Funny how we had been living in the same house and I had still missed his company.

Every time I saw my sister since I’d left her at Bennington, she’d amazed me with how she’d transform herself. The only thing we had in common physically was our red hair, although Lucy’s was a tamer shade to my fiery auburn. Lucy was taller than me and as a young girl, she had a body narrow as a ruler. No hips on that girl, small, perky breasts, a tiny little bum. She had a lovely face with a button for a nose and a smile that stole the hearts of men. And she was cute with how she carried herself, too, skipping about like she hadn’t a care in the world. But when she felt like changing the way she appeared, she may as well have been a magician. Lucy could go gothic one night to a club looking like a vampire and be dressed in a ball gown the next looking like a film star. The last time I had seen my sister was when Carolena was born. She’d still had her straightened then. It was cut as high as her chin in a symmetrical bob, a la Victoria Beckham, and it gave her a rather hard appearance. She’d been wearing false eyelashes and a lot of make up at the time and she’d looked lovely, but as if she was trying too hard to achieve something she was not.

I was not prepared for the woman who stepped off the train that afternoon. Her hair had grown to her shoulders. It bounced as she walked, silky strawberry strips of curly locks all around her face. Her makeup was light and natural and accented her dark eyes. She’d developed hips, noticeable, noticeable, and I thought to myself that her perky breasts had filled out and were particularly round under her clingy blue t-shirt.

“Silvia! Oliver!” She waved her arms wildly as she toward us.

Alexander’s mouth was slightly ajar.

I caught my sister. We danced in a circle, “Lucy! Lucy! Let me have a look at you! Oh, it’s so good to see you! I missed you so much!”

“Silvia! Oh, I’ve missed you, too, Sissy!” She turned and threw her arms around Alex, “Oliver! You look so handsome!”

“Alexander!” He corrected. He kissed her cheek, “How are you, Munchkin?”

“Alex!” Her cheeks were pink as he set her down, “I mixed you two up!”

“It’s our job, you know? Embarrassing those who can’t tell us apart! If we could have made a living at it we would’ve!” He took a step back and looked her up and down, “Look at you, Lucy! You’re a right grown and beautiful woman! CFMS, too, Munchie!”

She laughed nervously, “CFMS? Do you think so?”

“Oh, aye!”

“What’s CFMS?” I asked, feeling very much out of the loop.

“They’re Come Fuck Me Shoes,” My sister said naturally as if she was explaining Inc behind a company name. She lifted a foot to show me her high heeled boots, but her attention was more on Alexander, “Not so much a munchkin anymore, yeah?” She held out her arms and did a little turn so he could have a better look.

I was not sure what was going on. Was Alexander flirting with my sister and had she just said ‘come and get it’ without using those words? And did the idea of that strike me as interesting, humorous or hit me with a pang of horror? I looked back and forth between them and I’m not sure, but I think I was laughing.

“Well, we need to get going,” I said suddenly, “Do you have all your bags, Sissy?”

Alexander carried the bags off the platform while my sister and I chatted away about what she’d been up to. While I’d been having babies and chasing children, stealing opportunities to make love to my husband, she’d been romanced by a boy from Blackpool, who’d taken her virginity and talked her into moving to Glasgow with him, then broken her heart with his inability to commit. “He really wanted me all for himself,” She explained, “My needs meant nothing to him, but I couldn't ever please him. In the end, it just didn't work out and he ran off with one of my good friends. Cow can have him. Best of luck to them both!”

She continued on to tell us that the betrayal was intensely painful, even if she didn't like to admit it, and after several months of pining and heavy drinking with her friends, she’d met a man from France who was much older than her. He’d whisked her off and seduced her on holiday in Spain. He showered her for almost a year with expensive gifts and showed her amazing sexual experiences, but a few months back he had left her to return to an ex-lover.

It kind of threw her for a loop. She was still talking about it as we drove home, “I didn’t think he’d ever marry me or anything. Bloody hell, I wouldn’t have married him even if he’d asked! And I knew that he had unresolved issues with her,” Lucy was speaking so openly it shocked me. My sister tended to keep personal things personal, even from me, but especially from the twins, “But I don’t understand why he left me to go back to her, either. She’s older than him, even, she’s a cow, and she’s not that pretty. Sort of scary looking, really. I don’t mean to be conceited, but why would he want some bone nosed old woman when he could have had me?”

Alexander didn’t approve of anything he was hearing. “Wait!” I could see him squeezing the steering wheel, “Stop where you’re at, Lucy! Lemme see if I’ve got this right! First, you’re chasing around with some cocky rugger bugger who’s never going to go pro no matter how much he believes he has a chance. He’s too arrogant to realise that and get a real job and too bloody stupid to see who he’s got in love with him. But you’re in love with him anyway he breaks your heart? OK, that makes no sense at all to me at all. You should have curbed him straight away. But then you go from that bloke who can’t be true to you to running around Europe with some old man who can’t be true, either? I almost get the lad from Blackpool, but why on earth would you be interested in a man old enough to be your dad?”

“Well, he wasn’t that old!” Lucy objected.

“How old was he?”

“Forty-five.”

“Forty-five! Bloody hell, Luce, how old are you now? Twenty-five in December!” Alexander shook his head, “He was after one thing, he was, and it did not include your honour!”

Lucy laughed, “You would know! I remember you at Bennington!”

“Hey!” Alex objected, “That was a long time ago and I was a scoundrel if one ever walked through those gates! But any girl I’ve ever been with has been my age and was completely aware of what I was about and what I was after! There were never any secrets or surprise with me! Those girls were after the same, too, or it never would have happened! That’s the rule!”

“Well, he didn’t exactly take advantage of me. He told me what he was about and after.”

“He was about a mid-life crisis! Forty five and running about with a twenty-four year old girl! I’m thirty…that would be like me dating a ten year old!”

“If you were going to date ten year olds you might have dated me,” She joked.

Alexander snorted.

“Settle down,” I told him, “Lucy’s an adult. She can date who she likes.”

He made another noise out his nose that said she couldn’t if he had anything to say about it. He glanced at me sideways.

We got to the wood just as Oliver was arriving with the children. He released the three older ones from their seats and hauled the baby out still inside his. “Hello, Love!” He called to me as he closed the car door. “Lucy! Great glowing golden goblets, I hardly recognize you!”

I watched the winds wrap themselves around and embraced my sister as she climbed out of the car. She paused and closed her eyes for a second with a serene smile on her lips, returning their welcome.

My sister was beautiful. I’d never noticed it before. I’d always known she was an pretty little girl, but I’d never seen her as a woman before that moment. It took my breath away. Lucy Cotton was all grown up.

I thought about the night I had arrived at the wood with Oliver. I remembered how wonderful I had thought it was. It was the first place I had ever felt like I was home. I remembered the night Oliver and I were married I stood outside without my jacket and let the cold winds wrap themselves around me. I was so alive, so happy and at peace. My sister looked how I had felt then. She looked like she had come home after a long, long journey and could finally rest.

“Hello, Oliver!” Lucy gave him a quick peck and a sideways hug around the neck, “You look handsome as always! May I hold my nephew?” I watched my sister unbuckle Gryffin from his car seat and take him into her arms. He gave her a huge, toothless smile and she melted immediately, “Oh, he’s absolutely unbelievable! I love babies! I want one now!” She stomped her foot and looked around the yard, “And who are you little lambs ignoring?” She demanded, “Come over here now, you three!”

“We don’t talk to strangers!” Nigel shouted as he dodged Carolena’s out-stretched arm.

“Oh, aye!” Alexander called back at him, “This is no stranger, mind you! This is Lucy Cotton! She’s Auntie Sil’s younger sister and one of my oldest friends! You’ll come and say hello properly or I’ll burn your behind!”

Nigel walked right up to Lucy with Carolena at his side. His dark eyes narrowed as he looked her up and down. Finally, he unscrewed his little face and smiled, “Hello, Lucy Cotton,” He said in his best big boy’s voice and stuck out his hand, “It’s a pleasure to meet you! I’m Nigel Dickinson!” He took her hand and shook it. “Welcome to our home!”

Oliver and I sniggered. Alex grinned and nodded at him. Satisfied, Nigel stuck the toe of his shoe into the dirt and shoved his hands deep into his trouser pockets.

“Thank you, Nigel! I’ve met you, you just don’t remember,” Lucy beamed at the boy, “You’re as fetching as your dad! You’ve gotten very tall! The last time I saw you, you were this big,” She held a hand down toward the ground to show him, “And little Carolena, how much you’ve grown, too! Oh, I’ve missed so much!” She squatted down and hugged her niece. “You have hair just like your mummy, you do! You’re so pretty!”