Chapter 7
1656 Words
The People Who Loved Her
Enid's POV
I was eating breakfast when Conor walked into the kitchen with a strange look on his face.
I had learned his faces by now.
There was the quiet one he wore in the mornings. The careful one he wore when he was watching me too closely. The dark one he wore when something bothered him.
This was a new one.
Tight. Still. Like he was holding something that wanted to fall.
"They're coming today," he said.
I put my spoon down slowly. "Who?"
"Isla's parents."
The kitchen went very quiet.
Just the hum of the fridge. A bird outside. My own breathing.
"When?" I asked.
"This afternoon." He pulled out the chair across from me and sat down. "I found out this morning. They didn't tell me earlier because they wanted to surprise her. Surprise you."
I stared at my bowl.
Isla's parents.
People who had held her as a baby. Who knew the way she laughed and the way she cried. Who loved her so much they thought they knew every little thing about her.
And they were coming here to see me.
"Tell me everything," I said.
Conor looked at me.
"Everything," I said again. "Her mother's name. Her father's name. What Isla called them. What she liked. What she didn't like. Everything you know."
He was quiet for a moment.
Like the words were coming from somewhere that hurt.
Then he started talking.
Her mother's name was Margaret. Everyone called her Maggie. She was a warm woman. A hugger. The kind of mother who fed everyone who walked through her door and asked too many questions because she loved too much. Isla had complained about it sometimes. But she always went home for holidays. Always called on Sundays.
Her father's name was Robert. Quieter than Maggie. He didn't say much but he noticed everything. Isla had got her eyes from him.
"She called them Mum and Dad," Conor said. "Never Mother. Never Father. Always Mum and Dad."
I said it quietly to myself. "Mum and Dad."
"She didn't like talking about her childhood illness," he continued. "She had a bad fever when she was seven that put her in hospital for two weeks. Her parents never stopped being afraid of losing her after that. That's why the cancer scared them so much."
"What else?"
"She liked her tea with two sugars. Her mother always made it wrong. One sugar. Isla never corrected her." He paused. "Small things like that."
I nodded. Storing everything away. Building Isla piece by piece.
"What did she talk about with them?"
"Her mother asked about children a lot," he said. His voice went very flat when he said it. "Isla always changed the subject."
I looked up at him.
He looked back at me.
Neither of us said anything about that.
They arrived at two in the afternoon.
I heard the car first. Then the doorbell. Then a woman's voice in the front hall. Bright and warm and a little teary all at once.
"Where is she? Where's my girl?"
I walked down the stairs slowly.
She saw me before I reached the bottom step.
Maggie was a small round woman with silver hair and kind eyes that were already wet before I even got close. She had Isla's nose. Or Isla had hers. She pressed both hands to her mouth when she saw me and made a sound that wasn't quite a word.
Then she crossed the room and held me so tight I forgot for a moment that I was pretending.
"My baby," she whispered. "My baby girl."
I closed my eyes.
I held her back.
I don't know where it came from. Maybe it was the body remembering something I didn't know. Maybe it was just that I missed being held by someone who meant it. My own mother had been gone a long time. Gem was the only family I had and she had put a knife in me.
So I held Maggie and let her cry softly into my shoulder and tried very hard not to fall apart myself.
Robert was standing just behind her.
He was tall and grey haired with a quiet face and those eyes Conor had told me about. Isla's eyes. My eyes now. He watched me over his wife's shoulder and I couldn't quite read what he was thinking.
When Maggie finally let go he stepped forward.
He didn't hug me right away. He just looked at me for a moment. Steady and still.
Then he put one hand gently on my face. The way fathers do when they are checking if something is real.
"You look different," he said softly.
My heart stopped.
"Different how?" Conor said from behind me. Calm and smooth. Like he had been ready for exactly that question.
Robert kept looking at me. "More present," he said finally. "She always looked like she was somewhere else. Like part of her was far away." He dropped his hand. "You look like you're here."
Then he smiled. Small and real.
"It suits you," he said.
I breathed again.
Maggie took over the whole afternoon.
She moved through the mansion like she had been there a hundred times before. She touched things and straightened things and asked where certain things had been moved to. She told stories I had no memory of but nodded along to very carefully.
I sat across from her in the living room and listened and smiled and answered in short sentences when I had to.
Conor sat beside me. Close enough that I could feel the warmth of him. Every time Maggie asked something I wasn't sure about his hand would move slightly near mine. Not touching. Just there. A quiet signal.
Careful.
I learned to read it fast.
"Do you remember that holiday in the south of France?" Maggie asked, leaning forward with bright eyes.
"Of course," I said softly.
"You hated the heat."
"I did," I agreed.
She laughed. "You complained every single day and then cried when we had to leave."
I smiled. "That sounds like me."
She reached across and patted my hand. "It's so good to hear you say that. You sound so like yourself again."
I held the smile very carefully.
---
Robert was quieter through the afternoon.
He sat in the armchair near the window and drank his tea and watched. Not in a suspicious way. Just the way quiet people do. Taking things in slowly.
Once, when Maggie went to the kitchen to help with something, he looked at me from across the room.
"Are you happy?" he asked.
Just that. Simple and direct.
I looked at him. At Isla's eyes in his face looking back at me.
"I'm getting there," I said.
He nodded slowly. Like that was the most honest answer I could have given. Like he liked it more than if I had just said yes right away.
"Good," he said. "That's all I ever wanted for you."
I looked down at my hands.
That's all I ever wanted for you.
He meant Isla. He was talking to Isla.
But something about those words landed in me like they were meant for Enid too. Like the world was being kind to me for just one small second.
I didn't speak for a moment.
"Thank you, Dad," I said quietly.
The word felt strange in my mouth. New and warm at the same time.
Robert smiled at his tea.
Dinner was long and full and loud.
Maggie talked enough for all four of us. She told stories about Isla as a little girl. Embarrassing ones that made Conor laugh and made me smile for real because I had truly never heard them before.
A story about a school play where Isla forgot every single word and just stood on stage waving until the teacher came to get her.
A story about a dog they once had that Isla gave a very silly name to.
I ate and listened and laughed in the right places.
I was getting better at this.
The strange thing was that by the time the plates were cleared I didn't feel like I was pretending as much. These were good people. Warm people. They loved their daughter so completely and were so happy to have her back that they weren't looking too hard at anything.
I almost felt bad about that.
Almost.
After dinner we sat in the living room.
The evening had gone soft and golden. Maggie had her tea. Robert had fallen half asleep in his armchair. Conor sat beside me on the sofa. Close enough that our arms almost touched.
It felt like a normal evening.
It felt like something I had never really had before.
Maggie looked at us both over the top of her cup. That warm bright look she had been wearing all day. Then she tilted her head and smiled the kind of smile that meant she had been saving something up for a while.
"You know," she said in a pleasant voice, "you've both been through so much this past year." She set her cup down gently. "The illness. The recovery. All of it."
"Mum," I said carefully.
"I'm just saying." She held up one hand. Very innocent face. "You're young. You're healthy now. You have each other." She looked between me and Conor with those soft wet eyes.
"I think it's time, don't you?"
Conor went completely still beside me.
"Time for what?" I asked.
Even though I already knew.
Even though every part of me had gone cold.
Maggie smiled so wide it reached all the way to her eyes.
"Grandchildren, darling," she said simply. "I think it's time for grandchildren."
The room went quiet.
Conor beside me was like a statue. Not moving. Not breathing.
I looked at Maggie's hopeful loving face.
And I had absolutely nothing to say.
- Writer
