“So you carried on with the property business. Still really successful?” She asked me.
“Yes, very.”
“And the club?”
“Everyone seems to know about my secret club.” I laughed.
“These things aren’t so secret anymore, life’s moving on and well, I’m feeling behind the times. Amelia makes me feel old with the things she talks about. All these reality shows where people have sex in front of the cameras. I’m old school, like to keep that kinda thing quiet.”
I kept silent as I didn’t know how to respond.
“Just tell me something, Henry. Are you happy working all those hours? Strikes me that you were all ready to give it up for the baby, then you became a workaholic, just like Vee.”
I took a deep breath. “I thought I was continuing living, keeping busy. I realize now that what I’d actually done was immersed myself so deeply in work that I could pretend I was living, when really I was existing.”
“And my Amelia, she’s shown you that you’re existing?”
My eyes met Connie’s. “Yes.” She has.
The reality hits me. As much as I’ve loved the buzz from business deals, I could walk away from it all tomorrow. All that was important to me now was Amelia and the baby. I’d move to the ends of the earth for them.
“Shit happens, Henry. And it’s not true that lightning don’t strike twice, but you can’t live that way. It’s not living. I know I was protective of Amelia, too much so, but when she said she was moving, she went with my blessing. She has her life to live and you have yours. You need to make a decision as to your future, Henry, and make it quick.”
“I already made a decision,” I told her. “That’s one of the reasons I came here after seeing Ralph.”
We spoke of what I hoped for the future and I saw tears spring to Connie’s eyes. “Oh, Henry. I hope you’ll both be very happy together and you’ll have a beautiful, healthy child. I can’t wait to be a grandma.”
All I needed now was to drive back home, find Amelia, and beg her forgiveness.
“Oh, you don’t need to drive home for that.” Connie said. “Amelia’s upstairs in her bedroom.”
My mouth dropped open, “She’s what?”
“Where do you think a girl’s gonna go when she’s pregnant and upset? She drove straight home to her mom.”
Chapter 13
Amelia
I should never have shouted those words in anger. They were Vee’s secret, written in her diary and I had abused her trust, her memory and destroyed Henry. The look on his face, the anger, misery and disappointment, they would stay with me for a long time. I didn’t want to face him when he returned. I felt he needed space away from me, and to be honest I needed space away from his suffocation. There was only one place to go. Home to my mom and dad.
The minute I’d walked through the door of my family home, I’d fallen into my mom’s arms, broken down in tears, and told her everything. She’d done what my mom always did. Said everything would turn out as it was fated, and whether I ended up a single mom or we worked things out, she would look forward to being a grandma.
Then she told me something I never knew before. That when she’d met my dad, she’d known him years ago. She’d dated and been engaged to his best friend. It was way back before she’d married Ralph, but after they’d divorced her path had crossed with my father’s again. “I could have said, oh it’s not right, us dating after I dated your best friend, but life’s short. Love is love.”
I wiped another tear from my eye.
“Do you love Henry, sweetheart?”
“I do, mom. I really do, and he loves me.”
“Then that’s all that matters. Now go have a lie down and then we’ll see what needs to happen next.”
And that’s what I’d done. I’d come up to my old bedroom and crawled under the duvet where I’d fallen asleep. I’d woken up and stared around my bedroom wondering what on earth I would do next.
A soft knocking came on the door.
“Come in.” I’d guessed it was my mom checking up on me. I didn’t expect the door to open and Henry to walk through it.