: Chapter 43

“No. No, I don’t want to be here,” I say as the black cab pulls up at Marble Arch. “You didn’t say we were coming here.” My words hold a world of panic, and I find myself pressing my hand over the slight bump of my ICD where it lies under my skin. I’ve begun to touch it as a talisman of sorts. It’s the weirdest thing to live with, to get used to, but I will.

“Polly chose the café,” my mom cajoles, paying the cabbie as Dad climbs out.

“There are a dozen Pret sandwich shops in London.” Why this one? Why the one next to Hyde Park? “And there are a hundred places much nicer to meet.” I don’t want to be here. It’s hard enough trying to get over him.

“Mimi,” my father says, holding open the cab door. “You’ve barely been out since you were discharged. A bit of fresh air will do you good.”

“There air isn’t—”

“It’s a park,” he deadpans. “Trees. Sunshine. Oxygen.”

I feel tears gather because his words seem like an echo of Whit’s statement that day. Swallowing over the lump in my throat, I catch the cabbie’s eye, waiting for him to say “What’s it to be, love?” Then I’d ask him to take me back to the little flat we’re staying in. I’ve had my final checkup. I’m free to fly home; only Mom wants to stay for Doreen’s wedding. She’s marrying Frank next week at Haringey Civic Centre—the local council offices—before having a “good old-fashioned knees-up” in a local pub. Mom seems to be viewing it like an anthropological event.

“I’m clockin’ off here, love,” the taxi driver says instead.

“Out you go.” My mother uses a tone that should be reserved for toddlers.

“Just tell me,” I say, swinging around to face her, my butt squeaking against the pleather seat. “Why here?”

“Gosh, Mimi. Such a fuss,” she mutters. “There was something about her being here for a meeting, I seem to recall. Something about a friend suffering a raging menopause?”

Well, that odd story checks out, I guess. Which is how I find myself on the sidewalk, watching the cab pull away.

“Apparently, over there is the sight of the Tyburn hanging tree.” My father is staring at his phone, reading London tourist information.

“A tree hung with what?” Mom asks.

“People,” I retort, turning toward one of London’s many Pret a Manger sandwich shops.

“Gruesome. Oh wait, Mimi. Polly just sent me a text.” She fumbles with her purse, pulling out her phone.”

“How’d you know it was Polly?” I feel my gaze narrow suspiciously.

“Because she’s the only person who calls me here,” Mom retorts, not without frustration. “I got one of those travel SIM things, remember?”

“Yeah.” I shake my head as though I could shake off this feeling. “Who wants coffee?”

“Oh, we’ve got to meet her over there.”

“Oh, for fudge’s sake,” I mutter, swinging in the direction of the park, Whit’s words echoing in my ear. Speakers Corner. It’s where people go to get stuff off their chests. Maybe I should’ve brought my own soap box.

We cross the busy road and head toward the small crowd of people milling where last time there was none. Sure enough, a woman in a sensible tweed skirt and cardigan stands on a little stepladder. She’s so short it doesn’t really give her much advantage. I spot Polly in the crowd, and she gives us a little wave before pointing at her wrist apologetically.

“Looks like things have overrun,” Dad says. Thanks, Captain Obvious. “Let’s grab a spot and hear what she has to say.”

I slant my gaze his way. “Since when have you been a fan of listening to menopausal women?”

“I listened to your mother for years. Ow!” he moans following a well-deserved and well-aimed dig in the ribs.

“Watch it,” she mutters, though she’s smiling. “Look, there’s a spot next to Polly.”

“Hello, darling!” Polly’s greeting is as enthusiastic as her hug. “Sorry about this.” She points at the woman on the stepladder who seems to be reciting a poem. “She’s a terrible poet,” Polly adds with a laugh. “But it won’t be much longer.”

“She’s attracted quite a crowd,” Mom says with a weird gleam.

I half turn my head over my shoulder when Polly pipes up, “Oh, look! The man of the hour.”

I press my hand over my heart, my fingers lying over the ICD. I want to turn, to walk away. To run, in fact, but I can’t get my feet to coordinate. My heart and my head are at war at the sight of Leif Whittington. His lips quirk, the looks he sends his mother abashed. His gaze slides over my parents before reaching me. Through these treacherous tears, I still see his expression soften. He smiles; it’s a small, tentative thing but still causes an ache to creep up my throat. When he presses his index finger to the sharp divot above his top lip, my stomach tightens, becoming a mess of tangled nerves and knots.

Whit holds out his hand to help the woman in sensible tweed step down from the ladder, then he takes a step on it. And another. Then the third so he’s towering above a not-so-insubstantial crowd. He throws his arms out and announces quite happily,

“I am an arsehole!”

“Nah!” comes a heckling retort from the back of the crowd. “An arsehole is useful at least once a day.”

“Oh my Lord!” My mother chuckles, pressing her hand to her mouth.

“I am an arsehole,” he repeats, “a poem by Leif Whittington.” He takes a breath. “I am an arsehole because I couldn’t see the love of a good woman, though it was parked on the end of my nose.”

“Steady on, pervert!” yells someone else who sounds suspiciously like Primrose. Not that Whit is paying any attention because his eyes are only for me.

“There’s this girl I knew, knock-kneed and pigtailed but so sweet. Her brother asked me to look after her, but I didn’t do it well. So when she turned up on my doorstep, I thought I’d go to hell.”

“Shakespeare’s rolling in his grave!” yells a voice I don’t recognize.

“Shut it. Let him speak.” That one sounded like Brin.

“But I couldn’t help myself,” Whit adds with a theatrical shrug. “She was the most beautiful thing that I’d ever seen. Though her beauty was the least of her because her heart is generous and her laughter fair, and please don’t get me started on her golden hair.”

“Oh, honey.” My mom’s eyes are full as she turns to me.

“The worst of it is, she doesn’t see herself as others do. But what good people in the world do?” He takes a deep breath as though about to shout, yet his next words leave his mouth so softly. “I really don’t care about matters of maternity because, Amelia Valente, you are the torrid love affair I want to be part of for eternity.”

“Shittiest poem ever!” shouts a warbly teenage voice, but I don’t care because my love is in front of me. His hands are on my shoulders, and his smile is hesitant.

“I’m sorry,” he says, his eyes bleeding love. “But if you give me a chance, I will love you as hard—”

“And as often!”

Whit frowns over my head, his gaze ultimately sliding softly back. “I will love you as hard as you can stand it for the rest of my life. What do you say, little fly?”

Tipping up onto my toes, I press my hand to his cheek and my lips to his ear. “Don’t give up your day job, Daddy,” I whisper. And then I kiss him.