Page 10 of That Reunited Feeling

“Lord knows you need someone,” Maggie says. “You’re hardly the most organized person in the world at the best of times, never mind when you’re stressed and exhausted.”

“Gee, thanks, Aunt Mags.”

“Oh, you know I love you. But you almost missed your flight here, and you almost accidentally bought Max and Polly six actual flutes instead of a set of champagne flutes.”

Hannah sucks in her lips. which successfully stops her from smiling but the slight jiggle of her shoulders gives away her suppressed laugh.

“Yeah, well, I don’t want someone new poking around in my personal life. This will be purely an executive assistant. HR can recruit and train someone while I’m away and have them ready for when I get back. Can’t wait to be rid of all the stuff I’ve had to deal with the last few weeks—all the phone calls and bloody calendars.”

“I see you’ve got the lingo,” Hannah says.

My eyes meet hers for the first time since the incident on the landing. It takes me a second to speak. “Lingo?”

“Bloody,” she says in a terrible English accent, making air quotes around it.

“I’ve lived there seventeen years. Of course I say bloody. And lift, not elevator. And arse, not ass. And, most important of all, football, not soccer.”

I turn to leave. “Anyway, I have to go call—” And almost smack into a ball of energy in the shape of a tweenish boy barreling into the room.

“The T-shirt I wanted is still in the wash. This isn’t the right one, Mom.” He faces Hannah, tugging at the blue shirt he’s wearing.

Mom?

“Tom,” Maggie says. Her non-Oscar-winning smile is back. “Meet Dylan.” She puts her arm around the boy’s shoulder. “Hannah’s son.”

Son?

AndDylan—that has to be after Bob. Hannah’s first music hero.

So, Hannah is housekeeping for Maggie and Jim. Hates me as much as nature abhors a vacuum. Is living here.Andhas a kid?

Fucking brilliant.

4

TOM

The bartender approaches as I climb onto the ripped stool in the dark Boston backstreet bar. The air is filled with the aroma of old beer and the sound of late eighties grunge rattling from the greasy red speakers on the wall.

“Sparkling water with lime and mint,” I tell him.

The guy three seats down shoots me a puzzled look, then returns to the painstaking task of stripping the label off his beer bottle.

There’s no way I’d risk drinking and driving at the best of times, least of all when I’ve borrowed Max’s customized Lexus. No point renting a car when Max keeps his vehicle collection in the row of garages he had built at Maggie and Jim’s house. For a moment, I thought he wasn’t going to lend me one, but then he said, “Okay. As long as it’s only the Lexus. And don’t forget, we drive on the right.”

Fair point. I almost never drive when I’m here for a visit. But I needed to get out. Constantly worrying I might bump into Hannah at the house is giving me the same stress level I’vecome here to escape. At least her habit of constantly singing or humming to herself means I generally spot her—and can avoid her—before she spots me. But it’s all a hassle I could do without. I’d move into a hotel if I wasn’t sure Maggie and Jim would be upset and offended.

So, I’ve turned to the two things that have always saved me in the past—music and work.

There are some local bands I’ve heard good things about on the grapevine, so I’ve come to the city to see them. The two at a different venue earlier in the evening were okay, nothing special. But the one due to play tonight in this dimly lit, half-empty hole-in-the-wall looked particularly promising in its online videos.

Wanting to get out of the house for as long as possible, I made the hour or so drive at lunch time and spent the afternoon on a little tour down memory lane. First, I parked up outside the house Walker and I grew up in, before our parents died and we moved in with Maggie and Jim.

It looked pretty much the same apart from being painted a different color and having a much tidier front yard.

I’d thought it might be upsetting to see it again, but it was heartwarming to know it’s being loved by a whole new family. I sat there long enough to see a woman leave with a smiling little girl all wrapped up in pink and purple winter gear, and a scruffy, waggy dog on the end of a leash.

But it was a reminder that my sense of belonging here is long gone.

---