Page 20 of Lessons in Love at the Cornish Country Hospital

‘It’s not that, it’s…’ She couldn’t finish the sentence without revealing how petty she was, or how ridiculous she was being.Half an hour before, she’d been basking in the light of her brilliantly blended family, but she didn’t want that for the girls when it came to her ex’s new family. Maybe it was because she wanted to punish Mike for being the one to rip their family apart, but she knew she should want that same closeness on his side, for the girls’ sake, and she couldn’t let Gary see how selfish she was being. Not again. They’d been through all of this before, and she knew everything he’d said about it in the past was right. Yet, despite that, some part of her still couldn’t seem to accept the situation and just be happy.

‘What is it then, Wendy? Because that’s what it looks like from here. At least Mike and Chloe want the girls to know they’re getting married. You haven’t even mentioned us getting married to them.’ Gary looked so hurt it made her heart ache, and she tried to reach out to him, but he shook his head. ‘And the way you’re reacting to the idea that Mike and Chloe might want to get married, makes me think you wish you were still with him.’

‘I don’t, not like that. It’s just the girls… I never wanted things to get this messy. I wanted the kind of family Mum and Dad had.’

‘So is that what today was for you?Messy?’ Gary’s voice cracked on the last word as he stood up and took a step away from her. ‘There was me thinking it was pretty damn perfect, and all you could see was a big mess.’

‘I didn’t mean that. None of this is coming out the way I want it to and I know I’m being stupid.’ Guilt swept over Wendy. She was acting like a spoilt cow and ruining the day for Gary, a man who’d never done anything except show her love and kindness. In his position, she wasn’t sure she could ever have forgiven what she’d just said; it made their life sound like something she could barely tolerate. It wasn’t true; she wished she could rewind time and make it all come out the way she’d intended, but it was too late. Gary was upset, and he had every right to be.

‘No, I think I’ve probably been the stupid one, letting myself believe you wanted all of this as much as I do, and that I could make you as happy as you make me.’

‘I do and you have, Garyplease.’

He shook his head again, already walking away from her. ‘I don’t think you know what you want and, until you do, I should probably give you some space.’

‘Where are you going to go?’ Panic was surging up inside Wendy now. If Gary walked out there was always a chance he might not come back, and she didn’t even want to try to imagine her life without him. But for some reason she couldn’t bring herself to tell him that, despite a big part of her wanting to beg him not to leave.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll take the camper van.’

‘You can’t, you’ve been drinking.’

‘I’ve only had the non-alcoholic beer. I had a headache and I took some strong painkillers. I didn’t want to say anything in case it put a dampener on things, but I’ll be okay to drive. I’ve got it all set up for when the girls want to take it to that festival, so it’s ready to go. I was going to tell them tomorrow.’ There was such sadness in his tone and another wave of emotion surged up inside of her, for this man who’d spent all his spare time in the last week getting an old camper they’d bought ready, so her daughters could take it on its first outing and have fun at a music festival. Gary really was the kindest man she’d ever met, but when she tried calling out to him again, he just raised a hand and carried on walking. Alone in the garden, which had rung with laughter just an hour before, she was suddenly terrified that she’d left it too late, and that she might just have blown the best thing that had ever happened to her.

13

‘I’m thinking of trying paragliding; apparently there’s no freedom like it. You’d be up for that wouldn’t you, Wendy?’ It took a moment for her to realise that Gwen was waiting for an answer, and she didn’t even remember what the question had been. She’d got up after a night of reaching out into the empty space in the bed where Gary should have been, which had made anything but fitful sleep impossible.

Making a pot of tea, she’d headed out of the side door of the house, planning to knock on the camper van door and apologise for how she’d acted the day before. Gary was bound to be back by now, the frustration he’d clearly felt the day before at least partly out of his system; except the camper wasn’t there. He hadn’t cooled off and come home, and the instant she realised that, the dread had come back. What if he never came back, and she really had blown it? Rushing back inside, she’d tried to call him, but it had gone straight to voicemail. Her WhatsApp messages went unread, and there were no replies to her texts either. She’d thought about calling Drew or Beth, or even Gary’s parents, but what was she supposed to say? That she had no idea wherehe was, and that she’d been such a jealous cow she’d somehow convinced Gary she was still in love with Mike.

It had taken all of about ten minutes after he’d left for her to put herself in his shoes. If he’d thrown a hissy fit because his ex was getting engaged, she’d have assumed that meant he still had feelings for Rachel. So it was no wonder he’d assumed the same about her. In the dark of the night, she’d forced herself to face up to that question and whether there was any truth to it. She’d really thought about it, and she was absolutely certain there wasn’t.

The idea of being with Mike was so alien, as if their time together was a life someone else had lived, or something she’d watched in a film. She couldn’t imagine being his wife, and the thought of touching him, or worse still of him touching her, was horrifying. But, somehow, a part of her was still grieving for the picture she’d envisioned, of a perfect family unit that had never been split apart by divorce. She had no idea how to reconcile that, without somehow leaving Gary feeling like what they had was ‘less than’ as a result. All she knew was that she had to try, because she couldn’t lose him. Their conversation from the night before had been playing on repeat, ever since she’d discovered the camper still wasn’t back, so it was no wonder she’d barely heard what Gwen was saying. She’d only come to the Miss Adventures get-together in an attempt to stop obsessing over how she’d left things with Gary, and the easiest thing to do was to murmur incoherently and nod along. She didn’t even realise what she was agreeing to, until Caroline’s mouth dropped open.

‘You’re going to go paragliding with Gwen?’ Caroline looked at Wendy, shaking her head. ‘Please tell me you’re not up for this too, Connie, and that I’m the only sane one here.’

‘Oh no! I can hold Wendy’s coat, and you can hold Gwen’s. I’ll also take as many pictures as you want, but you won’t get me up there.’

‘I didn’t mean—’ Wendy’s protest was cut off as Caroline turned to Frankie.

‘What about you, are you on team crazy or team sane?’

‘It depends how you look at it.’ Frankie grinned. ‘Because I have signed up to do a tandem parachute jump. A few of us from the Port Agnes midwifery unit are doing it to raise money for the MS therapy centre. They’ve done so much to help Ella since her diagnosis, and they do some really great work. I’m scared out of my mind at the prospect of jumping, but I just think about how scared she must have been when she got her diagnosis, and any fear I have doesn’t even compare to that.’

‘That’s such a great attitude.’ Wendy looked at her friend. Frankie was probably a decade older than she was, and from what she’d shared since they’d joined the group, it was obvious she’d been through a lot. Her own marriage had broken down, her son had tried to force her to choose between him and her new partner, and her daughter had been trapped in an abusive marriage thousands of miles away, until she’d finally escaped back to Cornwall. There must have been an imagined future that Frankie had grieved for when her marriage had broken down, but if she was still struggling with that, she never let it show. She wasn’t the only one who’d been through a tough time. Connie had been separated from Charlie for almost four decades, after his adoption, but she’d said the last thing she wanted to do was to waste the years she would now get with him, wishing that the past could be different. And Wendy had a sneaking feeling she could learn from all of the others in the Miss Adventures club. Maybe doing something she’d never have dreamt of doing in her old life would be the start of shaking it off altogether, and letting go of what she’d expected her life to look like. Mike would have laughed at the idea of her paragliding, and told her she could never do it. Gary, on the other hand, seemed to believe she wascapable of anything. So, if she hadn’t completely messed up, she already knew she’d have his support.

‘How do we sign up for this paragliding, then?’ She wanted to put her name on the dotted line of an agreement she couldn’t get out of, before she chickened out. And there was something else she could do that would make her even less likely to back out. ‘Maybe we could join forces with the midwives, and get some sponsorship for the paragliding to raise more funds for the MS centre.’

‘That’s a brilliant idea.’ Gwen picked up her mobile phone. ‘This is the site I’ve found. We can either do a tandem jump taster session, or a full day with training where we get to fly solo along the Atlantic coast. If we’re talking sponsorship, we could always do it with a twist.’

‘If you’re about to suggest naked paragliding, I’m retracting my offer of coming to take photos!’ Connie laughed. ‘I love you both, but there are some things that can’t be unseen, and there’s a reason not all of us would have made good midwives.’

‘I was thinking about fancy dress, or seeing if we can get some local businesses to sponsor us, if we wear a shirt with their logo on, but maybe Connie is on to something.’ There was a mischievous glint in Gwen’s eye, which suggested she was joking, but you could never be sure. That would be one adventure too far for Wendy, and she needed to shut it down.

‘Fancy dress it is then? Shall we choose a date and get it booked in now? I’m guessing we might have to wait until the spring, as the weather is bound to break soon. But I want to pay up front; that way I won’t be tempted to back out.’ Wendy’s feet were already tingling at the thought, the same way they did whenever she was in a tall building. This was definitely feeling the fear and doing it anyway.

‘How about the last Sunday in April? That gives us six months, which should be plenty of time to drum upsponsorship.’ Gwen raised her eyebrows as she waited for a response, and it was Wendy’s last chance to duck out. Instead she found herself nodding vigorously, and handing over her credit card for Gwen to secure the booking. It was time to embrace the new life she’d found herself in, and taking to the sky above the Atlantic coast might just make her appear cooler than Chloe in her daughters’ eyes. At least this once.

There was no urgency for Wendy to return the serving dish her sister had brought with her to the barbecue, laden with her famous macaroni cheese. But when Gary still hadn’t got back with the camper by the time she returned from her get-together with the Miss Adventures girls, she needed someone to talk to. It had been all very well in the heat of the moment agreeing to go paragliding with Gwen, and it felt like she was taking a huge leap out of her comfort zone, but doing that wouldn’t suddenly solve her problems. A future that might not include Gary felt very bleak, and no amount of adventure would make up for that. She had to do something to fix the rift she’d caused between them and, if she confided in her sister, Louise would offer up some advice. She always did, whether it was asked for or not.

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