Page 121 of A Recipe for Love
‘You think I should go back.’
‘I think that’s up to you.’ She paused. ‘What was the hardest thing when your mam used to disappear when you were a kid?’
‘Not knowing. Like when she was here I never knew how long she’d stay and then when she went I never knew if it was for good this time.’
Her grandmother didn’t respond.
‘This isn’t the same.’
‘No, but you have a chance to at least give him some closure. And you too. And then you can see what you want to run towards rather than turning into someone who runs away.’ She sat back. ‘Which is not who I raised you to be, young lady.’
Chapter Twenty-One
No amount of wine would shift Bella’s nan’s resolve that she had already stepped far too close to telling her granddaughter what to do and was going to say no more, but there was no pretending she didn’t think that going back to Lowbridge and at least talking things through was the better choice. And part of Bella, the part that had said yes to Adam’s proposal, the part that had let herself get excited about the cookery school, the part that had even thought Veronica might have been softening to her, knew her nan was right.
But the other part of Bella was giving as good as she got. She could totally get closure via text message. Lowbridge was a really long way away. She’d only just got here. It would take her a full day to get back.
Bella’s credit card had just about enough wiggle room on it to override the practical considerations, and she knew that Nina or Jill would be happy to put her up if whatever went down with Adam meant spending the night at Lowbridge Castle wasn’t an option. The practical objections were no more than the opening act.
Next came petulance. Adam was the one who’d kicked off this fight. Why should Bella be the one to go all the way back there to make things right? She was the one in the right. He should be begging her to come back.
It wasn’t only him she’d run away from though, was it? It was Flinty and Darcy and Jill and the whole village. It was the cookery school students. It was all the promises she’d made, not just the one when she’d said yes to Adam’s proposal. That promise was the big one though. She hadn’t said yes to the village or to the estate or the cookery school. She’d said yes to him. Yes to the way he looked at her like nothing else mattered. Yes to how much he cared, about her but also about everything around him. Yes to how he saw beauty in things she would otherwise pass by without notice. Yes to how hard he tried to be a good man. And she’d run away from all of those yeses.
Her brain still had one more card to play. And it was a good one. It was the trump card to beat all trumps. It was the royal flush of objections. Fear. What if the whole community blamed her for running away?
And then the even bigger fear, the deepest terror. What if Bella went back and Adam didn’t want to see her at all?
Bella drew herself up to her full height and glared at herself in the mirror. ‘Then at least you’ll know,’ she told herself. She could do this. She could go back and look Adam in the eye and know whether he was her future.
‘What time’s your train?’ Her nan was in the bedroom doorway.
‘Half past.’
‘So you’ll be going for the quarter to bus?’
Bella nodded.
‘Right then. Well I’ll be on my way over to Manchester tomorrow, for Bob’s living funeral thing.’
‘He’s having another one?’
Her nan nodded. ‘Bad bout of flu last month. Convinced himself he weren’t much longer for this world.’
‘But he’s better now?’
‘Completely, but why cancel a party?’
Bella shook her head, gathered up her rucksack, and pulled her nan into a hug.
‘If it doesn’t go how you’re hoping you can come down to Bob’s thing,’ her nan reminded her. ‘And call me if you need me.’
Normally Bella would wave away that instruction with a cheery reassurance that all would be well. Today she nodded.
Her nan squeezed her hand. ‘Tomorrow the world pet.’
‘Tomorrow the world.’
Bella hauled her rucksack down the stairwell, across the square of concrete at the centre of the group of flats and out to the bus stop on the main road. The bus from the station ran out to here, did a loop around the big roundabout at the top of the estate and then headed back into the city centre.
