Page 19 of A Recipe for Love
‘Would you prefer that, Darcy?’ he asked gently.
Veronica sighed.
Darcy was staring at her teacup. ‘If there’s no grave where do you put flowers?’ Darcy asked. ‘There should be somewhere to put flowers. We did that for my grandmother. Every year on her birthday my mum would take us down to the cemetery and we’d take fresh flowers. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?’
‘If that’s something you’d find valuable.’ Jill nodded. ‘Everyone grieves differently of course.’
Veronica put her cup down with a firm clatter. ‘I don’t think we need that. It seems rather showy, don’t you think?’
‘Well as I say, everyone grieves differently. I had one lady plaited her sister’s hair into a bracelet.’
Veronica’s horror was palpable. Bella fought to keep her face neutral. The dead hair bracelet thing was giving her the ick but she was not going to let Veronica know that they agreed.
Adam slumped back in his seat. The stress was written across his face. ‘What if we had a cremation and scattered the ashes somewhere here? Then there’d still be a place to visit.’
‘Ashes go into the crypt,’ said Veronica.
There was a crypt?
‘I’m not having Alexander locked up in that death cupboard.’
Bella stifled a definitely inappropriate giggle.
‘He took me down there once,’ Darcy added. ‘It was ghoulish.’
‘You can bury the ashes if you want. You could still have a headstone.’ Jill clearly thought they had a path to a resolution here.
Veronica was not on side. ‘The ashes will reside with my husband and his father in the crypt.’
‘What would you like?’ The question was directed from the vicar to Adam.
‘I don’t know.’ Mostly he wanted everyone to stop fighting.
Bella rubbed her fiancé’s arm. ‘It’s OK to say what you want.’
She felt his bicep tense just slightly. His voice was low. ‘I don’t know what my father wanted.’
Both Ladies Lowbridge were quiet for a moment, but Veronica was not one for giving ground. ‘I’m sure he would have wanted what the lairds have wanted for the last two generations…’
‘Well…’ Jill tried again.
‘I was his mother.’
‘I was his wife.’
And there was that impasse once again. Even Jill’s relentless positivity was floundering. Adam leaned forward, rubbing his fingers up the side of his nose. ‘Did he actually say anything to either of you about what he wanted?’
‘Well I’m sure…’ Veronica started.
‘What did he actually say?’
‘Well nothing as such,’ she conceded.
Adam turned to Darcy. ‘Anything?’
She shook her head. ‘We didn’t talk about it.’ Her voice caught on a sob. ‘He thought he had all the time in the world, I think.’
‘Right.’ He leaned back.
