Page 118 of Merrily Ever After
‘Think of it as a practice run for your wedding,’ said Merry, taking a biscuit from Emily. She bit into it daintily, taking care not to let any crumbs fall on her dress. ‘Maybe Tina will be making your dress from scratch.’
Emily gave a snort. ‘Mum’s sewing scissors will be blunt by the time I get around to marriage.’
Merry smirked. ‘Oh, I don’t know, you and Will seemed very cosy at the party.’
‘Did they?’ Tina looked up from pinning darts at the back of Merry’s dress. ‘I think I need to meet this young man.’
‘Maybe.’ Emily gave her mum a stern look. ‘But only if you promise not to grill him about his job prospects.’
Tina chuckled. ‘Deal. Although I can’t speak for Ian, he’ll be asking him about his golf handicap before the poor boy has even sat down.’
‘You’ll adore him, Tina,’ said Merry. ‘I can’t imagine anyone not liking him.’
‘There’s lots to like,’ Emily admitted, thinking of how wonderful he’d been last night, so supportive and kind. ‘But I’m not sure it will last. Will’s a free spirit. His first love is surfing, and he plans to spend as much of next year living by the sea as he can. Having a girlfriend in landlocked Derbyshire won’t really fit into that lifestyle. And I’m too much of a home bird to do that.’
‘Home doesn’t have to be a place,’ said Merry. ‘It can be a person. When I met Cole, it felt like coming home. Now my home is wherever we are.’
Tina sighed dreamily. ‘How romantic.’
Emily processed that; Merry was right. Perhaps she was putting up unnecessary barriers. ‘I suppose if you both want something enough, you work to make it happen.’
‘It’s early days. He might decide that you’re more important than a surfboard,’ said Tina soothingly, but her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.
‘Is that what you hoped for you and Dad?’ asked Emily with a flash of perception. ‘That he’d change for you?’
Tina chewed her lip and shot a nervous look at Merry as if she wasn’t sure how much she should say. ‘I suppose I did, but your father was never one for settling in one place for long. But I’m sure Will is a very different man. He’s got a steady job for one thing. I lost track of the number of jobs Ray had.’
‘Do you mind me asking about him?’ Merry enquired. ‘I’ve got so much to learn. What sort of person is he?’
Tina handed the box of dress pins to Emily and picked up her coffee cup.
‘Ray’s a good man, handsome, funny, never a dull moment when he was around,’ she began. ‘But troubled. I didn’t meet his parents, but I think that was where a lot of his problems stemmed from.’
‘You said once that they’d kicked him out when he was a teenager,’ said Emily, through a mouthful of pins.
‘They rejected him.’ Tina sipped her coffee. ‘He’d had mental health problems from childhood and they had no patience with what they termed his “anger issues”. Consequently, your dad never felt good enough for anyone. When I first told him I loved him, he disappeared, and I didn’t see him for two days. I thought it was over. I thought I’d ruined it by telling him how I felt. When he came back, he was full of apologies but told me he didn’t deserve me, didn’t deserve good people in his life.’
‘He still says that now,’ said Emily sadly.
‘And my mum had rejected him too.’ Merry sighed. ‘Poor man.’
‘As I say, he’s a good man deep down, but he won’t let people get close to him. As soon as people started to care about him, he’d run away.’ Tina reached her hand out to Emily and squeezed it. ‘But at least he’s let you in now.’
‘Finally,’ said Emily. ‘And maybe only because he knew it was now or never, with his memory starting to let him down.’
‘I’m hoping he’ll let me in too,’ said Merry. ‘I mean, he hasn’t slammed the door in my face since that first meeting, so I must be doing something right.’
Emily and Merry swapped smiles at the memory.
‘And how is your dad?’ Tina asked, finishing her coffee and picking up her pins again.
Before Emily had a chance to formulate a response, Merry jumped in.
‘Grumpy this morning,’ she mused fondly. ‘Said he’d been down to breakfast and was surrounded by women, blathering on at him.’
Tina huffed. ‘That sounds like him. Even with his memory giving him gyp, he’s still a hit with the ladies. Always was.’
‘You were there today?’ Emily asked, unable to keep the surprise out of her voice. She didn’t know why, but she felt put out, as if Merry was somehow usurping her position as her dad’s main visitor.
