Chapter 5

I threw myself into work.

I came in before the offices opened and stayed after the last person left. I filled every hour. I told myself that if there was no space, there was no pain.

It didn't quite work that way.

There were still the evenings. The walk past his old room. The photograph on the side table — him at eight, laughing at something just off camera, completely unguarded. I had it boxed up. I had the room cleaned. I changed as much as I could change.

The hollow feeling stayed.

Gemma found me in the break room at eleven-thirty on a Tuesday and announced that we were going shopping.

"I'm not going shopping," I said.

"You are," she said. "My treat. You can pay."

I went.

She dragged me through six floors of shops over two hours, holding things against me and declaring their virtues with the enthusiasm of someone who had never once second-guessed a purchase. She tried things on herself. She held a silk scarf up to her face and turned to me with enormous eyes.

"Ms. Whitmore. Is this me?"

"It's not you."

"I think it's me."

I bought it for her.

I bought a great many things that afternoon. There's a particular satisfaction to spending money without thinking, and I let myself have it. Gemma was watching me with bright, relieved eyes.

"Better?" she asked.

"Much better," I said, which was mostly true.

We were passing the window of a baby boutique when I stopped.

Inside: Ethan. Vivienne on his arm, one hand on the gentle curve of her stomach. Behind them, Sebastian and Melissa, laughing at something. A family portrait, lit golden by the shop window.

I stood there.

Ethan looked up. Our eyes met through the glass.

He looked at me for a long moment.

I waited for him to move. To step forward. To say something.

He turned back to Melissa and said something — I couldn't hear the words, but I could see his expression, and I saw him reach out and steady her arm with a careful, attentive hand.

"Mind the step," I thought his mouth said. "You all right?"

Sebastian caught my eye over Ethan's shoulder. He stood a little straighter. He smiled — not at me. Just at — a smile for the occasion of being watched by someone who'd lost.

Vivienne saw me too. She looked at me, then up at Ethan.

"Ethan, when the baby comes — can we use your father's surname? For the baby?"

Ethan glanced at me once. Then he nodded.

"Of course. It's only right."

Sebastian laughed. Melissa patted Ethan's hand. They moved further into the shop.

I walked into the boutique.

The assistant looked up. I looked at the shelves — the soft things, the small things, all of it — and I lifted one hand.

"Everything," I said. "The lot. Have it delivered to Hope Harbor Children's Shelter."

Sebastian's face went from satisfaction to outrage in the time it took my card to clear.

"Diana." He stepped forward. "That's your grandchild's inheritance—"

"It's my money." I handed the receipt to Gemma. "Shall we?"

"Absolutely." She took my arm. "On to the next?"

A month after the wedding, I received the invitation.

Mum — the ceremony is the fifteenth of next month. I know things aren't right between us. But you'll always be my mother. I'd be glad if you came.

I put the card on my desk.

There were things that needed to be finished.

I wrote back: I'll be there.

His reply came within minutes. I knew you would. You always come through, Mum.

I dressed carefully on the day — deep navy, high collar, elegant without trying to be. Gemma wore something red that she'd bought at our shopping trip and had been looking for an occasion for.

The venue was The Grand Meridian Hotel. Eleanor Harrington — Sebastian's mother — was already holding court near the entrance. She'd told me once, twenty years ago, that I wasn't good enough for her son. Today she sat at the head of the family table, gesturing grandly, the centre of her own small universe.

The moment she saw me, she lowered her voice — not enough.

"She's got nerve, coming here," Eleanor murmured to the woman beside her. "She must be banking on Ethan to look after her in her old age. Why else would she bother?"

Claire — Sebastian's sister — tittered. "Some women just don't know when they've lost."

Ethan appeared from nowhere. He looked polished and pale in his white suit, the boutonniere slightly crooked. He'd heard them.

"Grandmother. Aunt Claire." His voice was very quiet. "Please."

Eleanor sniffed. "I'm only saying what everyone's thinking."

"She's my mother."

He came and stood beside me, and I saw the effort it cost him.

"Mum," he said, too low for the others. "I'm sorry about them. They don't—"

"You're always soft when you shouldn't be," I said. "And hard when you shouldn't be."

He had no answer for that. The MC was calling the wedding party forward, and he excused himself with one more anxious look back.

The ceremony proceeded.

Vivienne came down the aisle on Sebastian's arm, breathtaking in white. Sebastian handed her to Ethan with the gravity of a man giving away his favourite thing, and the weight of what I had lost, what I had built, what I had sacrificed, sat in my chest like something calcified and permanent.

The vows were exchanged. The toasts were made.

Vivienne thanked her parents. Her voice broke on the word Mum. Melissa dabbed her eyes. Sebastian gripped her shoulder. The room filled with the particular warmth of people watching a family be a family.

Then it was Ethan.

He took the microphone and stood in the lights for a moment without speaking, scanning the room until his eyes landed briefly — impossibly briefly — on me.

Then he looked away.

"I want to thank my father," he said. "We haven't always been close. But he brought Vivienne into my life, and for that I'm grateful."

Sebastian beamed.

I kept my hands flat on the tablecloth.

"And my mother," Ethan said. "She raised me alone. She worked harder than anyone I've ever known. I'm grateful to her." He stopped. "I hope — I hope she knows that."

The MC looked out over the hall.

"And where is the mother of the groom? We'd love to hear from her — and we hear she's brought rather a special gift for the happy couple—"

From somewhere near the family table, Eleanor murmured: "She came empty-handed, I'll bet."