by Fiona Grace
“All morning?”
He nodded again.
“Cool,” Lacey replied.
She had a lot of respect for Brother Benedict. Her life always felt so busy and stressful and anxiety-ridden, and she had to admit that at least half of it was of her own making. She’d come to Wilfordshire in the first place seeking out a quieter and more simple life, only to have slipped back into her old busy ways. Brother Benedict, on the other hand, was so calm. He needed for nothing. Nothing fazed him.
In fact, his calming presence was starting to make her feel less stressed herself. Maybe having him here during the stressful family reunion would work in her favor. At the very least, it would give her parents something to talk about other than just character assassinations…
She reached the Lodge and Brother Benedict bowed his head as he exited the car.
“See you tomorrow afternoon,” Lacey called as he closed the door gently behind him.
As she watched the robed figure heading up the steps of the Lodge, Chester immediately jumped from the back seat into his vacated spot, his tail smacking Lacey in the face as he went.
“Hey!” Lacey exclaimed, spitting out fur. “You were supposed to be guarding my purse. It was a very important job.”
Chester harrumphed as he settled into his favorite seat.
Lacey looked at the purse lying on the back seat. Inside was the pregnancy test. And now, she realized nervously, the time had finally come for her to go home and take it.
*
Lacey turned into the driveway of Crag Cottage, her headlamps illuminating the front of her stone cottage momentarily, before she cut them out and darkness fell.
As the engine hissed to silence, Lacey took a moment to pause. The time had come to take the pregnancy test, and she was full of conflicting emotions about it. But it was time to be brave and find out once and for all.
She leaned over and took her purse from the back seat, cradling it nervously in her arms, then got out of the car.
“Lacey!” came Gina’s sudden voice.
With a flutter of panic, Lacey quickly checked her purse was zipped up securely. It was. Then she looked over to see Gina jogging across the lawns waving an arm over her head. Her friend was wearing her pink dressing gown and matching fluffy slippers, and she looked perturbed to say the least.
“Gina, is everything okay?” Lacey said, immediately worrying. “What’s happened? You look like you were in bed.”
“I was!” Gina cried melodramatically. “But I couldn’t sleep. I was worried about you. I thought maybe the monk had turned into a homicidal maniac!”
Lacey rolled her eyes affectionately and gave her friend’s fluffy pink arm a squeeze. “No, dear. I just ended up working late.” She remembered the embarrassing moment she’d dropped off to sleep at her desk in front of Brother Benedict. “I lost track of time. Very absorbing research,” she added, hurriedly.
Gina didn’t look pleased. She put her hands on her hips. “Young lady, you do make me fret. Promise me you won’t do that again, at least not while our spooky guest is with us.”
“I promise,” Lacey said. “Although you must stop calling Brother Benedict spooky. It’s not very polite. He’s a real human with real feelings. And I’m actually growing very fond of him.”
“Probably because he doesn’t speak,” Gina exclaimed. “I’m sure you’d be very fond of me too if I wasn’t always telling you off.”
“I’m already very fond of you!” Lacey told her, warmly. “You know it very well.”
But Gina was not to be reassured. She got like this sometimes. Up on her high horse, and too committed to her rightful indignation to come back down.
Lacey watched as she turned with a harrumph and marched back across the grass. Then the pink fluffy blob disappeared through the gap in the hedgerows and out of sight.
Lacey sighed. She loved Gina to death, as a friend, neighbor, confidante, and colleague, but just not so much as a surrogate mom. She got enough fussy over-parenting from her own mother all the way in New York City; the last thing she needed was a second one right on her doorstep.
“Come on, Chester,” Lacey said as she went up the garden path.
Her dog followed her as she retrieved the Rapunzel key from her purse and opened the front door. Together, they stepped inside the cottage, and Lacey flicked on the lights to make it cozy and comforting.
Her eyes immediately went to the staircase ahead, to the spot where Tom had witnessed her in her wedding dress. Had it been a bad omen? In a moment she was going to ascend that staircase for the bathroom and take the pregnancy test—would it tell her something she did not want to know? Set her life on a course she had not intended? There was only one way to find out.
Lacey headed upstairs, her purse clutched in her arms as if it contained precious cargo, and entered the bathroom. She caught her own reflection in the mirror, seeing the anxiety in her brown eyes and purple sleep-deprived bags beneath them.
She took a deep breath and removed the pregnancy test, holding the box in her hands. Such a small little thing, wielding so much power.
Just then, her phone started to ring. She checked the screen to see it was her mom calling. Lacey knew better than to let her mom’s call go unanswered, so she put the test down and took the call instead.
“Hi, Mom,” she said into her cell.
Shirley’s voice sounded in her ear, immediately launching into conversation with little pleasantries. “Darling, I’m calling to let you know we’re at the airport. Now, the flight gets us into Heathrow at eight AM local time, then we’re catching the train to Exeter. The timing didn’t work out as well as I’d hoped, because there’s actually a train at eight but we’ll obviously miss that, and then the next one isn’t until eight thirty. Which means we’ll have to hang around in the airport, although Naomi seems to think it will take us that long to get our bags back and Frankie wants to do some plane spotting!”
She chuckled. Lacey narrowed her eyes. Where was her mother’s monologue going?
“Okay,” she said aloud. “So I’ll come pick you up from the train station at nine.”
“Oh right, that’s why I was calling you actually. We won’t need picking up from Exeter. We’re going to take a cab to Wilfordshire.”
“Are you sure?” Lacey asked. “It’s a half-hour journey. It will be quite pricey.”
“It’s fine. Frankie requested it. He’s very into transport at the moment. Vehicles and such. He’s very excited about experiencing driving on the left-hand side, and has a million questions about it. We’d like him to have all his car talk out of his system when we meet up with you, so we can actually have a proper catch-up, and Naomi and I have decided it would be better for everyone if the person whose ear he talks off about it is an outsider. We’ll both have already had hours of listening to him talk about airplanes on the flight, and another hour of him talking about trains.”
Lacey smiled as she thought of her ginger-haired nephew and his obsessions.
“Okay, as long you’re sure,” she said.
“We’re sure,” Shirley replied. “Hopefully we’ll both be able to get a nap in the back seats while he’s up front chatting away!”
Lacey chuckled. “Okay. Well, I’m looking forward to seeing you all.” She made the calculation in her head. “At nine thirty-ish.”
“You too, darling.”
“Have a good flight.”
And with that, the call cut out.
Silence fell around Lacey once again.
Lacey’s eyes went to the pregnancy test, only this time she thought about Frankie, and what it might be like to have her own son, full of curiosity and enthusiasm. She and Frankie had a great bond and she thoroughly enjoyed the time she spent with him. If being a mother was anything like being an aunt, then what was it that she was so afraid of?
As she plucked up the courage to take the test, Lacey found herself pondering over where her deep-seated fear of motherhood really came from. She’d alway
s thought she just wasn’t that fond of children. She was too career-orientated. Much more of a dog person. But her love of Frankie had forced her to consider there was more to it—another, deeper layer.
She set the test on the side and read the instructions. It would take two minutes to develop. Two minutes! A maddening amount of time! If the result was positive she’d see two pink lines. If it was negative, she’d see just one.
Lacey paced across the bathroom floor, chewing her nails. Her mind turned over again and again as she ruminated on all her anxiety over the chances of it being positive. Did that fear stem from her own childhood? Her parents had been so wrapped up in their own issues during her childhood that she and Naomi had been often overlooked. Was it less about having a child per se, and more about an irrational fear that she and Tom would suddenly turn into her parents, and repeat those same destructive patterns? Surely, if that was where it came from, it was irrational. She was nothing like Shirley, and Tom was nothing like Frank, and the way they behaved with one another—loving, supportive, respectful—couldn’t be further from the way her parents had acted during their marriage.
Just then, her phone rang again and she jumped a mile. She rushed back to the sink where she’d left it, to see Tom’s name flashing up at her.
Her heart skipped a beat. Should she tell him what she was doing? What if this was all a false alarm and she worried him over nothing? Or what if she told him and his reaction was completely mismatched to hers, that rather than worried and conflicted he was thrilled? What if it all became like it had been with David?
With a nervous tremor in her hand, Lacey answered the call.
“Hello fiancée,” came Tom’s bright, cheery voice in her ear.
“T—Tom, hi,” she said, her mind racing. Why did she feel like a naughty child who’d been caught red-handed?
“Gina tells me you were working late,” Tom said, oblivious to the pregnancy test currently developing on the side of the sink, a single solid pink line beginning to come into existence. “Is that a good idea in your state?”
“My state?” Lacey echoed, her heart rate spiking. “What do you mean by that?”
“Because of the headache,” he said. “Or cold. Or whatever it is that’s wrong with you.”
Oh, Lacey thought. That.
“It’s fine, it’s passed now. I don’t think I’m coming down with anything.” She eyed the test warily.
“Thank goodness,” Tom said, merrily. “I’d hate for you to be sick on our wedding day. Anyway, I figured you’d be too tired to cook tonight, so I took it upon myself to bake a meat pie. Want me to come over?”
“That’s very sweet,” Lacey said, her eyes glued to the pregnancy test as the pink color strengthened. “But I’d like a quiet evening alone before my family descends.”
Tom chuckled. “Fair enough. It’s going to be chaos! They are booked in at the Lodge this time, right?”
“Yes,” Lacey said. “Thankfully.”
She’d learned her lesson about sharing accommodations with her family from their disastrous trip to Dover in the summer. Not that her family’s arrival was the total reason she wanted to be alone. The other, of course, was the pregnancy test. Whatever outcome Lacey got, she knew she wanted to sit with it by herself for a while, to process her own feelings before telling Tom. It sure seemed to be taking its sweet time to develop!
“Okay, darling,” Tom said. “All the more pie for me, in that case. I’ll see you tomorrow. Love you.”
“Love you too,” Lacey replied.
She ended the call and grabbed the test, holding it up to her eye line. The first pink line was now completely solid in color, but in the space beside it, something was starting to change.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Was it a second pink line? A very faint one? It was barely visible. More of a thin, gray line than a thick pink one.
She grabbed the instructions again. Pregnancy meant two solid pink lines. In the picture they were chunky pink things. But her test was showing one pink line and one thin gray line!
“Dammit!” Lacey exclaimed.
The test was inconclusive.
After all that stress and worry, she was no closer to finding her answer. She’d need to take another one, but of course after having worked late, the pharmacy was now closed. And worse, when would she find the time to squeeze in an extra trip to the pharmacy? Her family was arriving early, then there was lunch, and then in the evening the dreaded family meal to reintroduce her father to everyone. With all that on her plate, and her family hovering around her, Lacey had no idea how she was going to find either the time or the privacy to take a second test.
With a defeated sigh, Lacey dropped her head into her hands. Tomorrow was going to be difficult anyway. Now, with all this hanging over her head, it was going to be doubly hard. Maybe Gina was right about the omen after all.
*
Lacey headed to the Lodge early the next morning. Since she didn’t need to pick up her family from the airport anymore, there was no reason not to get on with the scepter work. Besides, she was really appreciating the distraction. She’d struggled to sleep last night, worrying about the inconclusive pregnancy test, and how she was ever going to find the chance to take another one now that her family was coming. She’d prefer to see a doctor, really; she didn’t trust the flimsy over-the-counter tests anymore and she certainly didn’t want to get one of the other brands, the ones with the delighted women on the boxes.
She pulled into the parking lot, and she and Chester headed inside the Lodge. Suzy was at the desk, looking half-asleep with a coffee clutched in her hand.
“Morning, Lacey,” she said with a yawn. “You’re here to collect your monk, I presume.”
Lacey chuckled. “I am indeed.”
“He’s in the grounds,” Suzy said. “The night staff said he was up at the crack of dawn, and he’s been pacing around the garden ever since. I’m glad all the guests are still asleep. I think they’d get a fright if they spotted a robed monk walking laps around the garden. It’s like something out of a horror movie.”
“I’ll go fetch him,” Lacey said with a chuckle.
She left Chester with Suzy for their tug-of-war rematch, and headed into the gardens.
It was a gray, overcast day, with a hint of moisture in the air. The grass was dewy and fresh. Lacey scanned the gardens and spotted Brother Benedict walking a slow lap past one of the flower beds Gina had planted when she was contracted to landscape the lawns. They were bare at the moment, due to the frost, but come spring they’d be alive with color.
“Brother Benedict!” Lacey called, as she trotted down the red brick steps toward him.
The monk looked up and smiled.
Lacey drew to a halt beside him, feeling the damp from the grass at the hem of her pant leg.
“There’s been a change of plans,” she said, her breath coiling on the cool air. “My family is getting a taxi to town instead. So, if you don’t mind me interrupting your prayers, would you like to come to the store and get back to work on the scepter?”
The monk smiled genially and bowed his head in agreement.
They headed back inside the warm, cozy inn together, and along the corridor to the reception desk. Chester had completely destroyed the newspaper.
“He won,” Suzy said, shrugging in defeat. “What can I say? He’s a true champion.”
Chester barked happily.
Lacey, Brother Benedict, and Chester left the Lodge and climbed into the car. With all her stresses racing through her head, Lacey wasn’t much in the mood to make one-sided small talk with a monk. But luckily for her, Brother Benedict didn’t need to be entertained. He was actually a very calming presence. Being with someone while she was feeling stressed but with no responsibilities or expectations was actually hugely comforting.
She reached the high street, which was starting to open up for the day, and parked in her preferred spot down the side street. Then she led her robed companion to the store.<
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As she began to open up the shutters, she heard someone calling her name.
“Lacey? Oh Lacey!” It was Taryn.
Great, Lacey thought wryly. Little Miss Blabbermouth. Just what I need.
She turned and smiled at Taryn, who was tottering along the high street in her heels, balancing a cardboard tray with two takeout cups from the Coffee Nook in one hand and clutching a bulging brown paper pastry bag in the other. Lacey frowned. She knew Taryn didn’t eat pastries—or breakfast, or anything, come to think of it—and wondered whether the boutique owner was expecting guests.
“Morning, Taryn,” she said, barely able to fake her politeness this morning.
“This is for you!” Taryn exclaimed, beaming. She thrust the paper bag at Lacey’s chest, surprising her.
“Oof,” Lacey said, clutching it. It was warm. “What is this?”
“Breakfast,” Taryn replied.
Half-curious, half-skeptical, Lacey opened up the bag. The smell of delicious sugar and buttery pastry wafted out at her, making her salivate. She peered inside, expecting a prank and to find out Taryn had put something awful in there like bugs. But no, it was indeed full of pastries. And they looked utterly delicious.
Bemused, Lacey glanced back up at Taryn. “You bought me breakfast? Why?”
“Well, your family are flying in today, aren’t they?” Taryn replied with a single-shouldered shrug. “And I know how demanding they can be. I thought you’d need something to keep your energy up, since you’re always working so hard and forgetting to eat properly.”
Me forgetting to eat?! Lacey thought, looking at Taryn’s rake-thin frame.
“That’s very kind of you,” she said aloud.
Even though she knew Taryn was probably only doing it to get an invite to the wedding, she was genuinely touched by the gesture. Besides, Chester wasn’t even growling at Taryn anymore, a habit he’d had the whole time Lacey had known him. If he could warm to her, then Lacey certainly could as well.
“Did you want to come in and share them?” Lacey asked.
