Forever, Plus One

by Sophie Love

  “Is Baby Charlotte causing a fuss?” Daniel asked as he sat beside Emily and pressed his hand against her stomach.

  “It’s not her so much,” Emily confessed, “although it’s not exactly a picnic in the park growing a human being inside of you!” Daniel laughed and Emily continued. “I think it’s the emotion of being here that is tiring me out. All those photographs I’ve never seen before. Being in my father’s world after having no contact with him for so long. I mean, this is what he was doing for all those years! Fixing clocks and making jam and buying art from stores with pretty bunting outside. All the while I had no idea whether he was even alive or not. I just can’t quite gather my thoughts properly.”

  Daniel wrapped her in his arms and held her tightly. “I know. It must be very difficult for you.”

  Emily sighed, sinking against his chest, feeling comforted by his solidness. “I wonder what life would have been like if I had known. If he’d just gone about it all better. If he’d just told me that he was leaving, moving abroad. Can you imagine if I’d spent my summers here as a teenager, rather than with my mom in New York City? Or if I’d moved here? I might well have done so if the opportunity was there, to get away from her.”

  She felt Daniel’s arms tighten around her. “I know it doesn’t always feel like it,” he said in a reassuring tone. “But things do happen for a reason. If you’d moved to England with your dad, then we would never have met.” He touched her stomach. “Baby Charlotte wouldn’t exist.”

  “You’re right,” Emily said. “Things happened the way they did for a reason. The journey was difficult but I wouldn’t change it, not if it meant losing you or Chantelle or Baby Charlotte. It’s just so hard not to think about what could have been.”

  Daniel pressed a kiss against the crown of her head and they held each other, Emily finding comfort in the sound of his heartbeat. Despite the difficult things she’d been through, if they had been necessary to lead her to this time and this place, to make her this person with this life, then it was all worth it.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The vacation seemed to sift away from them as quickly as sand. From Roy and Chantelle’s home-cooked Cornish pasties and Victoria sponge cakes, to their garden tending, flowering arranging, and clock fixing, Emily felt that a week just wasn’t long enough for the family to catch up properly with her father. Chantelle demanded vast amounts of time with him and Emily felt like she didn’t get as much of an opportunity to speak to him, though that was equally from pregnancy symptoms. She felt like she’d hardly had a chance to take in the beauty of the local area, so when Roy told them they were going on a very special outing, Emily had been determined not to be left behind.

  Despite her sickness, she clambered into Roy’s car with the others. He drove them up the hillsides to a place called Trebah Gardens. He parked in the lot at the top and everyone got out of the car.

  They walked together toward the edge of the hill and the view opened up before them. Wind rustled through Emily’s hair as she gazed down across the treetops and down, down, down into a valley of dark green vegetation. It was so beautiful she could hardly catch her breath.

  The garden was built on a hillside that led all the way down to the river, beach, and ocean at the bottom. From here, Emily’s entire field of vision was filled with the spectacular view.

  “Dad, this place is absolutely stunning,” she gasped, looking across at Roy.

  She thought she noticed a hint of melancholy in his expression as he, too, gazed down at the scene before them.

  “It’s one of the most beautiful places in Cornwall,” he said, somewhat wistfully. “My favorite.”

  “Mine too,” Chantelle agreed.

  “But you’ve hardly seen any of it,” Roy said with a laugh.

  Emily noticed the way he seemed to snap out of whatever thoughts he’d gotten lost in whenever it came to speaking to Chantelle. She recognized the trait in him as one he’d used with her as a child. It was his attempt to conceal bad news or downplay bad vibes. She could still vividly remember him behaving that way after one of her parents’ many screaming matches. He would just suddenly change, his whole demeanor shifting. It comforted her when she was a child, but now she could see through it. Roy was putting on a brave face, an act. There was something he wasn’t telling her.

  She watched as he held his hand out to Chantelle, his grin wide and inviting, and added, “It gets better and better and better as you go. Are you ready?”

  They began to amble slowly down the hillside. The gardens were stunning, filled with unusual tropical plants, tree ferns, and towering bamboo.

  “What is this?” Chantelle asked, staring up in amazement at a strange plant that looked like a spinach shrub for a giant.

  “I believe that’s gunnera,” Roy told her. “Also known as giant rhubarb.”

  “We could make the biggest crumble in the world out of that,” Chantelle uttered.

  “It’s usually native to Latin America so goodness knows what they’ve done to make it grow here!”

  They continued on down the valley, passing statues and art installations hidden in the trees. The garden was filled with hydrangeas of every conceivable color, from white to pink to violet, making the place burst with summer color. Chantelle found a tiny thatch-roofed house hidden amongst the shrubbery, and a play area for children tucked away behind the trees.

  As Chantelle burned off some of her energy on the swings and climbing frame, Emily took a moment to revel in the peace and natural beauty surrounding her. Then she heard a sound.

  “What was that?” she asked Daniel who was close by.

  “It sounded like quacking to me,” he replied.

  Emily wandered over to where the sound had come through. Peeking through the trees she found several ponds full of mallards. She laughed with delight, watching them preen their feathers and dive under the water.

  Across the pond was a cute, rickety-looking wooden bridge.

  “It looks just like the Monet painting of the bridge over the lily pond,” Emily gushed.

  Feeling like a child, she hurried across the bridge, swinging her arms wide, enjoying the carefree moment. Dappled sunshine warmed her skin.

  The rest of the family followed, catching up with her on the other side, and they continued on together. They took the route alongside a stream, the water providing a babbling backdrop as they wandered. The trees here were mature ones—oaks and maples.

  Emily felt like she was suddenly in a forest.

  Then all at once, they had reached the bottom of the valley. The trees thinned to reveal the bay—tranquil and private—and the glittering ocean. They took it in turns to take the narrow bridge across the river—the final hurdle between them and the beach—then hurried out onto the sand.

  “Now I see why you told us to bring our swimming things,” Chantelle said to Roy.

  “And a picnic,” Emily added. “I don’t know about you all, but I’m starving.”

  They spread a blanket out on the sand and took out the sandwiches and snacks they’d prepared in Roy’s kitchen that morning. While Emily ate, Chantelle changed into her swimsuit and charged off into the water as soon as she’d swallowed her last mouthful.

  “There’s a stall over there where you can buy coffee,” Roy said.

  Daniel immediately perked up and hurried off to purchase his caffeine fix. When he returned a moment later his arms were laden with ice creams.

  “I got a bit carried away,” he said.

  From the ocean, Chantelle must have spotted Daniel because she suddenly hurried back and pelted across the beach toward them.

  “Ice cream!” she cried, flinging herself down onto the blanket.

  Daniel passed them around and Emily took the pistachio-and-rose-flavored one. It tasted divine.

  “Baby Charlotte approves,” she said.

  They spent several hours relaxing on the beach, eating, swimming, and chatting about life. Emily was so grateful that they’d come to Trebah
Gardens. It had been the highlight of her entire trip; a wholesome, rejuvenating experience.

  The air was starting to cool a little.

  “Maybe we should start heading back up,” Daniel suggested. “It will take us longer to get up than it did down and the light is going to start fading soon.”

  Though Emily agreed, she felt a tinge of sadness over the fact this moment couldn’t go on forever. And if this moment couldn’t, then neither could the next, nor the one after that. Before they new it, the holiday would be over. They would have to leave, back on a plane to Maine. Emily didn’t feel ready for that to happen.

  They packed up the picnic and wrapped Chantelle up in a towel, then ambled slowly back up through the gardens. The sky began to dim, offering them a whole new view, a darker, more dangerous version of the beauty they’d looked at just hours earlier.

  As they followed the valley all the way back to the entrance of Trebah Gardens, Emily felt dread growing inside of her at the thought of uttering the word goodbye to her father once more.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  While Daniel and Roy took Chantelle out for another fishing trip on the boat, Emily decided to stay at the cottage to rest and slowly begin the process of packing up their suitcases. The family was leaving England in the morning, something that sat badly on Emily, a weight of grief on her shoulders.

  She took a long, lazy bubble bath, trying to hold onto the sense of relaxation she’d discovered in the amazing valley garden, but found it floating away from her, dispersing into the air like dust. Reality always came back to bite at some point or another.

  She dressed and spent time styling her hair, watching her own reflection in the bedroom mirror. It was only in these quiet moments that she ever had a chance to put her thoughts together and really work out what she was worried about. She realized now that returning home was bringing two distinct worries into her consciousness; the first being Daniel’s potential return to muted enthusiasm over Baby Charlotte; the second was leaving her father.

  The whole time they’d been here, she had been worrying about him. The weight loss and his distinct lack of appetite. The coughing fits. The fake smile he adopted for Chantelle’s sake that she remembered so distinctly from her childhood. Something wasn’t right with him.

  Now clean and styled, Emily went into Chantelle’s room to begin the task of locating and packing her things. She found the room in a mess, with clothes strewn all over the place, evidence of the flurry of excitement that Chantelle had been in every moment of the vacation. She smiled to herself, glad that the girl had had such a wonderful time, that her mind was filled with happy memories to cherish. Emily’s greatest desire when it came to Chantelle was not to repeat the mistakes of her own childhood, to make the girl feel safe and loved at all times, to make her feel special and wanted.

  She scooped a summer dress up from the floor and folded it, placing it neatly in the case, then moved onto the next item. As she worked, Emily allowed her thoughts to drift from one thing to the next, letting them flow without direction in order to let the most important ones come to the forefront. And the thought that emerged over and over again in her mind was her father.

  She stopped, pausing. The house was empty; she was the only one here. Perhaps she could have a look around the place, see if there was anything that might shed some light on her father’s low mood?

  She chewed her lip, deliberating. It felt wrong to snoop, like looking in someone’s diary. But her father was unlikely to volunteer his concerns to her. Sometimes taking matters into one’s own hands was necessary, especially when the means justified the end.

  She left Chantelle’s room and crossed the corridor to the room that looked like her father’s office. She could tell as such due to its unmistakable resemblance to the door of the inn, the one that had remained locked, strictly out of bounds for her and Charlotte. She could still remember the myriad of handprints she and her sister had left on the door while waiting for their father to emerge from his secret lair. Though the handprints were absent on this door, it still gave her that same feeling of being shut out of something, of secrets unuttered.

  She tried the doorknob. To her surprise it turned. So her father had not locked this study like he had done the one in the inn. She went inside.

  The first thing to strike her about the room was its similarity to his Sunset Harbor office. The furniture was the same, laid out in the same way. It was slightly eerie. A carbon copy of the room he’d had all those years before.

  The main difference, however, was all the clocks. They adorned every wall, stood in the windowsill. Roy collected clocks in the same way others collected plants, Emily thought. She herself found the clocks intimidating. Symbolic, even, for the time that was passing from them, the time they had lost, too reminiscent of the finiteness of the time they had left. She shuddered.

  Feeling even more uncomfortable with snooping, Emily nevertheless went over to the desk and began looking through her father’s stacks of paper. Just like at home, he had piles of insignificant bits of paperwork all over the place. He clearly hadn’t found a more efficient system for his hoarding habit.

  She thumbed through telephone bills, letters from the water company, a letter from the council about some building plans for the local area. Some of the bits of paper were dated from several years ago. Emily wondered why her father felt the need to hold onto all these things.

  She put the bills and letters down, sighing. There was nothing here that may indicate why her father seemed so low at the moment, though she herself would feel weighed down merely by the presence of all these letters, of years’ worth of history piled up unnecessarily all over the place.

  As she went to leave the office, something caught her eye. On a chair by the door, which she had until now had her back to, there was a box file. Emily thought it unusual for Roy to have one; he wasn’t organized enough ordinarily to file some papers away while leaving others strewn about. She went over and pushed the stack of magazines resting on top of the box file to one side.

  Looking at the box file filled Emily with dread. She didn’t know why, but as she unlatched the lid and pulled it open, she was struck by a horrible emotion, a premonition that there was something inside she wouldn’t want to know about.

  Her eyes scanned the first document before her, the one lying on the top of the papers contained inside. She gasped, her throat constricting, and staggered back, gripping the desk to keep herself upright. One word and one word only had burned into her vision as she’d looked at the letter addressed to her father: cancer.

  She breathed deeply, feeling the world swirl around her. Her heart hammered rapidly. There must be a mistake. She must have read it wrong.

  It took all her resolve to look back at the letter, to get to the bottom of it. But it was true. She read it all again, over and over. The letter was from the NHS, and it contained the results of Roy Mitchell’s biopsy sample.

  It was confirmed.

  It was cancer.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Emily’s immediate reaction was denial. She could hardly breathe as she searched the letter for a date, not wanting to believe what she had just read, hoping desperately that the letter was from years hence, an old illness he had already beaten during the period they’d been estranged. But no, she saw with horror that the letter was very recent. In fact, it had arrived just before they had. Her father had discovered he had cancer at the very same moment they’d touched down in England. Her heart clenched with agony.

  Just then, she heard the front door slam, and the sounds of Chantelle’s happy babbling resonated through the house. Emily quickly exited the study, taking the letter with her, and crossed the hall into her room. She lay down on the bed to give the impression she’d been napping.

  A moment later, she heard Daniel’s footsteps. Then the door opened, light streamed in, and his head appeared around the door.

  “Did we wake you?” he asked gently, as she stirred and looked up.

&
nbsp; Emily could almost feel the letter burning in her pocket. She so desperately wanted to speak to Daniel about it, but first she needed to speak to her father. So she kept her chin up and her tears in check.

  “I’ve been drifting, that’s all,” she said. “Did you have a nice time on the boat?”

  “It was great. We caught some cod for lunch. Do you think you’ll be able to eat any?”

  Emily shook her head. Not because of Baby Charlotte, but because of the emotion that was roiling inside of her.

  “Too bad,” Daniel said. “I’ll make you a sandwich instead.”

  “Thanks,” Emily said. “Oh, and Daniel,” she added, as he turned toward the door to leave. He looked back. “Can you ask my dad to come up?”

  Daniel frowned at the slightly unusual request, but he didn’t challenge it. “Sure.”

  He left the room. Emily felt the pressure of saving face leave her body, and she sagged, exhausted from it. How had her father managed to keep his secret during the whole holiday when she could barely even get through one conversation without cracking from the strain?

  She sat up and rubbed her rounded stomach. She’d been on such a high with the pregnancy, but now, after having read the letter, she felt desperately sad. Would her father be around to meet Baby Charlotte? The thought of him dying turned her bones to ice.

  There was a soft knock on the door, and Roy peered around. Emily smiled sadly at him.

  “Is everything okay?” Roy asked. “Daniel said you weren’t feeling able to eat cod for lunch.”

  Emily remained silent. She couldn’t utter any words. Seeing her father now it seemed as plain as day that he was sick. In fact, she became aware that she’d known subconsciously from the very first moment she’d seen his face over FaceTime. She just hadn’t wanted to allow herself to believe it.

  Instead of saying anything, Emily took the letter out of her pocket and handed it to Roy. His face blanched when he saw what she had discovered.