by Martina Cole
Porrick was really taken aback at Jade’s words.
She laughed then, a real throaty, dirty laugh. ‘We both knew what he really was. We just didn’t want to admit it.’ She poured them both large whiskies. ‘Come on, Porrick, one last toast.’
He picked up his glass and held it up. ‘OK, then.’
Jade gently touched her glass to his, as she said loudly, ‘To Reeva’s boys.’
Porrick said quickly, ‘Or what’s left of them, anyway!’
Jade laughed with him. Porrick swallowed his drink down in one and immediately refilled the glasses.
Agnes and Reeva walked into the kitchen together and Reeva put her hands on her ample hips as she said drunkenly, ‘I heard that!’
Reeva was as pleased as punch to hear them saying ‘Reeva’s boys’. She liked hearing that. What she didn’t like hearing was the ‘what’s left of them’ jibe. That really hurt. But she wasn’t going to cause any upset about it. It was over, it was in the past. It was something that had broken her heart and it was also something that she had learned to live with.
Reeva grabbed them both and started to pull them towards the door. ‘Come on, you pair, we want you all outside.’
Agnes was already opening the door wide and, as they trooped out together to join in with the dancing, Jade and Porrick started laughing together again. Between them, they started to round everyone up.
Reeva O’Hara looked around her and she saw all her family and she knew that, no matter what had happened, and no matter what she had done, her children had always loved her and they had always forgiven her. She saw Tony Brown smiling as her children and grandchildren surrounded her, and he saw his Reeva beaming with happiness. The DJ was playing The Pointer Sisters, and Reeva’s kids were singing along to ‘We Are Family’. Reeva knew that was the truth. It broke her heart that it had taken the violent death of her firstborn son to bring them all together like this, and to admit that, as much as she had loved him, he had been willing to smash the family apart to achieve his own ends. She knew that his demise had been manufactured by someone in her immediate family. She wasn’t a fool − she had just not wanted to know the details. Her Aiden was dead and gone, and now she had all of her remaining family around her and there would be no more upsets and no more heartbreak. She wouldn’t have it any other way.
