Housekeeper's Happy-Ever-After

by Fiona Harper

  She was surprised at how easy the transition had been. She’d been so worried that she would feel different when they returned from the Caribbean. Over three weeks later she still felt alarmingly peaceful. She’d experienced a strange sense of foreboding on the flight home, but if trouble was looming in the distance it was hiding itself round a dimly lit corner.

  She looked at the open French windows and wished that Mark would stroll through them any second and join her. The curtains rippled in promise, but she knew he wouldn’t appear. He was off on business for a few days and due home first thing tomorrow. She’d had the opportunity to go with him. She’d already travelled with him once since they’d been back, but she’d been feeling a bit below par for a couple of days and had decided to stay home and recharge her batteries while Mark flew to Ireland. The idea of sleeping in her own bed rather than a hotel one, however luxurious the surroundings, was too much of a lure. She took a careful sip of her hot tea.

  Yuck!

  It tasted awful. The milk must be off. She would just have to make a new one. She walked into the kitchen and poured the rest of her tea down the sink, then put on the kettle for a fresh cup. While she was waiting for it to boil she went in search of the offending milk in the fridge.

  A row of unopened bottles stood like pristine soldiers in the door. Where was the one she’d used earlier? She moved a couple of items around on the nearby shelf to see if the half-used bottle was hidden away behind something. Nope. Hang on! What were the teabags doing in here?

  Oh, well. She popped open a fresh pint of milk and sniffed it, while keeping her nose as far away as possible. No, this one was fine. Having done that, she made herself another cup of tea and sank into one of the wooden chairs round the table. She took a long sip, scowled, then spat it back into the cup. What was wrong with the tea today? It would have to be orange juice instead. She returned the rather chilly box of tea bags to its proper resting place in the cupboard—or would have done if a bottle of milk hadn’t been sitting in its spot.

  Obviously her absent-minded tendencies were getting worse. She’d been under the mistaken impression she’d been improving recently, but she was clearly deluded. She laughed quietly to herself as she returned the milk to the fridge.

  Then she fell silent. These weren’t her normal memory lapses. This was something new. Should she be worried about that? She’d never been scatty like this before, unless you counted that time years before the accident when…

  Oh, my!

  Ellie continued staring into the open fridge, the cool air making no impact on her rapidly heating face. When she let go of the door and let it slam closed she realised her hands were shaking. She sat back down at the table, her thirst forgotten, and tried to assemble all the evidence in her cluttered brain. The milk, the tea, the lack of energy—it was all falling into place.

  She’d completely gone off both tea and coffee when she’d been carrying Chloe—hadn’t even been able to stand the smell when Sam had opened a jar of instant coffee to make himself one. She’d made him drink it in the garden! And then she’d developed an overwhelming craving for tinned pineapple sprinkled liberally with pepper.

  Her palm flattened over her stomach. She stood up, then sat down again.

  I can’t be pregnant! Not already.

  She hadn’t even considered the possibility, although it would certainly explain her sudden lethargy. A creeping nausea rose in her throat, but she was sure it was more a result of shock than morning sickness.

  How could this have happened?

  Er…stupid question, Ellie! You spent more time with your clothes off than on on honeymoon. Yes, they’d been careful, but nothing was guaranteed one hundred percent in this life.

  She wasn’t sure she was ready to have another baby! Life was changing so fast at the moment she could hardly keep up. She needed to get used to being married before she could consider all the possibilities for the future.

  And what was Mark going to say?

  She hoped he would be pleased, but what if he wasn’t? They hadn’t even talked about this stuff yet, having been too caught up in a whirlwind wedding and being newlyweds to think about anything sensible.

  Calm down! You’re getting ahead of yourself!

  She didn’t even know if she was pregnant yet. All she knew for sure was that she’d had a dodgy cup of tea and had misplaced the milk. She didn’t have to turn insignificant minor events into a major crisis, now, did she?

  Ellie shook her head. Talk about her imagination running away with her. What she needed to do right now was take a few deep breaths and have a shower. Which was exactly what she did. However, all the time she was washing she couldn’t shake the nagging voice in the back of her head.

  You can’t run away from this one, Ellie. You can’t bury your head in the sand. But she hadn’t been running away from things recently, had she? She’d run to Mark, not away from something else. At least that was how it had felt at the time.

  She stepped out of the shower and got dressed. She needed to find out for sure. She’d go down to the chemist in the village and buy a test. Strike that. She’d already got to know the local residents, and if the village drums were doing their usual work the news that she might be expecting would be round the village in a nanosecond. The fact that dashing Mr Wilder had married his housekeeper was still the main topic of local gossip. A baby on the way would be too juicy a titbit for the village grapevine to ignore.

  She’d be better off going into town and shopping at one of the large chemists. Much easier to be anonymous then. At least when Mark got home tomorrow she’d have had a chance to absorb the outcome herself.

  The thought that the test might be negative should have made her feel more peaceful. Instead she felt low at the prospect. If the test was negative, she would make a lighthearted story of it to tell Mark over dinner tomorrow. She’d tell him how freaked out she’d been, see what his reaction was, test the waters.

  Two hours later she was standing in the bathroom, holding the little cellophane-wrapped box as if it was an unexploded bomb.

  You’re not going to find out by staring at it.

  She removed the crinkly wrapping and opened the box. How could something as mundane as a plastic stick turn out to be the knife-edge that her whole life was balanced on? She sat on the closed toilet lid while waiting for the result, the test laid on one thigh. Two minutes to wait. If someone had told her she was only going to live another two minutes, it would seem like a measly amount of time. How, then, could this couple of minutes stretch so far they seemed to be filling the rest of the day?

  First the test window. Good. One blue line. It was working. Then wait for the next window. She waited for what seemed an age. Nothing. She stood up, threw the test onto the shelf over the sink and ran out of the room crying.

  All that stress for nothing. She ought to be relieved! It gave her a little more time to think, to plan, to find out what Mark wanted.

  Suddenly she wished he was there. She wanted to feel his strong arms wrapped around her, wanted him to hold her tight against his chest and stroke her hair.

  She grabbed a wad of tissues from the box beside her bed and blew her nose loudly. She should get out of here, get some fresh air. Perhaps she should pick up the papers from the village shop. Mark liked to read a selection, from the broad-sheets to the tabloids, mostly to keep track of what attention his clients were attracting in the press.

  She went back to collect the pregnancy test and picked it up, with the intention of putting it in the bin, but the moment she looked at it she dropped it into the sink in shock. The breath left her body as if she’d been slapped with a cricket bat.

  The tears must be blurring her vision! She dragged the hem of her T-shirt across her eyes and stared at it again.

  Two blue lines?

  She took it to the window to get more light. Her eyes weren’t deceiving her. Granted, the second one was very faint, compared to the first, but there were definitely two blue lines. The
hormones had to be only just detectable. She could hardly believe it, but there it was—in blue and white.

  I’m going to have a baby. Our baby.

  Suddenly the rambling old house seemed claustrophobic. She needed to get outside, feel the fresh air on her skin. The garden called her, and she ran down to it and kicked her flip-flops off. Her ‘engagement’ toe-ring glinted in the morning sun as she stepped onto the grass and began to walk.

  A stroll through Larkford Place’s grounds should have been pleasant in high summer. The far reaches of the garden, unspoilt and untended, were alive with wild flowers, butterflies and buzzing insects. But Ellie noticed none of it. All she could think about was having a little boy, with a shock of thick dark hair like his father and eyes the colour of warm chocolate.

  Was this how she’d felt when she’d realised she’d been expecting the last time? It seemed so long ago now, a memory half obscured by the fog of the accident. But her last pregnancy had been planned. This one was…well, a surprise to put it mildly.

  She stopped and looked a bright little poppy, wavering in the breeze. Through the confusion and doubts, joy bubbled up inside her, pushing them aside. She wanted this baby. She already loved this baby—just as much as she’d loved…

  Images of golden ringlets and gap-toothed smiles filled her mind, but there was something missing. A word missing.

  Her hands, which had been circling her tummy, went still. Just as much as she’d loved…

  No. Not now. Not this name. This was one name she was never allowed to forget, never allowed to lose. It was too awful. Ellie looked back at the house and began to run.

  This couldn’t be happening. She couldn’t have forgotten her own daughter’s name.

  Mark burst through the front door with a huge bunch of wilted flowers in his hand. They had looked a bit better before they’d spent two long, sticky hours in the passenger seat of the Aston Martin.

  ‘Ellie?’

  No answer. She was probably out in the garden. He almost sprinted into the kitchen. The French windows, her normal escape route, were closed. On closer inspection he discovered they were locked. He ran back to the entrance hall and called her name more loudly. The slight echo from his shout jarred the silence.

  Okay, maybe she was out. He was half a day early, after all.

  He looked at his watch. Nearly four o’clock. She couldn’t be too far away. He’d just go and have a shower, then lie in wait. He chuckled and loosened his tie as he hopped up the stairs two at a time.

  But as the afternoon wore on Ellie didn’t appear. He ended up in the kitchen, wishing she’d materialise there somehow, and he found her note near the kettle. Well, it wasn’t even a proper letter—just a sticky note on the kitchen counter, telling him that she’d gone.

  He sat down on one of the chairs by the kitchen table and put his head in his hands.

  Not again. She’d seemed so happy since the wedding.

  That’s when they leave—when they’re happy. They don’t need you any more.

  No. This couldn’t happen with Ellie. He loved her too much. More than Helena. So much more. He stood up. He’d be damned if he lost a second wife this way. But if she was really intent on going she bloody well owed him an explanation. He wasn’t going to let her waltz off without a backward glance.

  The keys jumped from Ellie’s fingers as if they had a life of their own. She muttered through her tears and bent to scoop them up from the front step. Thankfully the holiday company had told her they’d had a cancellation this week. The cottage was empty. Perhaps if she went inside it would help.

  Although she’d remembered Chloe’s name almost the second she’d reached Larkford’s kitchen, she still couldn’t shake the clammy, creeping feeling of disloyalty and guilt. She’d needed to come somewhere she could rid herself of this horrible feeling of being disconnected from her past.

  She slid the key into the lock and started the familiar routine of pulling and turning to ease it open. It was feeling particularly uncooperative today. She gave the key one last jiggle and felt the levers give. The door creaked open.

  For no reason she could think of, she burst into tears.

  The cream and terracotta tiled hallway seemed familiar and strange at the same time. The surfaces were cleared of all her knickknacks and photos, but the furniture was still in situ. Even devoid of personal items it seemed more welcoming than when she’d left on that grey, rainy day months ago.

  Ellie hadn’t planned to end up here. She just had. An impulse. She walked into the sitting room and slumped into her favourite armchair.

  I should never have left this chair. I should have stayed here eating biscuits and never gone to Larkford. Then I would never have forgotten you, my darling girl.

  But then she wouldn’t have this new baby. And she really wanted it. She clamped her hands to her stomach, as if to reassure the tiny life inside, and her eyes glittered with maternal fierceness.

  If Mark didn’t want it, then she’d just bring it up on her own.

  Ellie shook her head. She hadn’t even told Mark yet, didn’t have a clue what his reaction would be. She was just making the same mistake she always made: an idea had crept into her head and she’d sprinted away with it like an Olympic athlete, not even bothering to check that she was running in the right direction. Maybe she was so terrified of losing Mark that deep down she almost expected something to come along and demolish it. And at the first hint of trouble she’d been only too ready to believe her luck couldn’t hold out.

  Sitting here moping was doing her no good. She pulled herself to her feet and started to walk round the house. As she visited every room different memories came alive: Chloe riding her truck up and down the hall; Sam marking homework at the dining table; the kitchen counter where she had made cakes with Chloe, more flour down their fronts than in the mixing bowl. And she realised she’d never been able to do this before, never been able to look at her cottage and see it alive with wonderful warm memories of her lost family.

  As she sat trying to process all the new information Kat’s song from the wedding drifted through her head:

  Yesterday is where I live, trapped by ghosts and memories.

  But I can’t stay frozen, my heart numb, because tomorrow is calling me…

  Ellie guessed the song had been about her break-up with Razor, but the simple lyrics about learning to love again had been so right for their wedding day too. ‘All My Tomorrows’ was the title. And she’d promised the rest of hers to Mark, willingly. Nothing in the world could make her take that promise back. So there was only one thing to do: she had to go back home—her real home, Larkford—and let Mark know he was going to be a father. Whatever fallout happened, happened. They would just have to deal with it together.

  Her instincts told her it was going to be okay. She hoped she was brave enough to listen to them.

  She grabbed her keys off the table and took long strides into the hall, her eyes fixed on the front door. A shadow crossed the glazed panel. She hesitated, then walked a few steps further, only to halt again as a fist pounded on the door.

  ‘Ellie? Are you there?’

  She dropped her keys.

  ‘Ellie!’

  ‘Mark?’ Her voice was shaky, but a smile stretched her trembling lips. She ran to the door and pressed her palms against the glass.

  ‘Let me in, or so help me I’m just going to have to break the door down!’

  She patted her pockets, then scanned the hallway, remembering she’d dropped her keys. She ran to pick them up, but it took three attempts before her shaking fingers kept a grip on them. As fast as she could she raced back to the door and jammed the key in the lock. An ugly grinding sound followed as she turned it, then the key refused to move any further. She wiggled and jiggled it, pushed and pulled the door, trying all her old tricks, but it wouldn’t budge. The key would not turn in either direction, so she couldn’t even get it out again to have another go.

  ‘Ellie? Open the door!’ The
last shred of patience disappeared from his voice.

  ‘I’m trying! The lock’s jammed.’

  ‘Let me try.’

  The door shuddered and groaned under Mark’s assault, but remained stubbornly firm.

  Ellie sighed. ‘They don’t make doors like this any more.’

  Between pants, she heard Mark mutter, ‘You’re telling me.’

  She pressed her face to the stained glass design, able to see him through a clear piece of glass in the centre. He looked tired, disheveled and incredibly sexy. Without warning, she started to cry again.

  He stopped wrestling with the door and looked at her through the textured glass. ‘We have to talk.’

  She gulped. He sounded serious. Was serious good or bad? Good. Serious was good. Please God, let serious be good!

  ‘I know,’ she said.

  ‘Why are you here, instead of at home?’

  She took a deep breath and turned away from him, pressed her back against the door, then slid to the floor.

  ‘How did you know where to find me?’

  ‘I phoned Charlie in a panic and she suggested I might find you here. I’d already been to your parents’ house and your brother’s.’

  She nodded. Charlie knew her so well. Maybe too well. If her friend hadn’t guessed where she was she might have made it back to Larkford and Mark would never have known how stupid she’d been this afternoon. But why had her first impulse been to run? To come here? Did that mean something?

  ‘Ellie?’

  She took a deep breath. ‘Do you think we got married too fast, Mark? I mean, did we get carried away? Should we have waited?’ Everything just seemed so confusing today.

  She heard him sit on the step. His feet scraped the gravel path as he stretched his legs out. ‘Are you saying you want out?’ he said quietly. ‘Are you saying you want to come back here for good? I thought you loved me, Ellie. I really did.’