Page 47 of The Inn on Bluebell Lane
As she bustled about the kitchen, she almost felt like her old self—tired, yes, but industrious and cheerful, humming under her breath as she guided Ava’s chubby little hands on the rolling pin, and offered Ben the choice of pepperoni, olives, peppers, or mushrooms.
“Mushrooms, yuck,” he said with gruesome theatricality, and she smiled.
This was the sort of thing she’d envisioned when she’d asked Matthew if he and his family wanted to live with her at Bluebell Inn—happy times with the grandchildren, memories in the making, a cheerful, busy kitchen.
It lasted for twenty minutes, like the calm before the storm, although Gwen didn’t realize it at the time. She simply enjoyed the activity, Ava’s giggles and Jess’s quick smile, Josh and Ben actually seeming to get along as they decorated their pizzas with toppings, Ben having the idea of making funny faces—a red pepper for a mouth, olives for eyes.
Then Josh knocked the bowl of tomato sauce onto the floor, splattering Jess’s new sparkly white top with drops of red, and before Gwen could react, Jess had let out a cry of dismay and shoved her brother hard in the shoulder. Josh shoved her back, and somehow Ben got involved with the shoving as well, a pizza slid to the floor with a splat and then Ava started to cry.
“My pizza!”
“Wait… wait!” Gwen called out desperately, flinging her hands up, trying to slow down the disaster that was already being unleashed—first in slow motion, and then seemingly faster and faster. It was already too late—Jess had stormed off, and Ava, standing in the middle of the kitchen, had begun to bawl properly. Josh was clearly struggling not to cry, as well, and Ben had managed to step in the spilled tomato sauce and was tracking red footprints around the kitchen. Poor old Toby, alarmed by all the noise, had slunk out to the hall.
“Enough!” Gwen commanded, loud enough for all three to fall silent, surprised at her suddenly stern tone, one she hardly ever took. “Ben, take off your shoes before you track any more sauce about, and then please go set the table. Ava, wash your hands. Josh, help me clean up this sauce. And don’t worry—there’s more in the fridge of everything. Ava, we’ll make you another pizza.”
She took a steadying breath and let it out slowly, gratified when they all did as she asked.
A few minutes later, everything was calm again, and the three children were finishing decorating their pizzas. Jess had already finished hers, so Gwen popped it in the oven along with the others, set the kids to playing an ancient game of Cluedo she’d found in the cupboard, and then went upstairs to find her eldest granddaughter.
Jess was in the room she shared with Ava, hunched on her bed, still in her stained top.
“If you take that off, I can put it to soak,” Gwen said gently. “I think the stains will come out with a bit of white vinegar.”
Jess sniffed and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
Carefully, Gwen perched on the edge of the bed. “I think it does.”
Jess plucked at the stained top, her head bent so Gwen couldn’t see her face. “Chloe gave it to me,” she half-mumbled.
“Chloe? Is that someone from America?”
“Yeah, my best friend. Ex-best friend,” Jess clarified rather vehemently and plucked at the top again.
Ah. In a flash, Gwen realized this wasn’t so much about the tomato sauce or even the top, as it was about the friend. “What happened to make Chloe your ex-best friend?”
Jess shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”
“You keep telling me that things don’t matter, Jess,” Gwen told her gently, “but I don’t believe you. They seem to matter very much indeed.”
Jess didn’t reply and Gwen let the silence stretch on. Sometimes, she knew, there was nothing you could say to make it better.
“Chloe has forgotten me,” Jess burst out, her voice trembling with emotion. “She doesn’t even open my Snapchats, and she keeps posting all these photos with her new BFF… someone we didn’t even like, one of the in girls. I hate it!”
Gwen had only understood about half of what Jess had said; she had never heard of Snapchat, and she didn’t know what a BFF was, but she certainly got the gist of what she was feeling, and understood it all too well.
“That sounds hard,” she said after a moment, her tone quiet but heartfelt. “Very hard.” Jess looked up at her, tears trembling on her lashes. “In fact,” Gwen added, “I’d say it… it stinks.”
A small, incredulous smile quirked Jess’s mouth. “That doesn’t sound like something you’d normally say, Granny.”
“Well, it is,” Gwen replied robustly. “Sometimes life just—stinks. It’s rubbish. Like this cancer. Like your friend Chloe forgetting you. Like your dad breaking his arm.” And maybe even like them moving to Wales, from Jess’s point of view, unfortunately. “There’s no getting around it, there’s no groping for some silver lining. It just is, and you have to live with it.”
“Yeah,” Jess answered feelingly. “You’re right. Mom always tries to make me feel better, but I don’t want to hear about all the friends I’m going to make here, or how great this place is, or how beautiful the village is, or how lucky we are to live in this old house.” She gave Gwen a guilty yet defiant look. “Sorry, but it’s true.”
“I understand completely,” Gwen replied, unfazed, if a little shaken by the litany of things Jess didn’t like. She still understood how her granddaughter felt. “Even if you live in the nicest place in the world—and I am partial to Llandrigg as well as Bluebell Inn, I have to say—it doesn’t take away the pain of missing where you were.” She paused, reflecting. “Or even who you were, in that place.”
“Do you… do you feel like a different person?” Jess asked hesitantly. “Because of the cancer?”
Gwen considered the perceptive question for a moment. “Sometimes,” she admitted. “At the moment, it’s more of being afraid that I’m going to change, and what that might look like. Feel like, too. I haven’t yet, I don’t think much anyway, but I know I will. I’ll have to, and there’s nothing I’ll be able to do about it. That scares me.” She didn’t think she’d been as honest with anyone else about how she felt about her diagnosis, Gwen realized. It was surprising, and yet also sweet, that it was Jess who had inspired her confidences.