Begin Again | ongoing - Chapter 41: Chapter 41

The front door flies open the moment Viv's car comes to a stop in the driveway, Sunny's parents spilling out of the house to shower her in hugs and birthday wishes. Martha was right – it is a glorious day, one of those beautiful May days when the sky is a clear, crisp shade of blue, the kind of blue that can be found in every child's drawing with a round yellow sun to match. It's warm, too. The kind of late spring warmth that feels more like the promise of summer to come, almost three hours until the sun will lay its weary head down for the night and the days stretching longer still.
"How has it been twenty-five years since we first met?" Martha asks as the four of them take their seats around the outside table, to make the most of the last of this perfect day with supper on the cat-covered patio under the cloudless blue.
"That's a weird way to put it," Sunny says with a laugh as she cuts her boiled potatoes in half and tops them with a generous dollop of butter. "Does it count as our first meeting if I have no recollection of it?"
This memory lapse, at least, she's able to admit to – nobody remembers being a baby, surely; nobody remembers laying their eyes on their parents for the first time, mere minutes old.
"Trust me," Martha scoffs, "I remember enough for the both of us. You'd have thought, with all this modern science, someone could have figured out a less traumatic way to have a child. It's barbaric, truly, the things we put ourselves through to ensure the continuation of our species."
Sunny wrinkles her nose. "Mum. What have I said about no birth stories when we'e eating? Actually, no, scratch that, no birth stories full stop." Over the years she has heard more than enough tales from the day she was born, far too many intimate details about the damage she did to Martha's body, the endless hours of agonising labour. Plus, she's fairly certain her existence has less to do with the continuation of the human race than it does with careless intercourse, a late in life mistake.
Sunny glances at Sylvia. Sylvia is always quieter, more reserved, when these conversations come up. It's a tricky one for her. She was a different person back then. The joy of her daughter's birth is tarnished by the turmoil she was going through, the inner crisis she had yet to clue her wife in on. There are so few photos of Sylvia with her newborn daughter, little baby Sunny. Sylvia shied away from cameras back then, when she despised the version of herself she saw captured in the lens.
"Okay, okay, sorry," Martha says, holding up her hands. "No birth stories. Let's just say, thank god you're an only child."
Sunny's relieved not to have to hear it again. Her eyes flick back to Sylvia, whose apprehension gives way to a soft smile as they stop dwelling on the past. If there is one thing Sunny has learnt over the last few weeks, it's that it's best to live firmly in the present. Beneath the table, her hand finds Viv's and her heart rolls over in delight when Viv squeezes back. Sunny has always counted herself lucky with the people she knows, the family she was blessed with and the one she has found, and in this moment – like so many moments recently – she is bowled over by her love for this woman she's still slowly getting to know.
Her eyes fill of their own accord. She doesn't feel the need to cry but damn it, she's soon blinking and her nose is starting to sting as emotions roll through her the way they do when she's had a little too much to drink, though she's only had one glass of wine with supper – hair of the dog.
"Honey, I didn't think you were so bothered about being an only child!" Martha says with a gasp, her hand flying out to cover Sunny's free hand on the tabletop.
"God, no, I don't care about that," Sunny says with a laugh and a sniff. "I'm just really happy." She casts her eyes over the puddle of cats on the patio, three fluffy moggies stretched out in the sunshine; she smiles at her parents and she turns to her girlfriend with adoration in her eyes, the purest love imbuing her dark irises.
"Oh." Martha's consternation unfolds, blossoming into a bright smile. "Good. I'm glad. That's all we have ever wanted for you," she says, glancing at her wife with a soft shared smile, one of those wordless expressions couples find after decades together.
The food is incredible. The weather's beautiful. Sunny's heart rate is as low and steady as it has been in a while, when she closes her eyes and lets the sun wash her cheeks in its glow as Martha brings out pudding. Her famous lemon drizzle cake, with fresh clotted cream ice cream from the farm down the road. Sunny devours two thick wedges of the light, fluffy sponge with that tangy citrus sugar crust, sweet ice cream dribbling down her chin until Viv reaches out and swipes it away with the tip of her finger.
"You mucky pup," she says with an affectionate eye roll before she leans in and presses her tea-warmed lips to Sunny's.
Sylvia lets out a contented sigh. "I'm so glad you two worked things out," she says, her knees crossed and her hands folded over her stomach, the late evening sun bouncing off her high cheekbones and the shine of her hair.
"Me too," Viv says. Those rich brown eyes bore into Sunny, right into her soul, as she says, "I'm not sure I could live without you, Sun."
"You'd have to take a vitamin D supplement," Sunny jokes, trying not to let on how deep those words have wormed their way into her chest, inflating her lungs and flooding through her veins. Dropping the levity for a moment, once she has polished off every last crumb of cake and every last drop of ice cream with the help of her finger, she adds, "I don't know where I'd be without you."
Oh, how true those words are.
She really doesn't know. Where would she be without Viv? In another life, quite literally. A life where she didn't make that wish, one where she had to live through every minute for herself. Maybe they still would have met; maybe they would still be together. But it wouldn't be the same. They wouldn't be here, not like this – they wouldn't have had this overwhelming obstacle to scramble over. They wouldn't have clambered over the seemingly insurmountable barrier that is the gap in Sunny's memory.
Martha returns to the kitchen to make teas and coffees. Sylvia goes with her to give her a hand, giving Sunny and Viv a moment alone together. It amazes Sunny how no amount of time alone with Viv is too much. When they first met – at least, the first time she remembers meeting – the thought of even ten minutes alone together was enough to send her into a cold sweat but now, only a few short weeks later, it's natural. It's right.
A gentle breeze rolls through the trees, caressing each leaf and brushing its fingers through the long hair of the three cats until their fluffy coats stand on end, waving in the air as though they've been electrocuted
"Do you think you'll ever tell them?" Viv asks. Sunny opens her eyes and sits up.
"Huh?"
"Your parents. You reckon you'll ever tell them about the black hole?" She holds her curls out of her face with one hand, the sun shining through each ringlet and brightening the already lively pink. Each of her freckles seems golden in this light, and Sunny thinks now I get why it's called golden hour.
"I don't know." She lifts one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. "At this point, I don't think I need to? Like, it's a weird thing that happened and there'll be places I slip up 'cause I'm never going to know everything that happened in those fourteen months," she says, "but I've reached a good place."
Viv's lips twitch into a beautiful smile as she murmurs, "You've come a long way."
"Thanks to you." Of course, Viv hasn't been Sunny's only rock – she is forever indebted to Delilah and Ravi and Fraser and Celeste and Astrid (and even, to some degree, Fenfen) – but she is at the heart of all of this. Her unwavering love and support and belief has been the lifeboat bobbing on a choppy ocean in the midst of a storm.
After a moment, during which they hold hands in mutual peace, Sunny says, "I don't want to worry them. I got what I wished for – I've got you, and now I just want to live my life. I don't want to go back to having to explain everything."
"Fair enough. It's your life," Viv says, and she manages to make the words – usually dismissive – sound warm and loving.
Sunny's parents return. They stay outside until the colours of the sunset streak the sky, a powerful acrylic palette of orange and purple and red, and once the sun has dipped below the horizon and takes the heat with it, Martha's the first to stand, gathering empties.
"Are you two staying the night?" Sylvia asks, finishing off the last of her coffee.
Sunny looks to Viv as Viv looks to Sunny.
"I have to be up early tomorrow and Britney's all alone so I should get back," Viv says, "but you should absolutely stay if you want to."
Sunny thinks about it. A day alone in the flat, waiting for her friends or her girlfriend to finish work to hang out with her, or a dozy Sunday with her mothers and a gaggle of cats she grew up with.
"I think I'll stay," she says after taking a moment to weigh up her options. "Do you mind?"
Viv laughs, her hand on Sunny's elbow. "Of course I don't mind. You're the birthday girl – whatever you say, goes."
"In that case..." Sunny taps her fingertips together and wiggles her eyebrows like she's about to cause mischief. Viv rolls her eyes and playfully thumps her girlfriend as she stands, bending down to kiss her.
"I'll get going. See you tomorrow?"
"Mmhmm." Sunny smiles up at her.
"Happy birthday, bambi." Straightening her back and hitching up her trousers, she turns to Sunny's parents and says, "Supper was fantastic, as always. Thank you both."
Martha and Sylvia bat away her praise, taking it in turns to hug Viv and kiss her cheeks before she heads off back home to rescue Britney from her loneliness, and then only the Shelley women remain. As the night's clouds knit themselves together, they retire to the sitting room where Sunny throws herself on the sofa and stretches out.
"I'm very lucky," she says as her parents follow her into the snug where Martha starts to lay a fire even though it's nine o'clock. The thing about May in Black Sands is that no matter how warm it can get during the day, the minute the sun goes down, the chill sets in. It's not so bad here, a little further from the vicious North Sea, but it has cooled off considerably and the warmth of a flame is much appreciated.
"You really are," Sylvia says with a sigh as she sinks into her favourite seat and stretches out her long legs before tucking them under herself. "You've found yourself the most wonderful girlfriend."
Sunny grins. That word – girlfriend – still gives her butterflies. "And I have the best parents," she says, stretching out her foot to poke Martha's hip as she stands from the fireplace. Martha bows and sits beside her wife, her hand on her thigh.
"That, I can't deny," she says, pressing her lips to Sylvia's cheek. "Look at our kid. We did alright, didn't we? I spent so long worrying we were going to screw her up, but look." She gestures at Sunny, light dancing in her eyes. "We're so proud of you, baby."
Sunny laughs at that. "Proud of me? For what? Holding down the same coffee shop job for the last three years?" She does a quick calculation, taking into account the new year and the year she graduated and says, "Shit, four years."
"Come on, Sunny," Sylvia says. "Do you think your career is the only thing that makes you worthy of pride?" With a tut, she shakes her head. "That's just something you do. That's not who you are."
Sunny refrains from saying something like but a barista is what I am.
"We're proud of the person you are," her mother continues, her voice low and calming and slightly gravelled from the cigarette habit she will never quite be able to kick for good.
"Sometimes," Sunny says, the word coming out slow as she processes her thought, "I feel like I'm not even a real person yet? Is that stupid? Like, I'm still cooking."
"Because you're twenty-five," Martha says with a face like the sunrise. Bright and fresh and dawning with possibility. "You're only just beginning. Just because you're not a child anymore doesn't mean you stop learning. You don't stop figuring yourself out just because you're done with school."
"I had a moment," Sylvia says, stepping into the conversation, "when you were about five." She lets the memory play out on her face for several seconds, soft nostalgia in her eyes. "I finished work and picked you up from school, and I made supper and read you to sleep, and I caught sight of myself in the mirror as I left your room. I had this jolt, like my eyes opened properly for the first time and I realised this is who I am."
"How old were you then?" Sunny asks, too tired to do the maths.
"Forty-five? Forty-six?" Sylvia offers. "So, what I'm saying is that you've got time."
"All the time in the world," Martha adds, leaning against her wife, head on her shoulder. "That's the thing about growing up. It never really ends."
As much as Sunny loves sharing her bed with Viv and Britney, she gets her best night's sleep in a while alone in her childhood bed. No kitten jumping on her back in the middle of the night, no girlfriend rolling over and elbowing her side. When she wakes up on Sunday morning, her head is clear after yesterday's hangover, almost as clear as the cloudless sky outside her window. All she can hear is the pretty song of the birds perched on the branch outside her window, a family of great tits chattering away to each other.
Home has always been her haven. Her safe space. Her comforting retreat. Somewhere to escape from the drudgery of her life and the depression of her cramped flat. Those aren't problems anymore, though. No longer is she confined to that cramped little space in Jupiter Court. Sure, her job is the same and she can't see herself moving on from Percolatte, but her mothers are right: her job is not who she is.
After a long, lazy morning of reading in bed – all three Shelley women start the day in the same way, Martha the only one to rise when she makes drinks for her wife and herself before returning to the bedroom – they convene in the kitchen at almost eleven o'clock.
"I was thinking ... brunch?" Martha says, ducking to look in the kitchen mirror as she pulls a brush through her hair. "We could go into town, have something to eat, maybe go for a wander along the beach?"
Sylvia gives her a silent thumbs up in the mirror, standing behind her wife with a couple of floaty scarves in her hands, trying to decide which one pairs best with her outfit.
"The blue one," Sunny says, her lips stained red from the punnet of raspberries she has found and is now devouring. One of the best things about being at home: her parents always have the good food. The expensive brands and the fresh fruit that can be prohibitively expensive.
Sylvia gives her an appreciative smile as she winds the decorative blue scarf around her neck and pulls her hair out from under the material, running her fingers through straight silky strands. When Martha's done with the brush, Sunny takes it and tames her lilac bobbed hair into less of a sleep-mussed tangle and wonders what Viv is up to right this minute. Serving a customer? Stocking the shelves? She smiles to herself as she pictures her girlfriend at work, surrounded by all of those beautiful books, more books than either of them will ever be able to read in a lifetime.
The whole way to Black Sands, Sunny sits in the back seat with her temple resting against the window, gazing at the world as it drifts by at just under fifty miles an hour (Sylvia is driving; she has been a much more cautious driver since her parents' deaths). When they pass the record shop, she pictures Ravi inside, geeking out over music when a customer who shares his taste comes in. They pass the school, too, where Fraser spends his weekdays filling young minds with magic, and she idly wonders if either of them are home right now, if she should go and see her boys after brunch.
Her heart skips a beat when they drive down the road where Astrid and Celeste live, as though her pulse is linked to the well, but she is no longer plagued by dread and fear and sadness. This is her life now. There is no going back. There is only forward. Forging a path for the future hers; the people she may meet someday, people who have already made a wish and are waiting to wake up in the future with a scrambled head full of incomprehensible questions.
The brunch place is light and airy with a high ceiling and white walls covered in brightly-coloured art in pale oak frames. A few floating shelves hold trailing plants – real ones, Sunny reckons, based on the colour and consistency of the soil, which looks like it has recently been watered – and the tables and chairs are mismatched, as though the place was outfitted from a jumble sale or an auction.
Brunch is a treat. Most of Sunny's meals out are from Percolatte, or the occasional pastry from the coffee shop down on the beach. It isn't often she gets to enjoy eggs hollandaise with freshly-squeezed orange juice or a latte with honey pooling at the bottom for a kick of sweetness. She revels in the flavours as she and her parents make idle conversation, filled with pride at how expertly she has insinuated herself into this life.
They have no clue that she missed fourteen months. They never need to know. She's survived the last month without arousing their suspicions; she can go the rest of her life. It'll be fine. Even if the idea of keeping such a huge secret, such a huge part of herself, from her parents is like an itch under her skin that she can't reach to scratch.
"Anyway," Sylvia says, using a corner of buttery toast to wipe up the spilled yolk from her perfectly poached egg, "we were thinking of going up to Edinburgh for a few days, sometime next month. Any chance you'd be able to pop in each day and feed the cats?"
Sunny nods as she swallows her mouthful of juice. "Yeah, no problem. Are you going to see Eric?" she asks. She hasn't seen her uncle in a while – not since several months before she made the wish – and she wishes he lived closer, that her only family other than her parents wasn't a four-hour slog north. It'd be nice to know her cousins better. Adjusting for the new date, she reckons they're sixteen and eighteen now. Several years younger than her. Eric was even later to parenthood than his sister was.
Sylvia laughs and says, "Not quite the right direction," she says. Sunny frowns. So does Martha, her eyebrows coming together as she glances at her daughter.
"Eric moved to Manchester. Last year," she says slowly, piercing a slice of roasted tomato along with a sliver of egg white.
Fuck. Sunny curses herself and tries to laugh it off. "Oh, yeah, of course," she says, lightly smacking her forehead with her palm. "Maybe I'm still hungover." But alongside the irritation at stumbling upon something else she has forgotten, there's a glimmer of hope. That means her cousins are less than half the distance from her that they've been her whole life. "I don't think I have his new number," she bluffs. "Could you give it to me? It'd be nice to go and see Olivia and Freddie."
Martha's frown deepens. Sunny feels herself shrivel up. Damn it. Somehow she's said the wrong thing again. Shit.
"They stayed with their mum in Edinburgh," Sylvia says. "Divorce is enough of an upheaval without moving across the country and changing schools."
Sunny's face drops. She doesn't control her reaction in time: her expression is quite obviously that of someone who has no idea that her uncle is divorced, someone who is hearing all of this for the first time.
Martha takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "Sunny," she says, her voice calm but guarded. "What's going on?"
Sunny lets out a strained laugh. "What do you mean?"
"I'm worried about you," Martha says, and that strikes fear into Sunny's heart. Martha doesn't really do worry. "You've been forgetful recently." Her gaze wanders from Sunny's eyes up to her head, as though trying to see into her brain.
"I'm fine," Sunny says, eyes on her plate. "I've just had a lot on my plate recently."
"Mmm?" Martha sits with her arms folded on the table, her expression softening a little. "Like what, hun?"
"You know, work," Sunny says pathetically. "And the whole thing with Viv and me." Her words trail off, like she doesn't believe in what she's saying – which, of course, she doesn't. "And, I don't know, maybe I haven't been sleeping great recently, you know, with work." She shrugs one shoulder awkwardly and pulls out a lie when she says, "I've been thinking about moving to the day shift."
Maybe the more she talks, the more she can distract her mother. But Martha isn't so easily fooled. She presses her lips into a thin line, her forehead lined. One hand rubs at her jaw as though it aches.
"Sunny." She sounds tired. "It's not that." She holds out her little finger. "You forgot that I retired." Another finger. "You forgot about New York. You forgot about Eric's divorce. I'm ... I want you to speak to someone in my old department." Her forehead creases even further. "I'm concerned."
Sunny's eyes bug out. A shocked laugh bursts from her lips. "You want me to speak to a neurosurgeon?"
"This isn't just forgetfulness, honey," her mother says. "I'm worried something might be wrong. I can talk to my old colleagues, arrange some scans."
Sunny's shaking her head, pushing away from the table, suddenly gripped by an overwhelming sense of no no no. "I'm fine, I promise," she says, still shaking her head. Martha reaches across the table, wraps her hand around Sunny's wrist in a move that is meant to be comforting, but there is nothing comforting to Sunny about her mother's concern.
"I don't think you are." Martha blinks. Her eyes are damp. Oh, fuck. Sunny has almost never seen either of her parents cry.
"Mum, I promise, there's nothing wrong. I've just been distracted recently," she says, but she's talking too fast and shit, now her eyes are watering too as she tries to avoid her mother's stare, the way Martha is trying to diagnose something by looking into her eyes as though she'll be able to see the black hole if she stares hard enough.
"It's more than distraction. You've been spacey. You've got holes in your memory. I don't want to scare you, baby, but I really would like you to speak to Mark, or Francis. Someone who can help."
Sunny's fearful tears spill over. This is not how brunch is supposed to end. She's glad she's finished her food because any remaining appetite has fled, replaced by dread that curls itself around her throat and sinks heavy in her stomach.
"Mar," Sylvia says quietly, putting her hand over her wife's. "Martha, stop."
Sunny sniffs. Her breath hitches on the lump in her throat and she lets out a horrible little hiccuping whine.
"You see what I mean, don't you, Sylv?" Martha says, turning that imploring gaze on her wife. "Aren't you worried?"
Sylvia doesn't say anything. She tilts her head ever so slightly to one side, eyeing Sunny, who is a rabbit caught in the headlights, unable to decide whether to sit out this inquisition or to flee.
Fleeing sounds good. She scrapes her chair further back and stands, her words tumbling out of her in a jumble as she says, "Thanks for brunch, I should get going, I need to go home and check on Britney and, yeah, thank you and I'll see you soon."
She turns on her heel, cheeks a furious red and her head full, and behind her she hears Sylvia say, "Mar, no. Let me."
Sunny leaves. Her mother follows.