Second Chance - Jane Green [34]
Everyone was jealous of Holly, and all Holly wanted was to be normal. She wanted boundaries. She wanted a mother who would tell her she couldn’t wear make-up to school and a father who said she had to be in by eleven.
What she wanted was a family.
And what she got through her friendship with Tom was Tom’s family. Their kitchen was filled with delicious smells from Maggie’s cooking, the kettle seemed to have just boiled no matter when you walked in, and every cushion was plastered with hair from Boris the Labrador or one of the cats. It was messy, noisy and fun. There was a constant stream of people dropping in and staying for meals, and Holly felt as much part of the family as Tom and Will.
‘I always wanted a daughter,’ Maggie would say, taking Holly with her as she ran up to the supermarket or taking Holly to M&S and treating her to a new jumper or a pair of shoes. ‘You’re part of the family,’ she would say, and Holly knew she was.
They even gave her a bedroom. Actually it was the junk room, but they cleared some of the stuff off the bed so Holly always had a place to sleep, and Peter found an old turntable at a car-boot sale that he picked up for a fiver so Holly could listen to her beloved Police albums.
Holly and Tom would lie on the floor in his room (Tom had a much better turntable and stereo system, but that was okay, it was his house after all), and make compilation cassettes. Some were love songs, others dance songs, but they spent hours painstakingly recording their LPs and writing in all the songs on the tiny lines. ‘Tom, Will, Holly… supper!’ would come up the stairs, and they would yell down, ‘In a minute,’ then Tom would complain and Holly would pretend to complain when, in fact, she was overjoyed to be treated as just one of the kids.
She stayed close to them until she got married. Even after that she saw them a bit, but then Tom moved to America, and, it was true, she hadn’t seen them for years.
Peter’s mouth falls open when he sees Holly. ‘My goodness, Holly Mac! You’re all grown up,’ he says, and as he hugs her Holly feels herself well up.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she says, looking from Maggie to Peter. ‘I wrote to you and I tried to call but I couldn’t get through. I just wanted you to know how terribly sorry I am, how much I miss Tom.’
‘Thank you,’ Maggie says, squeezing her arm. ‘It’s the most terrible thing that’s ever happened to us but you know he would have loved this service. He would have loved that Peter was still able to make people laugh, and weren’t those stories of Will’s funny? For as awful as this is he wouldn’t have wanted everyone to stand around and be sad, he would have wanted to be remembered for all the good things.’
‘I know,’ Holly says, smiling; and then, out of nowhere, her face crumples and she starts to sob.
‘Oh love,’ Maggie says, and putting her arms around Holly she finds that the stoicism she has faked so well for today, this day she has been dreading, disappears and the pain of losing her son is so great she leans onto Holly and dissolves into tears.
They stand there for a long time, silently crying, and then they break away and wipe the tears.
‘Oh Holly, I’m sorry,’ Maggie says. ‘I didn’t mean to collapse on you like that.’
‘Maggie, it was me. I’m so sorry. I had no right to cry on you after everything you’ve been through. I’m so embarrassed and I’m so sorry.’
‘Don’t be embarrassed. Come back to the house and have a cup of tea. That should make us all feel better.’
‘REMEMBER’ BY CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI
Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you planned:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if