‘Margot, you have so many people who love you and who would love that child,’ Will said, his voice catching. ‘Also, you could live to be a hundred.’
‘Or I could get knocked down and killed crossing the road.’
‘But you just don’t know. None of us can know,’ he said. ‘I’ve realised that I have to let go of my past too. I don’t want it to define me anymore.’
Margot took a long sip of her drink. She didn’t say anything for a while, her lips pressed together, her eyes downcast, as she tried to find the right words.
‘Nobody gets through life without being burned. It makes us who we are. Do I wish I hadn’t been orphaned by the time I was nineteen?’ Margot looked up to the ceiling again as if she was searching for divine inspiration. ‘Of course I do, but at the same time it did define me, just like your childhood and your father defined you. He’s made you a difficult person to get to know, you’re wary of letting people get close to you, but he’s also made you someone who cares passionately about your family. He’s made you someone who battles to do the right thing. There are a lot of people in this world who don’t give a toss about doing the right thing, and I thank God that you’re not one of them.’
‘And losing your parents so young has made you independent, strong, your own person. You are not a monster. You have the biggest, most generous heart of anyone I know, you draw people to you, and I know that you’ll always be all right, whatever happens. You’ll be just fine, Margot.’
Oh God, she was crying. Again. Silently. Tears running down a face that was already marked by the tears she’d cried earlier, and a lot of dog slobber. She tried to wipe them away with the back of her hand. ‘But I don’t want to be just fine, I want to be much better, much happier, than just fine.’
Will leaned towards her as if he wanted to take her hand, but couldn’t because his arms were wrapped around a still-sleeping Blossom, their conversation punctuated by her snores. ‘I do too. I really do,’ and when he said that, Margot felt like it might be an actual possibility. ‘I know I don’t always behave well—’
‘Oh, I don’t behave well either,’ Margot assured Will, like he didn’t already know that.
‘. . . But you do keep interrupting me,’ Will said a little sternly. ‘Even today, I had this big speech planned about how I want all the things you want. Mary helped me with it, but I didn’t get a chance to tell you because—’
‘I blindsided you with my plans to keep Blossom and now I’ve interrupted you again because I do do that. It must be so annoying.’
‘It is,’ Will admitted, and Margot couldn’t take offence because it had often been pointed out to her. ‘But I can get used to it. And yes, neither of us have behaved well, but Blossom was much more badly behaved than either of us and we stuck it out because we’d made a commitment to her.’
Margot still felt quite teary, but she smiled into her drink. ‘Should we get Jim to start positive reinforcement training with us?’
‘If he was willing, would you still want to?’ Will asked tentatively.
Did Margot dare to hope again? She leaned so far forward that their knees bumped against each other. ‘I would still want to if you still wanted to. We’ve both hurt each other. We’ve both misunderstood each other, but we can get through that, can’t we? People get through much worse. Look at Blossom.’
They both looked down at Blossom, whose jowls were fluttering with the force of her snores. It wasn’t her most flattering angle.
‘Actually, you kind of remind me of Blossom. She has secrets in her past that have made her who she is, but she soldiers on through. It hasn’t stopped her from having a capacity to give and receive love,’ she said throatily, but she was determined to hold the tears back.
‘You remind me of Blossom too,’ Will told her, though Margot failed to see how. Unless it was their mutual gluttony. ‘You both share an unfailing optimism. She’s been hurt, but it doesn’t stop her from flinging herself at life. In Blossom’s world, there are no strangers, just people she hasn’t met yet who might want to give her a belly rub.’
‘I definitely don’t let strangers rub my belly,’ Margot said, looking down at the belly in question, relieved that the mood had shifted and also that Will hadn’t made his excuses and left. ‘They have to at least buy me a drink first.’
‘We have to stop using Blossom as a metaphor for triumph over adversity,’ Will said, as, yes, hope fanned a tiny little flame deep within Margot, even as her expression grew grave.
She’d been forgetting something. ‘You don’t love me.’
‘I never said I wasn’t in love with you.’
She closed her eyes for a second so she could pluck up the courage for one final confession. ‘Because I love you. I do. I’m sorry, but I can’t help it, and that’s why I ended things because I knew love was the last thing you wanted, the very last thing you wanted to deal with.’ Margot pouted a little. ‘I was trying to do the right thing.’
‘By breaking my heart?’ Will sighed and he looked at her with his deep blue gaze, deeper than oceans and just as unfathomable.
‘I didn’t think your heart was something I needed to take into consideration,’ Margot admitted. She shouldn’t feel a thrill shoot through her at the thought of breaking someone’s heart, but she couldn’t help the little quiver. After all, Will had made her quiver right from the start. ‘I thought you’d tucked your heart away so it wouldn’t get hurt.’
‘That was the plan,’ Will said, leaning closer, their dog the only thing coming between them in that moment. ‘I’ve always been scared of love, but a future that doesn’t have you in it scares me even more. Not as co-pawrents. Or friends with benefits. I want all of you and all that comes with that, so yes, even children, who you will love, and I will spoil because we both know that I’m crap at establishing boundaries.’
It was as if the grief and guilt that she’d carried around, that had weighed heavy and ground Margot down, was suddenly prised off her and she wanted to gasp in relief. ‘For someone who’s all about the boundaries, you really aren’t very good at them,’ she said, because she would cry yet again if she tried to say something more heartfelt. But surely the love she felt for him was radiating from every pore? Still, it couldn’t hurt to say it out loud, just because she could. ‘I love you, Will. I tried not to, but I do. I love you.’
He nodded in acknowledgment and that was fine. This was new ground for Will. He’d said that he wanted a future with her, children, and that was more than enough to be getting on with. He didn’t have to say it back just because she’d said it first and—
‘You just said that you were unloveable, but if that were true, then I wouldn’t love you as much as I do,’ Will said softly. Their legs bumped against each other again and Margot had to blink back fresh tears. Not unhappy tears. Not this time. ‘But you and I aren’t the important ones here.’
‘We aren’t?’ Margot begged to differ. Right now, it felt like they were the only two people in the world who mattered.