As I’m lying there, lamenting that my adult gymnast career is over before it even began, the kitchen door opens, and I see Ted’s broad-shouldered silhouette standing in the doorway.
“Laura, what are you doing? Are you all right?” he says, running down the hill and crouching down next to me.
“My leg,” I say, trying to sit up, “I think it’s broken. Oh jeez, is that my bone sticking out of the bottom? If it is, I’m going to be sick.”
I’m not good with gore. When I watched that movie about the guy who got stuck up a mountain and chopped off his own hand, I couldn’t look at my hands for a week without gagging.
“That’s your suitcase handle beneath your foot,” says Ted. “Definitely no bone. Let me get you inside, and I’ll take a proper look.”
He helps me up, and I let out a wincing arrrghhhh-eeeehhh sound, like a fox with its tail stuck in a cat flap. Ted sweeps me up in both arms and carries me back to the house. I murmur protests, but he lifts me so effortlessly that we’re inside before I can articulate any sort of proper objection.
In the living room, Ted deposits me gently on the only remaining chair. The furniture that was in here earlier has disappeared; only boxes and piles of objects remain. There are a few lamps on the floor, the side tables they’d once stood on, gone. They emit a warm, low light, giving the room an inviting feel. Ted kneels down to inspect my leg. A thin line of blood trickles down from a gash on my shin.
“I don’t think we need to amputate, it’s just a cut. You must have fallen on a sharp rock.” He fetches a first aid kit, cleans the wound, and carefully applies a large adhesive dressing. “Did you twist your ankle?” He firmly holds my foot in one hand, and then with the other, gently presses the skin. “Does this hurt? Does it hurt?” he asks again, and I realize I haven’t answered, distracted by the feeling of his hands on my skin.
“No, it’s fine,” I say.
Ted carefully packs the first aid case away. He’s being all serious and professional; this must be his doctor mode.
“Dare I ask why you were dancing along the wall?”
“I didn’t want to disturb you, traipsing across the garden,” I say, weakly.
He tilts his face to meet mine.
“If I wasn’t disturbed by the car-side flirting and giggling, I don’t think I would have been disturbed by you walking through my garden.”
Now I wish my leg was broken and I was safely on my way to hospital rather than having this brain-meltingly awkward conversation. Clearing my throat, I roll my ankle between my hands to distract from having to respond. Ted picks up the medical bag and his lip twitches with the hint of a smile.
“Do you want me to help you down to the cottage?”
“Could I just have some water?” I ask in an exaggerated hoarse voice. Now that the leg-breaking emergency is over, I feel sheepish about how things were left between us, and I want to apologize before I go anywhere.
He gives me a compassionate look as if to reassure me he’s not annoyed or jealous or disapproving or— Jealous? Why did I think that? Of course he’s not jealous. I gulp down the glass of water Ted hands me.
“Ted, I’m so sorry about this evening,” I say, putting the empty glass down on the carpet next to me.
“It’s fine, I was up anyway.”
“No, not now—well, now too—but I meant earlier. You were only trying to look out for me, as any friend would. I was rude to you and I’m sorry.”
Ted smiles, a genuine smile that reaches his eyes.
“That’s OK. So, did Mr. McGuffin live up to expectations?”
My stomach twists into a knot.
“He’s nice,” I say, feeling my face getting warm.
“You’re blushing. That good, huh?”
I try to temper my smile but feel some accidental smugness radiating out of me.
“And a paid-up member of the Phil Collins fan club?”
I nod, pinching my lips together. “He played ‘Against All Odds’ on the piano.” Why did I say that? Ted doesn’t need to know that detail.
“Well, I’ll expect a mention in the wedding speech,” Ted says. “I think it was my detective work on the bee club that cracked the case.”
Watching him talk, I can’t read his expression, but I haven’t heard this unnatural breeziness before. I wave a hand around the room, keen to move the subject on from Jasper.
“What have you been doing in here? Did you keep on packing after the party?”
Ted shifts his gaze to the carpet.
“I couldn’t sleep, so I’m trying to be ruthless. I’m taking Dad to his new home tomorrow, then the estate agent wants to take photos of an empty house.”
“Do you have to sell it?” I ask, noticing he looks tired, his eyelids heavy.
“I can’t afford to keep it, not with Dad’s care.”
“I thought doctors earn a fortune?” I say, drawing out the word fortune.
Ted looks at his hands. “Well, my career is in about as good a state as my marriage at the moment.”
“Oh.” I feel a jolt of concern. “How come?”
Ted inspects his knuckles then clenches and unclenches his hands.
“It doesn’t matter.” He glances across at me, almost shyly, then groans. “I’m so bad at this stuff, Laura.” For a moment I think he means talking to me, but then I see he’s gesturing toward the boxes.
“Let me help you,” I offer.
“You don’t want to help me sort through my parents’ junk at eleven thirty at night,” he says, but strangely, I do.
“I’m good at this kind of thing, please, let me help.”
Ted’s lips move into a grateful smile and he gives a small shrug of acceptance. He disappears upstairs and brings down more boxes, and we quietly unpack the contents. There is old clothes, paperwork, bundles of letters, old bits and pieces collected over a lifetime. His mother’s silver-plated hairbrush, dusty watercolors of the English countryside, a calendar from 1995, sticky cookbooks, and half-empty face creams. Endless coat hangers and jars full of pens, boxes of outdated electrical items, a VHS player and an old-fashioned toaster—things no one would ever want or need.
“Gerry didn’t want to sort through any of this?”
I can see why Ted has been overwhelmed by the task.
“We started doing it together, but it was upsetting him,” he explains. “He tries not to dwell on the past and packing up a house is pretty much a field trip in nostalgia. In the end, he packed up a box of things he wants to keep, the rest he was happy for me to deal with. I figured it’s enough of a wrench making him leave this house without forcing him to rake through the ashes of his life too.”