Alisdair turns away just long enough to reward his aunt with a sweet smile. “Hi, Auntie Susan,” he says, waving, before turning back to the game.
Susan continues on to the kitchen, dropping her overnight bag by the door.
“Isn’t that game a little … old for them?” she wonders aloud.
“Oh, don’t you start,” Meg snaps. “It keeps them out of my hair for a little while, okay?” She leans against the wooden countertop, engrossed in a tablet. Her youngest (“And last—I mean it this time!”), Ayden, is nestled in a bouncy chair near the propped-open French windows, gurgling up at the moon and stars dangling from a mobile just out of his reach.
“See?” Meg shoves the tablet, which displays the WebMD symptom checker, into Susan’s hands. She jabs at the picture. “See? Lump on the neck—thyroid or throat cancer.”
“Or swollen glands,” Susan points out, indicating the list of nearly ten conditions all associated with a bump in the neck.
“Yes, and swollen glands can be associated with cancer!”
Susan sets the tablet aside and begins gently but thoroughly checking every last inch of Meg’s neck while her sister holds her chin up, sniffling and biting her lip.
“Meg, I really think you’re okay,” Susan reassures her once she’s done. She switches to rubbing her sister soothingly on the back. “I honestly don’t feel anything.”
“That’s what William said this morning. He said I was just dreaming things up because I don’t want him to go golfing tomorrow. Like I care if he goes golfing! Though, of course, it does leave me here, alone, with the three little hooligans to deal with.”
“You’re not alone,” Susan reminds her. “I’m going to be here.” Meg’s generously agreed to house her sister until the furniture arrives at Moray Place later in the week. “And Russell and Helen are just around the corner,” she adds.
Margaret rolls her eyes at the mention of her in-laws. “I can’t send the boys there. Helen spoils them. Gives them candy all day long and then sends them here to bounce off the walls for hours. Oh, the noise, noise, noise, noise!” She groans, squeezing her head between her palms.
“Why don’t I make us some tea?” Susan offers. “Maybe something herbal.”
“Just not peppermint,” Margaret implores. “It was all I could drink when I was pregnant with Ayden, and now I can’t even think about it without my stomach turning.” She nevertheless turns to smile at her youngest, who drools a little and smiles back.
“Oh, he’s got teeth now,” notes Susan.
“Four. All came at once. They do come on fast,” Margaret sighs. “I only hope I get to live to see the next stage.” She reaches up and massages her neck again, making fretting noises.
“Meg”—Susan catches and clasps her sister’s hand—“it’s okay. You’ll be here to see them grow up.”
“We used to think that about Mum,” Meg retorts. “And then she got a cough—a cough!—and that was it.” She and Susan know, better than most people, how horrifyingly fast someone can be there—and then gone. Six weeks they’d had. Barely enough time to arrange hospice care, let alone say or do everything that needs to be said and done. They all sat and watched, helpless, as their mother was devoured. Because she didn’t get a cough checked early enough.
Julia had coped (if you could call it that) by partying twice as hard as she ever had and existing seemingly on nothing but champagne and cocktails. Her fledgling interior design business foundered. Meg, at first, escaped from home and traveled, embarking on expensive trips to Thailand, New Zealand, and Kenya. When she was finally persuaded to return to her studies at Edinburgh University, she’d done the same thing Susan had and found someone to cling to. Someone she felt could offer comfort and stability. Unlike Susan, she’d stuck with him.
“If it worries you, call your GP,” Susan suggests, filling the kettle and hunting for teabags in the cupboard. “I’ll watch the boys while you go.”
“I did call. They don’t have any appointments until next week, and they didn’t believe it was an emergency.” Margaret huffs. “I swear, no one cares if I’m alive or dead!”
“You know that’s not true.” Susan retrieves a box of chamomile teabags and accidentally closes the cupboard with a bit more force than she means to. The sound of it slamming startles Ayden, who jumps and begins to wail.
Meg rolls her eyes again. “Thanks, Suze,” she says, turning to unbuckle him from his seat. “Thanks so much.”
Susan closes her eyes. Surely something will go right today? Eventually? “I’m sorry. Why don’t we have our tea outside? It’s a nice afternoon.”
Meg gathers up Ayden and a rabbit-shaped soother and steps through the French doors, jiggling him on her hip and talking baby talk to him. Susan can hear him laughing again as she fills the teapot, gathers mugs, and joins them outside.
* * *
Two cups of tea and a relaxed chat about London and how the boys are getting on are enough to distract Meg. She forgets about her imaginary lump (for the time being), allows herself a single biscuit, and goes to fetch a hat for Ayden.
Susan cups her mug and settles back in the chair, closing her eyes and turning her face to the sun. The baby laughs and there’s a distant rumble of traffic, but otherwise it’s fairly quiet. The stillness, after the rush and noise of London, both astonishes and soothes her. It creeps in and pokes at the hard knot in her middle, the wrapped-up anxieties of these past years. There is peace here.
She opens her eyes and looks at Ayden, now playing with a plastic caterpillar that lights up and plays music when he presses buttons. He seems particularly fond of the blue button, which plays “Old MacDonald.” His face brightens as he makes it work again, and he waves the toy at Susan, who grins back and thinks of how much he resembles his father.
Meg mollusked herself onto William Cox with a ferocity that made any escape seem impossible. William, a member of a patrician family that could trace its lineage all the way back to John Balliol, met with Bernard’s wholehearted approval. The couple married as soon as Meg received her degree (in music, but never used). He took over the family’s investment firm, and soon enough the boys came along.
Now, watching Ayden, Susan can’t help but wonder how things would have been if she’d held on to Chris the way Margaret had William. Would she be sitting in a garden, watching her own baby playing?
Probably not, she tells herself. Not here, at least. Meg lives in Stockbridge, one of the plushest areas of Edinburgh. Guidebooks keep bafflingly referring to it as “bohemian,” which suggests the word is as meaningless as “artisanal.” The high street is populated by chic boutiques, cafés, and high-end specialty food shops. On Meg’s street, Inverleith Row, tidy stone Victorians look out over the Royal Botanical Gardens. Three of the city’s most expensive private schools are within easy walking distance.
No, this is not Chris’s sort of neighborhood, Susan decides. He’d hate living here, among the bankers and solicitors and professors. She remembers how uncomfortable he was the one time she took him home for a family dinner. Like he was afraid to touch anything. Or say anything. And she remembers how Greg and the other chefs used to mock him for his rough Leith accent