“Mum, that’s not safe!” I scold, frowning and carefully taking the saw from her as she climbs down the last couple of rungs.
Sometimes, I think my mother forgets that she’s sixty-four years old. She was late to motherhood, almost forty when she got pregnant with me, and I swear she still thinks she’s a teenager sometimes.
“Oh, stop. Trees don’t prune themselves you know. Someone has to do it.” She rolls her eyes and wipes the sweat from her brow as I drop the saw into her tool bag that she left at the base of the tree.
I grin over at her.
My mother is beautiful, inside and out. I got my eyes from my nan, but I got my thick, wavy blonde hair and my bust from my mother. Today, her hair is pulled back into a stylish bun; she’s wearing cream capri pants with a white shirt tucked into it, open at the throat, with a navy ascot scarf tied at her neck. Elegant ladies-who-lunch attire—while gardening. That’s my mother all over.
“Now, let me look at you.”
Her eyes make a long, slow sweep of my body, and I purse my lips to fight my smile, tilting my head to the side, wanting to see if she will guess correctly. I wasn’t lying when I told Jared that she was good at reading people.
“There’s something different,” she says, tapping her finger on her lips, thinking. Suddenly, her eyes widen. “You’ve been on a date!”
I laugh and wrap my arms around her, crushing her against me. “I have,” I confirm happily.
“What? What date? Don’t stand over there, yapping where I can’t hear. Come and give me the gossip too!” Nanna calls, dramatically waving her hands to the empty chairs at the table.
Mum wraps her arm around my waist, and we make our way over to the table where Nanna is happily pouring more tea from the teapot into her posh bone china cup. She’s abandoned her book now, and I look over at the front cover and wrinkle my nose. My nanna’s choice of reading material is decidedly racier than mine. Don’t get me wrong; I love Fifty Shades as much as the next girl, but Nanna’s choices are decidedly more … risqué than mine. Now that she’s in her eighties, her hunger for erotica novels hasn’t diminished. It’s awkward, especially when she reads them so unashamedly in public.
“So, who is he?” Mum asks excitedly, pulling off her dirty gardening gloves and setting them on top of the book when she catches me staring at it.
“More importantly,” Nanna chimes in, “does he give your vagina a heartbeat when he walks into the room? Because if not, then he’s not the one.”
“Nanna!” I burst out laughing, my face burning. I don’t tell her that yes, yes, he does.
“What? A good physical connection will see you through a lot of bad points and make up for them lacking in other areas, like when he farts at the dinner table. Sometimes, you have to put up with things if you’re getting physically satisfied,” she explains, dismissively waving her hand. “Your granddad—”
But thankfully, my mum cuts her off, “I don’t want to hear about your bedroom antics with my father, thank you very much.”
“Wasn’t limited to just the bedroom,” Nanna mumbles under her breath.
I fake gag, and we all laugh. Puzzle comes wandering over, so I bend and pick him up, settling him on my lap—facing away from me, of course. I decide then that I definitely do not want to smell his breath for the next couple of days that I’m here for.
“Wait there. Let me go make a fresh pot and get some cake, and you can tell us all about the new man,” Mum says, sending me a wink, standing quickly, and taking the teapot with her as she marches inside.
Nanna and I talk about the dog eating his own faeces and how he now has a farting problem that my mother refuses to admit. When my mum comes back with a tray laden with tea and an assortment of shop-bought Mr Kipling cakes (none of us are particularly skilled in the kitchen!), she looks at me expectantly.
I can’t contain my grin. “Okay, so remember the guy I told you about? My crush from my train?”
They both nod in unison, Nanna looking at me with wide eyes. “The guy you’re hopelessly smitten with?”
I shrug one shoulder. “Yes, him. Well, on Tuesday morning, I bumped into him—literally—at a coffee shop. We got to talking, and he asked me out!” I squeak with delight and hunch my shoulders before letting out a dreamy sigh. “His name is Jared Stone. He’s twenty-eight. I’ve seen him several times this week already. He’s smart and funny, and he sent me a cheeseboard.”
“A cheeseboard?” Nanna queries.
I nod.
She purses her lips and narrows her eyes. “You should marry him.”
I chuckle and pick up a Battenberg slice. “If I get the chance, I will.”
“And how’s it going, love? Is he everything you thought he would be?” Mum questions, leaning forward, watching my reactions.
I nod, swallowing a bite of cake. “It’s going great,” I admit. “Jared’s absolutely adorable. He’s smart and a real, proper gentleman, so he pulls my chair out and stuff, which makes me swoon. He’s a good listener, and he has these wicked one-liners that make me crack up. He’s gorgeous, and he smells divine. Also… he’s killer in bed.” I sip my hot tea, grinning from ear to ear. I know my face is flushed from thinking about Jared, but I hope they won’t notice in the slowly darkening afternoon light.
“He sounds lovely. When do we get to meet him?” Nanna asks.
I wince at the thought and take a large swig of my tea. “Never.”
Mum nods sadly. “It’s true. You should keep him away from your nanna; she’d frighten him away for sure. Let him fall in love with you too. Shouldn’t take too long,” Mum replies, smiling smugly. “How could he resist you? Look at you! You’re marvellous!”
“Ah, but you have to think that; I’m your kid. Mothers have to think their kids are the best thing since sliced bread; it’s the law.”
Nanna snorts. “Not true. I don’t think that about my kid.”
But then she winks at my mum, and we all crack up laughing.
We hang out, chatting and laughing. It feels easy and wonderful, catching up with these ladies who mean the world to me, and it’s just like I never moved out five years ago. We talk about the garden, mum’s job, and the elderly neighbour who threatened to call the police on Nanna when she wouldn’t stop sunbathing in her garden—topless.
As day turns to night, we’re still in the garden. Mum pulls out fluffy blankets and turns on the outside light and gas patio heater, and we switch from tea to wine. Nights like this remind me of home. It’s all I’ve ever known, hanging in the garden with these two ladies.
“Let me grab my cards, and I’ll give you a reading, Amy. We’ve not done one for ages,” Mum says, standing and walking off before I can even protest.
She’s back in record time, a pack of well-worn tarot cards in her hand. Nanna reaches out and moves the glasses out of the way as my mum shuffles the cards.
I roll my eyes. My mum can’t resist. I tend to steer away from a reading as much as I can. I mean, it’s like seeing spoilers for a book.
“Just a small one, three cards at most. Just give me the highlights. I don’t want a proper reading.”