Dear Meredith (11 page)

            He's a good man, like Mike was. I know that now, after watching him for the past few weeks, seeing his gentleness and patience with Ginny, the flashes of humour and intelligence that light up his face when he forgets to keep his guard up.

            Mike led me out of the desert of my grief, helped by Laney and Janet. They held me up, loaned me strength, never giving me more than I could chew but never treating me like a fragile flower either.

            I can stand on my own two feet now, and that is perhaps the greatest gift that Mike has given me. Looking back on the path I've walked on alone for the past six months, I see now with the clarity that reflection gives, how much I have grown.

            My whole life, I've always felt unsure of myself, the feeling of being
not good enough
an ever present fear. Mine is a common enough story, orphaned at birth, shunted from home to home with my brother Jamie. Growing up feeling like I've never belonged anywhere. I learned very early on, how it is possible to feel lonely in a crowd
ful
l
of people, how easy it is to allow yourself to retreat to the sidelines.

            Mike had been the first man to give me the emotional security I had craved, and for five years, I thought the worst of the dark times was behind me forever.

            "You knew I would shatter," I murmur aloud. "That's why the letters."

            I had thought the letters to be his parting words to me, a final full stop to his presence in my life. Now, I realise they are but a beginning.

            But who has been there for Grant?

Chapter 12

             "Wow." Laney folds her long limbs into an armchair, a dazzled expression on her face.

            "I go to South Korea for a week and I return to find you almost choked to death, was rescued by the same dude who saved you from drowning, and whom you later punched in the pool because he reminded you of Candy Cane Brendan."

            "Wow," she says again, dragging out the syllable with pleasure.

            I flush. "It isn't quite as dramatic as you made it out to be," I protest.

            "Uh huh," she says, with a raised brow. Bandit is panting happily; we have just returned from a long walk around the block because I wanted some cold air to clear my head.

            I've just told her about my week, ending with Grant's revelation last night.

            But I don't stop there. I tell her what I've been dreaming about in the past few months, and about Grant's weird cameo in my dream.

            "Weird is right." She looks at me accusatorily. "How come I'm hearing about Grant only now?"

            I shrug. "There wasn't much to tell before. I hadn't had enough near death experiences for us to start conversations over, I guess."

            "Tell me how he looks like," she orders, and I can't help laughing at her priorities.

            I try to picture him in my mind. To my surprise, he appears in front of me with no trouble, wearing a small smile as though we share a secret.

            "He has green eyes, slightly darker than mine, black hair and eyebrows like Hugh Grant. A handsome nose and cheekbones to die for," I tell her. He looks the complete opposite of Mike, but I suddenly realise that their warm, genuine smiles are exactly the same.

            "I want to help him, Laney." Even as the words come out of my mouth, I feel the strength of my conviction. "I feel as though I know him, he's like me - but he doesn't have you, or Janet or Mike to help him out of his hell.

            "He's got a little girl - Ginny. She's only six and he desperately wants to do right by her. He's a good man, like Mike."

            Laney smiles tenderly at me. "Then do it. Help him. We need to keep more good men in the world."

            Janet greets me with her usual, warm hug, and even has a kiss for Bandit.

            I've left Laney at the store, she's as happy as a clam there, finishing up her new travel piece while keeping up an easy banter with some of our regulars.

            When we're back in her kitchen, she makes us mugs of piping hot coffee and I sigh in satisfaction as I inhale the glorious aroma. Somehow, being around Janet always calms me down, her wisdom serving as a torchlight to pick out the crucial things amidst the clutter. How very fortunate I am that she is in my life.

            "I can swim, sorta, now," I tell her, watching the delight spring into her eyes. "The freestyle and backstroke is still a bit difficult for me. Panic creeps up sometimes, but I'm pretty confident about my breaststroke now. Milo says seeing me swim across the shallow end was one of his proudest teaching moments."

            "W
onderful
, I'm so happy for you, dear." Janet knows exactly how bad my phobia was, having seen me in a fullblown meltdown once. "Does that mean we can go for a proper beach holiday soon?" she teases.

            I laugh. "Well, I'm willing to try." To my enormous surprise, I feel a tendril of excitement stir inside me at the thought of a beach holiday.

            After we exchange a few minutes of banter, I get down to the real reason for my visit.

            "I met someone." Her eyes widen, as I hastily add, "I mean, not in that way exactly. But he's someone I desperately want to help. I need your advice."

            She listens intently as I tell her about Grant, her blue eyes,
Mike's eyes,
darkening in compassion when I mention Ginny, and how Grant had found his wife and best friend in bed.

            "That poor man and his daughter," she says at last, when I'm done. "Well, it sounds like he already knows his problem, just that he doesn't see any way out of it."

            She looks at me intently. "Does he like you?"

            I blush, caught off guard. "I guess he likes me as much as he will allow himself to like anyone."

            Janet nods. "And you think you like him too, don't you?" she asks knowingly.

            I think of Grant's quiet demeanour, his cool, methodical approach to things. The way he looks at Ginny, and the way he smiles at me, as though it's a private joke that only the both of us can understand.

            "He is
like
me," I tell her. "I understand him, what goes through his mind, and I see that the way he is today could have so easily been me. But you, Mike, Laney, you guys were there for me. Grant, I think he is all alone."

            I look at Janet, Mike's mother. It strikes me suddenly that it is a very odd relationship we share, not the conventional mother/daughter-in-law one. She is the mother I never had, bound by our love for Mike, a bond thicker than blood. And now that Mike is gone, she is still here for me.

            "Mom?" I hear my voice trembling; I sound very young and unsure of myself. "Do you think I can find love like that again? I just... I feel so guilty when I think of Mike. I can't think of Grant without thinking of Mike. As though I'm betraying his memory."

            There, I've said it out loud at last. The possibility that I could fall in love again, find happiness in another man's arms. Janet looks at me for a long time, her blue eyes searching my face.

            "Do you remember what I told you, that very first time we spoke on the phone after Mike died?" she asks suddenly.

            I cast my mind back to that day, the ringing phone, as I lay on the bed in total numbed grief.

            "You said you will always be here for me, whenever I need you, for as long as you can," I say slowly, her words coming back to me.

            Janet smiles. "Yes. I also told you that this is a journey only you can walk." She pauses, continues deliberately and slowly, holding my gaze, "You will need to find a reason for living again."

            Her face wavers in front of me as my eyes fill with tears. A huge sense of relief cascades through me.

            "I don't know if Grant will be your reason to live again. It's too early to tell. But you deserve this chance to find out. You've honoured Mike's memory, we all know that. You know that, and Mike knows it as well. He'd
want
this for you, Meredith," she says softly.

            I wait nervously on my porch steps, staring down at my flip flops as I wait for Grant and Ginny to pick me up. I've agreed to go to the water park with them after Ginny stared at me with those huge blue eyes. "Please, pretty
please
, Meredith? We can go on the water slide together!"

            We have completed our swim lessons, all five weeks worth of it, and Milo actually teared as he presented me with the certificate.    

            "I also framed it for you, because this is such a special day. I'm so
proud
of you, Meredith. You've gone from a sinker to a swimmer!" he said, squashing me against his rock hard chest, while the poolside moms glowered at me enviously.

            I had gone out for a victory drink with Milo, Laney, John and Grant, where we get staggeringly drunk. John, it turns out, is a pretty impressive drinker once he decides to commit, and I don't think I've ever seen Laney so lovestruck.

            "He read me
Shakespeare
after we had sex three times in a row!" she whispered to me furtively in a phone call from her bathroom the next night after they met, which I had to agree was quite a rare and exotic experience.

            Now, they pull up in a rattling Ford pick-up, Ginny shrieking my name excitedly through the window, as I hurry down the driveway. I feel little flutters of excitement as I exchange grins with Grant, his green eyes clear and open as he looks at me.

            Before I know it, we're at the water park, Ginny chatting away nonstop as she stares, rapturous at all the rides we have to go on. I look around me, seeing water, water, water, everywhere, roaring down in an artificial waterfall, flowing smoothly down the countless colourful slides, sloshing around roughly in the huge wave pool I see over in the corner.

           
This is it
, I tell myself. The ultimate test - and I am thrilled to discover my heart has quickened in mostly with excitement and not fear.

            Ginny, of course, chooses the tallest slide, a towering six-storey construction, which boasts hairpin turns and a long tunnel right before it opens out into the landing pool. Grant stares at it and I catch him muttering under his breath, "I've raised a monster."

            Suddenly, I'm at the top of the slide, with my tube under me, ready to push off. My heart is thumping with fear now, my brain screaming at me to desist. Grant has already gone down the slide, Ginny safely in his arms, and I see them whizzing rapidly down, disappearing under the tunnel and - to my enormous relief - reappearing with a
splash
as they reach the bottom.

            Right. Unexpectedly, I hear Laney's voice in my head.
To a survivor, who is going to get back on her feet, kick ass and show the world who's boss.

           
I exhale. "Okay, I'm about to kick ass." Then I push off hard, heart in my throat as I grip onto the sides of the tube for dear life. I swoosh down the slide so fast I barely feel my hair streaming back in the wind, my tube slipping from side to side with my momentum, propelled by the rushing water.

            Exhilaration rises within me and I'm suddenly laughing aloud in joy.
This
is what it feels like to walk side by side with fear, to respect it without letting it have power over me. As the tunnel rushes over me, my world turns dark, my senses filled with the sounds of the water and the rubber tube's friction against the plastic slide.

            Bright light floods my vision again as I finally emerge, seeing a huge pool of water rushing up to meet me and I fall into it with a great
splash,
my entire being submerged for an endless moment before I break through to the surface, one hand still hanging on to the gently bobbing tube.

            As I blink the water out of my eyes, I hear Ginny calling out to me excitedly, Grant by her side, and I splash my way over towards them. Without warning, he pulls me into a hug, telling me without words that he knows what an extraordinary moment I just went through.           "You decided you wanted to be free," he says softly next to my ear. I pull away, look into his extraordinary green eyes. "So have I."

            When I finally reach home, the sky has set and my porch is shrouded in darkness.

            Grant and Ginny bid goodbye, his face no longer shuttered and closed, allowing me to read his expressions. There's a new kind of awareness between us, the sense that we've somehow fallen tentatively into step with each other, with no idea what's in front.

            It's enough for the both of us for now.

            I am bone-tired, but there's a deep glow of happiness within me. It has been a perfect day, one that will go down in my memory unblemished.

            As I trudge up the driveway, something starts tugging at my attention, a subtle difference in the way the shadows have fallen in my porch.

            I stop, frowning. Then I see something moving, and I take an involuntary step backwards.