Our Last Summer by Jennifer Joyce
Chapter 31
We loop back round to the canal, to the lock where we ate bacon sandwiches – over a year ago for Tomasz but just a few days ago for me – and my eyes travel along the towpath. There’s a bloke with a fishing rod just ahead, the lad he’s with having grown bored of the activity and now jabbing at ants with a twig.
‘Shall we sit for a minute?’ Tomasz taps the wooden beam of the lock, and I’m more than happy to take the weight off my hot, aching feet. I perch on the beam, wriggling back until my feet are lifted off the path, being careful not to snag my trousers. Tomasz sits next to me and we twist to look down at the canal, where the water is glistening in the sunshine. A pair of ducks glide by, slowing as they reach us but continuing their swim when they realise there’s no food to be had. We sit in silence for a while, enjoying the cooling breeze rustling the leaves of the trees lining both sides of the canal. It’s a beautiful spot. Tranquil, apart from the ant massacre further up the towpath, and sheltered from the rest of the village with the wall of trees.
Life in LA had been busy, busy, busy: learning the business of hotel management, flitting from work to restaurants to my apartment. I threw myself into my work, masking my need to forget about the life I’d left behind with enthusiasm for the job. Gillian had been impressed with my progress and I’d been promoted to hotel manager within a couple of years, and I’ve since moved to another hotel, slightly bigger with better facilities and more responsibilities. It’s left little time to form friendships, and even if I did have time, I would have still held myself back because I’m aware of the cost of fully giving yourself to relationships. Four years on, my only real friend is Gillian and she’s so busy with her own work, frequently travelling across the States, and now with a husband and a couple of kids in tow, her time really is limited.
I’m lonely in LA. I try not to acknowledge it, pushing the ache in my chest away whenever it nudges into my consciousness, busying myself with work, with anything that will distract me. But it’s there, that stomach-sinking loneliness that I never felt in Little Heaton.
‘What are you thinking?’
Tomasz’s voice is low, as breezy as the gentle wafts of cooling air around us.
‘California.’
Tomasz threads his fingers through mine. ‘You sound nervous.’
‘I guess I am.’
Tomasz squeezes my fingers. ‘It’s going to be amazing. You, me, the sunshine.’ He glances up at the sky, squinting against the sun peeking through the canopy of leaves. ‘Your brilliant new job. You’re going to be amazing at it.’
I smile, squeezing Tomasz’s fingers, a silent thank you for reminding me that I won’t be on my own this time. I’ll be with Tomasz, and I’ll never be lonely when I’m with him.
Along the towpath, the fishing equipment is being packed away. The twig has been tossed aside, with the boy now kicking stones from the path into the water. I turn away from the path and look at Tomasz, at his open face with its freckles and long, pale lashes and that flop of strawberry blond hair constantly falling over his eye.
‘We’ll be together forever, won’t we?’
Tomasz leans towards me so he can gently rest his forehead against mine, the flop of hair creating a curtain between us. ‘We will.’
‘Promise?’ I’m asking Tomasz, but I should be demanding the vow from myself. Because it was me who ran away. Me who ended our relationship. Me who couldn’t give my heart to Tomasz when it felt broken beyond repair.
‘I promise. In fact …’ Tomasz sits up straight and reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket, pulling out a faded maroon velvet box. ‘I wasn’t going to do this now, today.’
He wasn’t going to do this today. He didn’t. He proposed to me on the day I left for California, when he still thought he could talk me round, that we could still leave together. I thought he’d made a rash decision. Plucking a grand gesture out of the air to try to persuade me to change my mind. I had no idea he already had the ring, before I ended things. Before Ed died.
‘Mum gave me the ring today, after the funeral. Gran wanted me to have it.’
‘It was Irene’s?’ I’d had no idea. He hadn’t told me that, but then I suppose he was too caught up in the desperation to save us.
‘I know the day of a funeral isn’t the ideal time for this. Or maybe it is.’ Tomasz shrugs, a small smile flickering onto his face. ‘I think Gran would approve, actually. She didn’t believe in time-wasting. Not when it comes to love. Not after what happened with her and Grandad, all that lost time.’
‘And nearly marrying that other guy.’
Tomasz huffs out a laugh. ‘Yeah, that too. Imagine if Grandad hadn’t come back to find her. If she had married that other guy. I wouldn’t be here.’
‘Life’s full of choices. We just have to make sure we make the right ones. And if we don’t, we have to learn from the mistakes we make.’
I think of Sacha and the mistake he made. Did he learn anything from it? Did the devastation he caused, both to Ed and to himself and those around them, teach him anything? Because Sacha may have survived the accident, but he wasn’t unscathed. There were the injuries, most notably the break to his femur, which required surgery and physio and took months to recover from, but it must have affected him mentally. How could it not? His mistake resulted in death. It forced his family to pack up and leave their home and business because they felt judged. They all left, apart from Tomasz who refused to go, staying on in the flat above the charity shop, the flat we’d shared before I left to start my new life in California. Even Franciszek left behind his memories of Irene and the castle that brought them together, the place she’d yearned to return to, the place she’d put her everything into when she thought it was in danger.
All that had to have affected Sacha. As much as I’ve despised the man for the past four years, he isn’t made of stone.
‘You’ve gone all serious.’ Tomasz flicks his hair out of his eyes. ‘Do you think this would be a mistake?’ He raises the velvet box, his eyes wide, his breathing shallow.
I shake my head. ‘Absolutely not.’ It would be a mistake to say no. To catch a flight to America and not return for four years. ‘So what are you waiting for?’
Tomasz slides off the wooden beam. He lowers himself down on one knee and opens the velvet box. Inside, sitting on a cream, satin cushion, is a white-gold band set with a round-cut diamond flanked by two pairs of smaller, individually claw-set diamonds. The ring is further embellished by curves of tiny diamonds around the central arrangement. It is elegant and while it’s a vintage piece of jewellery, it manages to still have a modern feel to it.
‘Elodie Parker.’ Tomasz takes a deep breath. He attempts a smile, but it’s too shaky to be labelled as such. I reach out, my fingers cupping his chin. You can do this. ‘I love you, more than I will ever be able to put into words. I will go wherever I need to if it means we’ll be together, whether that’s California or the moon. I will never not love you. I will never not want the absolute best for you and will do whatever it takes to make you happy.’
A memory. Stabbing. Bitter. What will make me happy is you if you turn around, leave, and I never have to see you again.
I push it away, as hard as I can, and concentrate on this Tomasz, in this timeline.
‘Will you marry me?’
Any residual sharpness from the memory vanishes as I smooth the wayward flop of hair away from Tomasz’s eyes.
‘Yes. I absolutely will marry you.’ And nothing will come between us this time.