Love you Always (A Coronation Street Fanfiction)

Marriage

"Isla, can I have a word?" Mum said as she shut the front door behind her. It was late. I had picked Isla up from nursery and brought her home and put her into bed while Mum had been helping Nick over at the bistro.

"Go ahead." I said, putting down my pen. I was sat at the island trying to write an English essay, but it wasn't going well at all.

"Can we just imagine a hypothetical situation? A hypothetical situation in which someone were to ask me to marry them, or in fact, I were to ask someone and they said yes, how would you feel about that?" She asked, standing opposite me at the island in the kitchen.

"You asked Nick to marry you? Mum, are you serious? That's amazing!" I said, getting up from my chair and walking around to hug her.

"Orla I don't know, I don't know if I've done the right thing." She said before I could.

"Sit down." I said to her, pointing at the stool. I went over to the side and got her a wine glass and poured red wine into it, taking it to her and then sitting back at the island beside her. "Tell me what happened." And that's what she did. She told me of how she'd gone over to the bistro to help Nick as he was short staffed and she'd served Sally, which she described to be hell on earth and that she'd never be a waitress if you paid her a million pounds. She told me that after closing, they'd chatted and she told Nick that this was the first time in a long time that she felt truly happy, and part of that was down to him. Then she told me how she'd asked him to marry her, and not only did the spontaneity shock Nick, but she also shocked herself slightly.

"And what did he say?" I asked.

"Well, nothing." She replied.

"So why are you sitting here with me?" I said.

"No, Michelle came in and interrupted, Nick had to go and look after Sarah, something had happened, I don't know. He came back after." She told me.

"And said what?" I asked, almost on the edge of my seat.

"He said yes." She said, before taking another sip of her wine.

"I'm sorry, he said yes, and you're sat here with a face like a wet weekend because?"

"Because marriage never goes well for me. And I know that, but in that moment with him, thinking about a future with him and with you two as well, I thought that getting married would be a good idea."

"And how do you feel now?" I asked, reaching over to the wine bottle and pouring some more in Mum's glass.

"I don't know. I love him Orlie, I really do, and I can see myself spending the rest of my life with him, but Orla, you know as well as I do that marriage doesn't work for me. Look at Tony and Peter and nearly Frank, it doesn't go well." I couldn't help but nod in agreement at the fact that she was right.

"But Mum, those three guys are not Nick. I don't think Nick has a bad bone in his body, not that I've seen anyway. Has he ever shown you any sort of behaviour that suggests you have something to be worried about?"

"No, he's amazing, he's an amazing guy who thinks about me and who makes me happy and he's amazing with Isla and with you too." Mum said.

"You're just scared. And it's ok to be scared but Nick is a good person to be scared with." I told her.

"You're right." She paused, taking another sip of wine.

"Does that mean if you're marrying Nick, that you'll be related to the Platts? To Gail Platt?" I asked. Mum nodded and we both laughed.

"Oh no, that means at some point in my life I'll have to spend Christmas day with the woman." She said.

"You can count me out of that one, I'd rather go to Grandma's." I said.