Her Garden Angel - Book 4, The Porth Kerensa Series

Chapter Twenty-Five

Porth Kerensa, Cornwall, June 2010

The sun is shining high in the cloudless cyan sky as the small group of people walk barefoot slowly down the beach. Tom holds Evelyn’s left arm and Rachel holds her left, with Jack and Kathy flanking them either side. Evelyn is smiling from ear to ear at the feel of the sand between her toes. She raises her face to the sun and sighs, happily.

“Are you happy to be back, my love?” Tom’s words are murmured quietly, only for Evelyn to hear. Her beaming face is all the answer he needs.

“Do you still worry that we did the wrong thing?” Kathy asks Rachel.

Rachel can feel Jack looking at them, but studiously she ignores him. “No, Mum, how could I ever begrudge her this moment? Look at her face, she’s over the moon.”

They walk to the water’s edge and smile indulgently, like parents watching a child, when Evelyn splashes in the surf. It reminds Rachel of when Evelyn used to take her down to the beach after school, before Rachel got too old to need a guardian. The beach had always made Evelyn cast off the chains of adulthood and they would spend hours happily chasing each other in and out of the water, playing Frisbee on the beach or making sandcastles. Rachel smiles at the memory of how she and Gran would delight in running full pelt past the holidaymakers dipping their toes in the surf and shivering. The two of them would jump straight in the water, splashing and shrieking as the bitterly cold North Sea enveloped them; determined to show the tourists how it should be done.

The memory makes the ever-ready tears sting her eyes and she gestures for Kathy to stand near Gran so she can walk away for a few minutes. She strides away from the ocean, towards the rock pools, the tears pouring down her face. Jack isn’t far behind her, catching her up and taking hold of her arm.

“Rachel, please don’t cry,” he says, gently.

“There’s not much else I can do, Jack. Everything is ending; Gran is going to die soon and I’ll be alone. We all know what’s coming with every tick of the clock.”

“You aren’t alone anymore, Rachel. You have a mother who loves you and a new road to walk down. That’s what Evelyn gave you; she would want you to make the best of it.”

“I can’t help thinking of how I let her down and failed her. I came back too late. It was too late,” she whispers.

“Don’t be silly, Rachel, you didn’t fail her. You’re giving her the happy ending she always wished for. Isn’t that enough for you?”

“No, it’s not enough. That woman gave me everything I ever needed when I was a child, she protected me from all the evil Kathy poured into my life and she loved me. And I repaid her by following Chris to Australia and leaving it too late before I came home. How can I ever forgive myself for that?”

He steps away from her, before he does something stupid like tell her he loves her and he’s sorry. He turns away and looks back at the three older adults. They are shuffling slowly back up the beach, weariness etched beneath the look of bliss on Evelyn’s face. Jack sighs, knowing she’s right. It won’t be long now. He hopes Rachel will find the strength she needs to help Evelyn move on when the time finally comes.

The days fall into a peaceful routine. Every morning Kathy and Rachel walk down to Tom’s cottage near the harbour, to sit overlooking the water with Evelyn and the old man. Sometimes Jack joins them and he is always unfailingly polite and affable, but Rachel knows he is deliberately holding himself away from the close knit unit that Evelyn’s stay is forcing them into.

After lunch Evelyn and Tom usually take a nap, and the two younger women walk along the beach, back to the pub. The days pass by as long hot sunny hours spent watching people enjoy their holidays while Gran slowly slips away from them all. In many ways it is the worst and best summer of Rachel’s life. She has found Gran in a way she never has before, at the same time as she’s losing her forever.