Staying Grounded [BXB]

Many Happy Returns

SEBASTIAN:

It's an hour and a half until Craig would typically be due to show, and I despise that I've begun to factor him into the measure of my days. He's not coming today, though, because I've told him not to. Today is my mum's birthday. And my uncle Kye's, the second since we lost him.

Today is a day for family.

Judy's booked it off work. Ashleigh's delayed her weekend visit with her dad. And those duties of mine that aren't urgent or essential have been put on hold.

A flood of cards arrived in the post this morning, many from those given hope and a home here. Three flower deliveries also arrived at our door. Judy spent hours in the kitchen, cooking a hotpot and baking lemon drizzle cake, while I collected wildflowers from my uncle's garden. When Ashleigh arrived home from school, we ate and shared memories before heading out to visit his grave.

Mum was supposed to be in on it. She swore to me she'd be here for the whole. But it's six hours since she was expected, and she's not answering her phone.

Despite Judy and Ashleigh's best efforts to cover her absence, I couldn't face returning straight to the farmhouse after the cemetery. I knew I'd only shut myself away in the snug to wallow, and that would be unfair on them to witness, given that they're hurting too. So, instead, I've escaped to Kye's spot, wallowing where only Dobby can see.

Thick clouds veil my view of Yoverton town, the weather a perfect fit for my mood, and Mum's phone is no longer ringing out. Now, my calls are going immediately to her voicemail, a newly recorded message causing me more agitation than concern.

"Hi," her voice repeatedly fills my ear. "This is Theresa. I will be unavailable until this annual ordeal is over—"

"Hi," a voice that is most assuredly not my mum's startles me halfway off the log, jarring Dobby up from my feet and on instant guard.

The message tone sounds, and I hang up the call as my head whips around. "What the—"

"Didn't mean to scare you."

"Fuck?!" I finish anyway.

Dobby's tail thumps off my shin once before he settles himself back down against me, reassured we're under no threat when Craig moves around the tree into sight.

"Ashleigh called me," he says. "Or tried to, anyway. Twice, and I missed both." Bouncing a shoulder, hands deep in his jacket pockets, he comes to a stop in front of me. "Figured I'd just come over."

I frown up at him. "Why?"

"I had nothing better to do."

"No, I mean, why did Ash call you?"

His frown is a match for mine as he takes a somewhat hesitant seat on the log beside me. "When I turned up, she just told me you'd disappeared," he shrugs again. "I wasn't sure I'd even find this place again, but then I saw your truck. What's that?" The jut of his chin redirects my attention down to the small gift box cradled in my lap by the hand that's not clumsily tucking away my phone.

Ashleigh texted me earlier, and I told her that I'm fine. It's disconcerting that she'd anticipated Craig could hunt me down. Moreover that he should. Drawing in a deep breath and huffing it out as a sigh, I tip my head against the thick trunk, turning from him to glower through the drooping branches at the leaden grey sky. "Did you know that the Oak represents wisdom and courage?"

"I, uh, can't say that I did."

"Yeah, and its acorns are a symbol of spiritual growth."

Craig leans his weight back, his shoulder coming to rest on the rough bark barely an inch from mine, his legs stretching out in front of him. A slow exhale of warm air ghosts across my cheek, and for a moment — the briefest moment — I think he might reach out, make contact, attempt some kind of comforting touch. But I don't turn to him, and his hands remain buried. I don't look down either, tilting the black box as my thumb lifts its lid on the thin leather cord and acorn pendant nestled inside.

"Oh, okay. Nice," he says, too close to my ear. "Now I'm with you. For your mum, right? You made it?"

"Carved from the wood of this very tree," I nod, concealing it again. The trinket isn't nearly as remarkable as anything my uncle would've created. "Handmade gifts are kind of a tradition." A necessity, truthfully, I don't add. "Good energy, you know?"

"Better than a box of chocolates."

"Wow. Thanks. Although, hey, at least I could be eating those right now."

"That's not," he starts to say, then pauses. There's a soft rustle as he shifts beside me, and the flashing light of a hidden plane overhead holds my focus away from his continuing stare. "Do you, uh, want to talk about it?"

"We are."

"Sure, but I mean... Would you prefer for me to go?"

It's only when he makes a move to stand that I finally cave to meeting his sidelong gaze. He stills, his brow pinched in a way that I don't at all like, and the dimple in his left cheek sneaks a reappearance with the sympathetic crook of his lips. "I don't understand her," my voice hitches. "That's the thing. Never have, really, no matter how hard I've tried. I mean, yeah, she's always been supportive of me, and I know that she loves me. But it's like, we're on opposite sides of a canyon, and my uncle was our bridge. And without him, there's just this huge, impassable rift between us."

The sky has, at last, become more than foreboding; I'm alerted by the fat raindrop that slips through our cover to splatter on my forehead. Craig blinks as another one targets the bridge of his nose.

"You don't have to be on her side to be on her side, Bas," he says. "It's enough that she has you there."

And I'm no less taken aback by my laugh than he is, an obtrusive guffaw that rouses Dobby's head from his paws to check on me. An instant twinge of guilt follows after, at the sharp downward cut of his eyes, and I could swear his ear becomes a shade pinker. It wasn't my intention to scoff, but—

"Okay, yep, I heard myself."

"Sounded better in your head, huh?"

"Jokes on you for getting all deep and analogical on me and expecting much else."

"This is very true."

Once again, I'm prickled by the dubious sense of an almost touch, swiftly quelled when he straightens up from the trunk. Withdrawing a hand from his pocket to swipe a sleeve over his face, he takes his turn, now, to stare off toward the murky horizon. It's a long while before he speaks again. Long enough that I begin to wonder if he might genuinely have taken some insult.

"Probably for the best Mum didn't come today, anyway." I dart him a half-smile he doesn't see. "We'd have only ended up fighting."

Dobby squirms himself in beneath my legs with a disgruntled whine as more rain breaches the sheltering boughs. The air is all too suddenly thick with the scent of moist earth and the frenetic drum of an invading downpour, the heavens splitting asunder.

Then, "In one way or another," Craig breaks his silence. "I've managed to sabotage my own damn bridge between me and everybody who's ever meant anything." He's entirely unresponsive to the worsening spit that flecks him, his voice carried alongside his gaze out across the deluged world beyond the ridge. "You should know, though, Bas, for whatever it's worth, that if not for you — and Judy and Ash — these past few weeks... No matter how intractable I've been or how impossible I've made it... I honestly dread to think where I might be now."

We're getting steadily drenched, but neither one of us is edging to leave. I drop an inadvertent glance at the neat scar of my stitchwork across his jacket sleeve before closing my eyes, and one corner of my mum's gift digs into my palm as I tighten my hold. "Careful there, Craig." I'm acutely aware of his returned attention. "I might almost be glad you've stuck around."