Michelle Vernal - Sweet Home Summer - A heartwarming romcom perfect for curling up with

‘No, I’m not interested in selling.’ she muttered upon opening her letterbox and being greeted with a real estate flyer. ‘And if I were I wouldn’t employ you.’ She pushed the flyer aside – the agent looked like Donald Trump for goodness’ sake – and retrieved the plain white envelope with its Australian postmark tucked beneath it. She was about to disappear back inside the house when she heard a familiar voice. It made her jump, and she hoped she didn’t look as furtive as she felt.

‘Morning Mum. I was going to get some morning tea and then pop in on you. It’s nice to see the sun again after last night, isn’t it?’

Bridget waved across the road to Mary. Good grief, that orange face of hers was like a beacon sitting atop her white pharmacy smock. If she were to stand still by the roadside vehicles would slow and come to a stop thinking they’d reached a pedestrian crossing. When Bridget had asked her why it was she was getting about looking like an Oompa-Loompa lately, her daughter had shot her a withering look and told her it was down to the latest innovation in facial bronzing. ‘It gives my face a healthy, sun–kissed glow Mum, without inflicting the damaging rays of the sun on my skin. Sun damage causes premature ageing as well as skin cancer you know.’ Mary had her sales pitch down pat.

Bridget had snorted but bit back the retort hovering on the tip of her tongue. She’d given up arguing with her daughter years ago. Mary was a grown woman in her fifties and if she wanted to look like Mr Wonka’s helper so be it. Still, it was annoying how the tune kept getting stuck in her head – Oompa-Loompa doom-p-dee-do – whenever she saw her .

She was one of a kind, Mary, definitely not a chip off the old block. There’s a saying; the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Well, it certainly had with Mary, Bridget often thought. Her daughter had never been much of a cook, despite her best efforts to teach her. She’d given up in the end and resorted to buying her a copy of the trusty Edmonds Cookery Book when she got married. Mary, she knew, wielded it with almost biblical fervour. It had become Ryan’s and Isla’s inside joke growing up, to try and guess the page number for the evening’s meal, some of which they knew by heart so often had their mother made them. Still, Mary was a good mum and a good daughter, and Joe by all accounts was pleased with his choice of bride given his penchant for grabbing her bottom whenever the opportunity presented itself. Even if she was orange.

‘Yes, it’s going to be a lovely day, and you can see I’m fine Mary, you don’t need to pop in. Besides I’m off to bowls shortly. Any word from Isla?’ Bridget called back across the street.

‘No, but I’m not expecting to hear from her while she’s in California, she said the cell phone coverage isn’t very good.’

‘Ah right.’ Bridget mentally shooed her daughter on her way, feeling as though the envelope she was holding was a hot potato.

‘The warm weather will do her good, Mum,’ Mary said giving her a final wave before opening the door of the Kea. Bridget watched her go inside the café before turning and making her way back up to the house. A needle-like pain in her hip made her wince as she ascended the steps to the front porch. ‘Sodding arthritis,’ she said to no one in particular before closing the door behind her.

It was last night’s rain and the ensuing damp air it had left in its wake that had set it off again. The tumble she’d taken a few weeks back hadn’t helped matters either. Mary had begun making noises about Bridget selling up and coming to live with her and Joe ever since. She’d offered to turn Joe’s workshop into a granny flat for her. Tripping over the lip on the backdoor step wouldn’t have been a big deal had she not found herself unable to get up. At the time she thought she might have broken her hip but had found out later it was just badly bruised along with her pride. She’d felt, lying in a heap on the kitchen floor, old. Properly old for the first time and she didn’t like it. Nor did she much like the idea of moving in with Mary and Joe. She was fairly certain Joe didn’t think it was a bright idea either. She wouldn’t want to put him in the position of choosing between his beloved Harley Davidson motorcycle and his mother-in-law.

Her son, Jack who was high up in mining and had a flashy house over in Greymouth had made noises too, about her coming to live with him and that wife of his, Ruth. He was just paying lip service to the idea though. Bridget knew she wouldn’t last five minutes under the same roof as Ruth, who was far too bossy for her boots and insufferable when it came to singing the praises of their children, Thomas and Theresa. No, while there was breath in her body she was staying put thank you very much. She hadn’t spent the last fifty-five years creating memories in her home only to leave it when the going got a little tough.

Oh, they weren’t all happy memories, but then that was the stuff of life. She’d learned to compartmentalize and shut herself off from what she didn’t want to know, mainly thanks to Tom’s philandering a long time ago. She wasn’t called Bridget for nothing she thought, heading towards the sound of the radio emanating from her kitchen. Her mother used to tell her not to cry when she’d run in howling with a grazed knee or some such grievous injury. ‘Don’t you know Bridget means power and strength in Irish?’ she’d say.

Bridget would’ve liked to have gone to Ireland. She’d always thought she and Tom might visit one day, but then he’d gotten sick, and the thought of going on her own after he passed away had been a daunting one. Her mind had been in turmoil for such a long time after his death. All she’d thought she’d known had been proven a lie in the hours before he’d passed and she’d clung white-knuckled, to the familiar. Sometimes she was secretly glad she’d never made the long trip to the other side of the world. That way she couldn’t be disappointed if the colourful picture her mother had painted of the country in which her grandmother had grown up didn’t quite live up to her expectations.

Besides, as she thought of the weatherboard sitting on its quarter acre section that she and Tom had purchased when they were married, she couldn’t imagine leaving the old girl for any great chunk of time. It would be like leaving a sinking ship. It would be like leaving Bibury for that matter, and that was incomprehensible because it was all she’d ever known. Bridget flicked the switch on the kettle and set about making herself a brew. Only when it was strong enough to stand a spoon up in did she feel ready to sit down and open the envelope.

Bridget’s hands trembled as she stared at the Valentine’s Day card in her hand. A white love heart on a red background inside which the words, For Someone Special, were inscribed. It was two days early, and she didn’t need to open it to know who it was from. Nevertheless, she did.

Her fingers traced his handwriting, and she closed her eyes to see if she could conjure up a picture of what Charlie must look like now. It was the sixth Valentine’s Day card she’d received from him. He’d heard through the miners’ long reaching grapevine that Tom had passed away and had waited a full year after his death before sending her the first card. What a shock that had been! Sixty years had fallen away as she’d opened the card and read his condolences. The verse he’d chosen brought tears to her eyes but it was his request to come and visit her that had made her legs turn to jelly and her stomach begin to churn. She hadn’t replied to that card or the ones that had followed annually since. How could she? Not when there was so much water under the bridge. She couldn’t revisit the past with him; it was simply too painful.