Here all along
A short story by Becky Hunter
Marnie always follows the same routine every Saturday morning. She wakes at 8am then goes to her yoga class, which she only started to stop Kerry, her daughter, worrying about her lack of exercise – although she quite enjoys it now. Then she comes home, makes a cup of tea and waits for her neighbour, Rich, to appear.
Rich lives down the end of the street so isn’t technically a neighbour if you want to get finicky about it, but he’s her age and he lost his wife around the same time as she lost her Ben, so they have a bond, of sorts. He always brings the Saturday paper round after he’s read it. She can’t remember when, exactly, this tradition started – at some point in between the choked-back tears and the exchange of home-cooked meals.
She greets Rich with a smile when he knocks on the door. His warm brown eyes twinkle in a way they didn’t used to two years ago, dulled with a familiar grief. You never get over that kind of grief, do you? She’s certainly not ‘moved on’ from the loss of Ben – but you did learn to live with it and that was something.
“I’ve left you the crossword,” Rich says, as he always does. “That’ll keep me busy.” “Did you figure out three down from the last one?” Marnie makes a face and Rich laughs. She’d wrestled with three down until last night, before calling it quits. She never looks up the answer though – because Rich likes to tell her. “Sleep apnea,” he says with a little smile.
Marnie huffs. “Well how was I supposed to guess that?” Which is a version of what she always says.
After she and Rich have made their small talk, Marnie makes her way to the café by the garden centre. She likes the bustle of the place, likes smiling to the teenage girl behind the counter, working her Saturday job and absolutely hopeless at making coffee. Most of all, she likes to nod to the man who comes in around the same time as her, who always sits at the same table with his adorable labrador. He takes a complimentary dog biscuit every time and he’s always reading a different book – never the same genre twice in a row – which makes Marnie think he’s a man of eclectic tastes, someone who will be an interesting conversationalist.
She’s going to ask if she can sit with him today.
She’s been lecturing Kerry about not getting back out into the dating pool because you’re only young once. She gets a scathing, “But 40 isn’t young, Mum,” when she says this – but she’s wrong, isn’t she?
She’ll figure that out when it’s too late. But it’s got her thinking. A bit of companionship would be nice, wouldn’t it? And maybe the man with the dog wants that too. Maybe he comes to the café every Saturday for the same reason – because being at home alone all day can become unbearable sometimes.
This time, though, when he takes a seat, he is not alone. He’s with a woman, with crinkly blue eyes that barely leave his face as he speaks. The dog loves her, trying desperately to climb into her lap and that’s the cinch for Marnie. She leaves without buying her oat milk latte – Kerry got her on to them – one of the baristas calling after her by name.
She tries not to cry on the way home. So silly. There’s a text on her phone from Kerry.
“Will you hate me if I cancel lunch tomorrow? David has got the kids and I may have taken your advice and said yes to the accountant who asked me out.”
Marnie feels silly tears spark her eyes as she types back.
“Of course. I’m delighted. Have fun.”
Phil, her son, has already cancelled – a family weekend away in the New Forest, even though he’d sighed and told her it would probably rain all the time.
When she gets home, she frowns. Rich is waiting right outside her front door. He jumps when she comes up behind him, as if surprised to find her there. She’s surprised too – a little flustered, even. She can’t help bringing a hand up to pat down her hair.
He shuffles, not quite meeting her eye.
“Sorry, Marnie. Just popped by to ask something, that’s all.”
“No need to be sorry about that,” she says, although her voice isn’t as jovial as she wants it to be.
He peers at her face then asks, “Everything OK?”
“Oh fine, fine. What was it you wanted to ask me?”
“Ah…” He rubs his hand across the back of his neck. “I was just wondering… It’s silly but I’d booked a table at The Bear for lunch tomorrow – you know, the posh one that takes an age to get into.”
She does know, she’s been trying to persuade Kerry to go with her one evening. “But, well, my son’s cancelled on me and it took such a long time to get a table, so I was wondering…” He trails off.
Marnie’s stomach gives a funny little lurch. “Rich – are you asking if I’d like to come with you?”
“Well, yeah. If you want to, I mean. No pressure – none at all.”
Is it relief she’s feeling, to make her want to grin like this? Perhaps catching her expression, he gives a little hopeful smile – a smile which makes something lovely flare inside her. And she realises, maybe she’s been looking in the wrong place. Maybe what she’s been looking for has been here all along.
His brown eyes twinkle in a way they didn’t used to