‘You’re no doubt in shock, as are we all, and I really just wanted to remind you that the doors of St Michael’s are always open if you want a quiet place to sit and think, or if you want to talk.’
She nodded her thanks, knowing in that moment she wanted only to talk to her family, safe and sound at home in front of the range. She looked towards the cottage as if to express that longing.
‘I’ll let you get on, Merrin. But remember what I said: however much pain you are in, it will pass. It will all pass; everything does. I’ve said as much to everyone who has cornered me this afternoon.’ He rubbed his face and looked out towards the sea, speaking freely, as if forgetting momentarily who he was talking to. ‘I feel like I’ve been inundated, just about everyone in Port Charles, and even people I’ve never met before, all with idle hands and busy tongues, wanting to give their opinion on what happened or find out the gossip.’
Her stomach shrank. It was happening . . . In a matter of hours she had become an object of ridicule, wiping away her good, solid reputation and marking her as someone to be pitied: the Kellow girl with ideas above her station, who thought, laughably, for a minute she might snare the boy from the big house and waltz off into the sunset. What a born fool!
‘Take care, Merrin. Take good care.’ He smiled at her kindly as he loped back up the road.
Merrin stared at the sandy ground, wishing she could fall into it, away from prying eyes and tattling tongues. She felt small.
‘The tide will change!’ The words boomed loudly, coming from behind her.
She looked around and into the face of the sad, scuttling form of Lizzie Lick – not her real name, but how all the locals knew her – coming up from the foreshore. Her hand was wedged in her mouth as if it were a shock to her that she had spoken out of turn or too loudly.
‘She licks the windows of parked cars, no one knows why . . .’
‘She used to be a lawyer who went mad and now lives in a cave.’
‘I heard she went to prison . . . why would they send an innocent woman to prison? They wouldn’t, would they?’
‘I heard it was murder . . ..’
The rumours surrounding Lizzie were as fanciful as they were numerous. But Merrin knew the sad truth.
And now as she rushed home to stand by the front door with her wedding day in tatters, she realised they were right, all of them. Her dad in his assumption that Digby was an idiot, her mum with all her reservations about the boy, and even Ruby, who had quite rightly seen that Digby didn’t have it in him.
‘How stupid are you, Merrin?’ she whispered. ‘You should have listened to them.’
Walking slowly into the cottage, she found her mum and dad sitting on the little sofa in front of the fireplace. Her mum was already in her nightclothes and her dad had changed out of the suit he hated and had wasted money on, the suit Mrs Mortimer had insisted on the whole wedding party wearing.
‘We can’t have a mismatched wedding party, that would simply not do!’ Her voice was more like nails on a chalkboard in the remembering.
‘We were just starting to get a bit worried. I was going to come looking for you,’ her dad breathed. He had dark circles under his eyes and furrows of anxiety on his brow.
‘I’m okay,’ she lied. ‘Well, not okay exactly, but home.’
‘I can imagine your head is all of a dither.’ Her dad looked close to tears for all she had had to experience.
‘Just a bit.’ She swallowed at the understatement. ‘Mum always said that when it came to love I would just know when it was right . . . and I knew, or at least I thought I did.’
Ben looked at his wife sharply, seemingly lost for answers, and Merrin saw the frustration in it. Her mum looked at the floor.
‘Yes, I did say that.’ Heather raised her gaze. ‘And I meant it. But I should have also said that love is no more than a glimpse of a heart in time. It’s a moment captured when the words that leave your lips, the thoughts in your head and the desire in your body are in sync. It causes a rush of good feeling high enough to reach the sky. But sometimes, you can glimpse that same heart a month on, one decade on, one lifetime on, and you see something very different.’ She took a deep breath. ‘For some people the strength of feeling is the same: a tower standing strong and true.’ She smiled at her husband and Merrin knew she spoke for herself. ‘But for others it might have shrunk a little and for some it has plummeted and lies on the ocean floor, shrivelled to nothing, waiting for the tide to wrap it in its watery arms and carry it far away from memory.’
‘Only hours ago I would have sworn that would never have happened to Digby and me, Mum. He said he loved me with a madness. William Shakespeare said something similar.’
‘Why would we give a rat’s arse what some old dead bloke might think? Or what bloody Digby thinks, for that matter!’ her dad harrumphed.
‘What I’m trying to say, Merry’ – her mum stood and shot her dad a withering look, doing what she did best, smothering any flame of discord before it took hold – ‘is that your life is still waiting to be lived, girl, and you have to wring every drop of joy from it! And when you do find that proper, forever kind of love, treasure it, don’t be reckless with it and never take it for granted. It will come to you, I’m sure of it.’
Her mother’s words were well meant but Merrin could not see herself ever loving again. Not ever.
‘Anyway, enough words about love, Merrin.’ Heather sat forward and twisted the fabric of her nightdress in her hands. ‘Did you see him?’
‘I did.’ Merrin felt the strength leave her legs and sank down on to the rug in a heap. ‘Oh, Mum! I hear what you say about love, but how can I have got it so wrong? How can it be that he doesn’t love me? Doesn’t want me? I don’t understand! I know it’s true, but I can’t believe it’s true!’
‘Oh, little love, I wish I could take all of your hurt away.’ Her mum knelt next to her and stroked her hair while her dad paced and murmured with murderous intent.
‘Why,’ she hiccupped, ‘why did this happen to me?’