Page 348 of The Long Way Home

Eighty-One

BJ

The next week goes by in a bit of a happy blur.

Word got out quick that we were engaged. The rags touted it as the epic conclusion to ‘Britain’s Longest Running Love Saga.’

“Love that for us,” Parks grimaced when she saw that article.

Rolled my eyes, kissed her a lot.

We did an interview with Tatler. Arrie’s making us do a Parks and Ballentine spread in Country Living (“But none of us live in the fucking country,” Bridget growled at the news). There’s a bidding war currently about who gets exclusive rights to our wedding day photos. Arrie says Vanity Fair, Parks says it should be Tatler out of loyalty, her dad says it should be split between GQ and Vogue because they’re both owned by Conde Nast and we’ll make double the money if we each do an exclusive with them, Bridge said it should be Good Housekeeping in the spirit of irony, and I’m shooting for Nat Geo but they’ve not taken the bait yet.

Mum offered me £200k to not let anyone take any photos. Said we need privacy.

I told her it feels unlikely since I’m marrying who I’m marrying, and she touched my face and told me to think about it.

Told my parents about December 3rd too.

Parks said she didn’t want to tell her parents. Think she’s scared Marsaili will be angry about it, like she could ground her in retrospect, but I said I felt like my parents should know and she agreed.

Mum just cried for the most part. Said she was sorry we went through it alone. Had a billion questions for Parks. All but pulled her into her lap to stroke Magnolia’s hair. She wanted to know everything. How far along, how the procedure happened, how she felt after, how I felt after. She wept constantly but it’d peak every now and then, like when she found out her name. And Mr Gibbs.

I’ll tell you what, Mr Gibbs is in for a lifetime of Christmas hampers from Lil now. Whipped out her phone midway through the conversation to send him a ham.

Don’t know why a ham if I’m honest.

Grief maybe.

After we finished telling them, Dad just held my shoulder for ages, couple tears snuck out. Nodded a lot, put his forehead on mine. I think he was proud of me for some reasons I don’t really get.

Told me he was sorry a lot. Sorry that we didn’t feel we could come to them, sorry that I felt like I couldn’t come to him, that I had to navigate it all by myself, but Magnolia frowned at him and said, “He wasn’t alone, he had me.” And my dad smiled at her and said, “I beg your pardon, he did too.” And then he said he understood, he thinks, why we are how we are. Don’t even know what that means anymore because all I know about us now is that we’re together.

But maybe that’s what he meant. Maybe that’s how we’ve always been. Just together. Or trying to be.

There’s something about the letting go of a secret... makes you feel new or clean or some fresh sounding adjective. Used to worry telling people would loosen the ties that bind us, but now I know we’re tied anyway. Billie knotted us together.

Mum wants to visit the tree. We’re going up next week.

I’ve had to really hammer it home to Parks not to mention to my parents that the reason the tree is special to us is because it’s where the baby was made, but we’ll see how long it takes for it to slip out that their very first grandchild was conceived at a drunken party because of a faulty lock in front of some pervert ducks. Parks will tell a quarter of the story to get a rise out of Mum, I’ll tell the rest because I’m proud of it and I wouldn’t change a fucking thing about any of it. Mum’ll probably have a nervous breakdown about us doing it on her bed again (still hasn’t gotten past that) but who cares because I’m marrying Magnolia Parks.

Henry and I are playing at The Grove.

Just us. Jo’s been a bit MIA. Haven’t really heard from Christian.

I chip off at the fourth hole. Watch it land and then turn to my brother.

“What the fuck’s going on with the boys?”

Henry’s face pulls, shakes his head.

“I don’t know—” Shrugs. “Some shit went down.”

I eye him. “Yeah, I figured. But what kind of shit?”

“Christian won’t say.” Face pulls again. “Only that Daisy’s gone now.”

I frown. “Gone where?”