Chapter Text
Tom Hayward Phoebe’s Dad (3:34 PM): Hi, this is Tom Hayward, Phoebe’s dad. Just wanted to see when the Barbie Symposium is supposed to be taking place. Phoebe keeps asking. Hope you and Winnie have been well
Tom Hayward Phoebe’s Dad (3:35 PM): 🙂
Mary Ryder (Winnie) (3:40 PM): Hi! Yes, I’ve been meaning to reach out. Winnie and I were talking and think that this Saturday coming up would be best–most of the Barbies are on vacation this week and won’t be back until Saturday.
Tom Hayward Phoebe’s Dad (3:42 PM): We can do Saturday 🙂 What time?
Tom Hayward Phoebe’s Dad (3:42 PM): Also, vacation?
Mary Ryder (Winnie) (3:45 PM): Would 12:30 do? I can make them lunch (and you, as well, if you ‘re interested)
Mary Ryder (Winnie) (3:46 PM): Yes, it’s Winnie’s dad’s week, so they’re over in Holland Park 😂
Tom Hayward Phoebe’s Dad (3:50 PM): Lunch sounds lovely. Let me know if we can bring anything
Tom Hayward Phoebe’s Dad (3:52 PM): Ah, of course! I hope I didn’t offend by asking
Mary Ryder (Winnie) (3:53 PM): Just yourselves! And no, no offense at all. Looking forward to Saturday. See you then!
Tom Hayward Phoebe’s Dad (3:55 PM): As are we! 🙂
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Number Twenty, Gracechurch Street butted up against Hampstead Heath. It was a respectable brick house with white windows and a vibrant, royal blue front door. The small, green space at the front of the house was tidily kept, and Tom noticed as he dropped it onto the door that the knocker was in the shape of a bumblebee. Somewhere above him a pigeon cooed as the breath of the neighborhood echoed faintly behind him.
Phoebe was at his side, practically vibrating with excitement, and Tom felt himself smile. It had been a little over a year since Gemma had passed, and Tom found that he was smiling more freely as the time slipped by. He thought of her constantly–how she had looked in the mornings, sleep warm and clinging to a cup of coffee, or the way she cross stitched at night while Tom sat on the couch next to her, reading a novel. She had been the only person Tom ever loved–one minute they had been sitting next to each other at a party their final year of uni, and then Tom blinked and fourteen years had passed.
He was thankful for those fourteen years. Thankful for the companionship, for the laughter…for Phoebe. How things had gone so sideways so quickly still knocked the wind out of him if he thought about it too much. What had started out as a lump in Gemma’s breast tissue ended up reaching its spindly, sinister fingers into her lymph nodes, then latching itself onto her organs…all it had taken was six months to finally take her.
Tom shook the thoughts from his head. They snuck up on him at the most inopportune times, and his therapist told him that was perfectly normal. He was a grieving widower, a man committed to one woman for over a decade, and he was entitled to his feelings. But his therapist also told him not to let the thoughts consume him. It had been hard at the beginning—he felt entitled to the grief, entitled to the few fragments of his wife that were still vivid in his mind—but as their lives continued, Tom found his therapist had been right.
After Gemma passed, Tom brought Phoebe up to Yorkshire for an entire year. He had only planned on a week with his sister and her family, but seven days turned into fourteen, then twenty-one, and before Tom knew it, he and Phoebe had become part of Bess’s everyday life. Phoebe spent a year in a Yorkshire school with her cousins, Tom worked remotely at Bess’s kitchen table, and the world kept spinning. Looking back, he was thankful to have a family the way he did—all of his sisters and his brother swooped in and helped him in a time that he found insurmountable. He wasn’t sure if he could ever repay them.
A year from London didn’t seem like it had changed much, but as he stood on the front steps of Number Twenty, he started to realize how much he had missed.
“I could have sworn Ed Gardiner lived here,” he mused to himself, shifting the box of cupcakes in his hands.
Phoebe looked up at him.
“Who’s that?” she asked.
”Oh, he’s just another barrister I work with. Real nice bloke. I’m probably wrong though…I think his front door had been green.”
Before the two Haywards could hypothesize which house was Ed’s and which one wasn’t, the blue door swung inward and revealed a pink-cheeked Mary standing in the entryway.
“You made it!” she said with a smile. Winnie appeared at her side, a grin spreading from ear-to-ear. “Please, come in,” Mary continued, stepping aside to allow them in.
Tom and Phoebe crossed the threshold, and before Tom could properly greet Mary and her daughter, Winnie had grabbed Phoebe’s hand and pulled her towards the play room. The two girls were already giggling, and Tom felt something loosen in his shoulder blades that he hadn’t realized was there.
“Shall we?” Mary said, turning towards the kitchen.
“We brought cupcakes,” he said lamely, holding them out towards her.
Mary’s eyebrows shot up, not in disdain or judgement, but rather in observational amusement. He couldn’t help noticing the color of her eyes—a green the same shade of moss. Her mouth had quirked up at the corners and Tom cleared his throat.
”That’s perfect,” she replied. “I’m making us a roast chicken for lunch. Follow me.”
Tom obeyed. He took in his surroundings as Mary led him to the kitchen. The layout was similar to their own house up the street, but the vibe was completely different. Gemma had liked traditional furnishings and timeless decorations; he still had her Georgian chest of drawers in the bedroom. He remembered the day they went to pick it up—a rented truck and two inexperienced furniture movers ended up being a recipe for disaster. Halfway through trying to load the piece into the truck, Tom had wanted to give up, but Gemma had looked at him over the length of the mahogany top and smiled, and Tom knew he had no other choice. He would have done anything for Gemma, and she knew it.
Feeling the fog of sadness starting to engulf him, Tom squeezed his eyes shut for just a moment. When he opened them back up, he saw that Mary had led him into her kitchen, and he was once again struck by how different their homes were. In his house, the kitchen had clean lines and white walls. Mary’s, however, was a soft, yellow hug that immediately put him at ease. The smell of roast chicken filled the room, and he could see a bowl of mashed potatoes steaming on the counter, right next to a bowl of peas. It all smelled and looked amazing and Tom felt yet another knot loosen inside of him.
”I’ll take those,” Mary said, turning towards him and holding out her hand for the cupcakes. Tom gave them to her; he overestimated just how close he was and ended up laying the back of his hand into her palm instead of the cupcakes. The warmth of her touch scalded him, and he immediately felt his ears redden.
”Oops, sorry,” he mumbled, pulling back to place the container properly in Mary’s hand.
”No need to apologize,” she said, and when Tom looked up at her, he noticed how pink her own ears had become. “I hope Phoebe likes chicken. It’s Winnie’s favorite meal, but I know kids’ palettes can be a little finicky sometimes.”
Tom smiled at the consideration. “It’s a staple in our house. She’ll be thrilled.”
Mary smiled back.
“Would you like some tea? Coffee?”
“Tea would be lovely.”
”Tea it is.”
“Can I help?” he asked, shoving his hands in his trouser pockets.
Mary looked back at him over her shoulder. A few loose strands of hair were framing her face, and the heat of the kitchen had heightened the color in her cheeks. She was on her tiptoes, one hand buried in the cabinet and the other bracing her against the counter.
”No, no, I’m fine,” she said, scrunching her nose. Tom started to cross the kitchen to help, but before he could reach her, she pulled the tea tin out of the cabinet and held it above her head. “Ah, I knew it was in there,” she said. It wasn’t an exclamation of triumph, but rather a statement of fact. “Please, take a seat. I’ll put the kettle on.”
Tom made his way over to the kitchen table—a mint green enamel top baker’s table with four chairs around it—and took a seat. Mary was filling a proper tea kettle at the sink, and he watched as she placed it on the burner. Pleased, she turned back to where he was sitting and clasped her hands together in front of her.
“Should be ready in a moment.”
Tom smiled and said, “You don’t see many real kettles nowadays. Most people use electric.”
Mary’s face crumpled into a truly impressive frown, and Tom had no control over the smile that spread across his own face.
“I’m a firm believer in not fixing things that aren’t broken,” she replied. “There’s nothing wrong with this kettle, so I see no reason for an electric one. Besides,” she paused to look back at the stovetop, “electric kettles’ whistles aren’t half as charming.”
Tom’s smile was now spread widely across his face.
“You’re absolutely right,” he said, leaning back into the chair. He crossed his legs, assessing Mary a bit more thoroughly than he had before. He decided that he liked this person. For what it was and how long he had known her, he knew that he couldn’t flesh out an entire sketch of her character just yet, but he liked that she thought about Phoebe and that she didn’t make a fuss. She seemed like the kind of person who didn’t ask unnecessary things, and Tom found that as a relief.
Before Mary could respond, the whistle of the kettle filled the room and Tom watched as she spun around to tend to it. She quickly poured the boiling water over the tea as she said over her shoulder, “How do you take yours?”
”One sugar,” he said.
“One sugar it is.”
Mary navigated her way across the kitchen with both mugs in her hand before handing one to him. He took it, making it a point to keep his fingers very far from her own. Mary lowered herself into the chair cattycorner to his, placing her own mug on the table. He could feel the room exhale as they both brought their tea to their lips. Tom was pleasantly surprised at how accurate Mary had gotten his tea—it wasn’t a complicated order, but it always surprised him how liberal some people were with their sugar spoons.
“How is it?” Mary said, peering at him over the rim of her mug.
“Perfect,” he replied sincerely.
“Good.”
They sat in silence—one that Tom didn’t anticipate being so comfortable in–as midday sun filled the kitchen. The chair Mary sat in was perfectly illuminated by the window and Tom found himself arrested by the way the sun was catching the flyaways of Mary’s hair. Between the light in her hair and the way it occasionally flashed off the lenses of her glasses, Tom bemusedly thought she looked like an oracle of some kind. Like she had a message for him that only she knew but he’d have to earn.
“So, Mr. Hayward, what do you do for a living?”
The sound of Mary’s voice snapped him out of his reverie and he cleared his throat.
”I’m a barrister,” he replied.
”Ah! A very noble profession,” Mary replied before taking another sip of her tea. “I actually have an uncle who’s a barrister.”
It was Tom’s turn to tilt his head in inquiry.
“Is that so? I wonder if I know him.”
”Edward Gardiner?”
Tom couldn’t help the laugh that escaped him.
”Yes! I know Ed!” He chuckled again. “How odd.”
Mary, with a matching smile, said, “What’s odd?”
”I was just talking to Phoebe about Ed on your doorstep.”
”Oh?”
”I could’ve sworn he lived here. Looks like I had the right family but the wrong member.”
Mary huffed a laugh and placed her mug on the tabletop.
“You’re not far off. My aunt and uncle did live here—they let me move in when the divorce happened. They have a really lovely vacation home up in the Lakes, so they offered to stay there while I got back on my feet. That was about—“ here, she paused, her nose scrunched as she looked at the ceiling “—oh, wow, over a year ago. I didn’t realize it had been that long!”
Tom thought back on the past year and his own migration. No wonder he didn’t realize Ed had moved—he hadn’t been around to notice.
”Ed’s good people,” Tom said with a smile.
“He is,” Mary agreed with a smile of her own. “I’m very lucky.”
”How about you?” Tom asked.
”I’m an author,” Mary answered, turning her mug in a tight circle.
“An author!” Tom exclaimed with barely suppressed excitement. “I’ve never met a real author before. Have you written anything I might know?”
It was now Mary’s turn to blush, the flood of pink on her cheeks somehow making the green of her eyes stand out even more than it already was.
“Um, maybe? My most popular work is Daisy the Daffodil.”
Tom choked on his tea.
”You’re Mary Bennet?” he said, inelegantly wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. “Daisy the Daffodil is one of Phoebe’s favorite books—we read it every night after Gemma passed—and you’re telling me that I’m sitting in the kitchen of the author!”
The color on Mary’s cheeks was well and truly saturated now. She diverted her gaze from him to once again fidget with her mug.
“I’m so glad she likes it,” Mary said sincerely, glancing back up at him.
“Likes it? Mary, Daisy has single-handedly helped me parent for the last year.” He paused before realization dawned on his face. “Oh my word, she’s going to combust when she finds out who Winnie’s mum is.”
It was Mary’s turn to laugh.
“What a small world it is,” she said, taking a sip of her tea. “Next thing I know, you’ll be telling me you work at Darcy & Darcy.”
Tom choked for a second time.
”No,” Mary said, a genuine guffaw leaving her lungs.
“Yes!” Tom replied. “Mark Darcy was one of my professors at Cambridge…he brought me on the year after I graduated.”
”Ah, I assumed you knew Fitz,” Mary said.
Tom looked at the woman across the table from him, wondering how she knew his boss’s nephew and what other threads of fate would string them together.
“He’s my brother-in-law,” Mary continued, answering the confused look on Tom’s face. “Fitz Darcy. He’s married to my sister, Elizabeth.”
”What a small world.”
Tom echoed her earlier sentiment with a strange feeling under his breastbone. It had been a very long time since he felt connected to someone, let alone a stranger, and he was finding the sensation to be unsettling. It wasn’t unpleasant, just jarring, and if Tom Hayward disliked one thing, it was not having his footing.
Before he could speak, the timer on the stove went off and Mary jumped up.
“That’ll be the chicken!” she said, sliding oven mitts onto her hands and opening the stove. “Oh, bugger,” he heard her mutter, and before he could ask, Mary stood up and turned towards him with the pan in her hands. Her glasses, however, had completely fogged over from the heat in the stove. She blindly turned towards the stovetop and slid the pan onto it before tossing the oven mitts on the counter and pulling the glasses from her face. Tom couldn’t help chuckling, and Mary shot him a look across the kitchen.
”Sorry,” he laughed. “I just know the feeling all too well.”
He watched as her face softened. There was something arresting about her, and Tom once again felt himself stumble.
“I don’t often come across another glasses-wearer,” she said, rubbing the soft fabric of her shirt on the lenses. “My sisters teased me mercilessly when we were younger.”
”I’m sorry,” Tom said softly, shifting in his seat.
Mary slid her glasses back onto her face. “It’s alright. It doesn’t bother me much anymore.” She locked eyes with Tom and he could see the mirage of truth waver behind her lenses. “Can you call the girls for lunch?”
Tom swallowed and stood.
“Of course,” he said.
As he left the kitchen to fetch the children, Tom felt the familiar stab of protectiveness that his sisters used to tease him mercilessly about. He could hear Mary behind him, the rattle of silverware and rush of the sink following him down the hall, and he found he couldn’t shake it. Bess would have told him it was none of his business. His therapist would tell him to stop giving the thought any attention.
Gemma would have told him to think of something else.
And that’s what he did. Tom corralled Phoebe and Winnie from their Barbie Symposium and brought them back down to the kitchen where he found Mary with the table completely set. She was smiling widely as Winnie said, “Yes! Chicken and mash!”
Instead of focusing on the vulnerability he had seen in Mary’s eyes or the charming way she had defended kettles, Tom decided to soak up the opportunity to dine with his daughter’s favorite author and her best friend. He knew that Gemma would have approved, and that was enough for now.