A Mother's Grace by Rosie Goodwin

Author:Rosie Goodwin [Rosie Goodwin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bonnier Publishing Fiction
Published: 2018-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Eight

In the early summer when the birds were singing in the trees and the sun was riding high in a cloudless blue sky, Grace was finally baptised into the Catholic Church. The Llewelyns and Aunt Gertie attended the service, even though none of them were particularly religious, and afterwards Aunt Gertie presented Grace with a silver rosary, which Grace said she would cherish for ever. Dylan was fishing out at sea that day otherwise Grace was sure he would have come too.

Whenever he was at home now he would visit and they would go off on long walks together. He had also taken her out to sea on a boat trip, and one Saturday evening he had taken her to a dance in the local village hall; it was a new experience for Grace and she had thoroughly enjoyed it. Over the last couple of years Dylan had developed into a very muscular, handsome young man and it had amused her to see the way the local girls’ eyes followed him about the room. But he had not even glanced in their direction and didn’t seem in the slightest bit interested in any of them.

Gradually Grace felt that she was returning to her former happy self, although she still had dark moments when she missed her mother terribly. Aunt Gertie phoned her home in Nuneaton religiously every week but still there was no change in her father.

‘He’s no better, but then he’s no worse either,’ she would tell Grace when she came off the phone.

On Dylan’s next day off, Cerys packed a picnic hamper and Grace and Dylan set off for a day at the beach armed with their swimming costumes and two towels. Grace couldn’t swim properly as yet but Dylan was teaching her and she loved to go into the sea.

Down in the little cove they favoured, Grace got changed discreetly behind a rock and as she rounded it with her clothes folded neatly across her arm Dylan shouted, ‘Last one in is a rotten egg!’

Grace felt a sharp stab of pain as she thought back to the time when Myfanwy had said exactly the same thing to her. But then she pushed the thoughts aside as she dropped her clothes into a heap and chased after him, splashing into the waves. They spent a happy half-hour in the sea dipping and diving before emerging and dropping onto the towels Dylan had lain across the sand, and Grace poured them each a cup of lemonade from the bottle that she had left cooling in a small rock pool.

The hours spent in the sun had turned Grace’s skin a ferocious red colour to begin with, which Dylan had teased her mercilessly about, although it wasn’t so sore now. By contrast, Dylan was tanned and golden.

‘I can’t help it, it’s because I’m a red-head,’ she had pointed out.

Now, after a long cool drink, he sighed and turned onto his stomach, leaning up on his elbows to stare at Grace.

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