Sunday arrived with merciful speed. They’d ended their Saturday evening call with Georgina saying that she was still on schedule for six the next day and that she couldn’t wait to see her. She sounded excited—not that she could be more excited than Molly herself. And now it was time to meet again, and as she stood at Georgina’s door, she thought she might burst.
“Georgina. Hi, it’s me.” Had Georgina intended to leave the door ajar?
Stepping gingerly inside, Molly’s feet caught at a newly laid mat. Her gaze tripped along the length of the hallway, resting on a vase of sunflowers placed on George Wright’s console table. What? How could that be? The house was empty. Wasn’t it?
The house smelled warm and full of life rather than its usual sense of emptiness which had always clung like grief to its floors and walls.
“Is anyone there?” Molly pushed the sitting room door to slowly open and peeked inside. “No way.” She turned in a slow circle, staring in wonder at each familiar piece of furniture. There was the sideboard decorated with another vase of flowers, this time yellow roses. And then there was the leather armchair by the fireplace with its soft material so familiar to her touch. She looked at the mirror rehung, to find her breath catch by the items framed in its reflection.
She turned sharply to face the wall behind her where the family portraits once hung, to find in their place a series of three framed pictures.
“Wow.” Molly moved to them. The first image she recognized immediately as the view from the restaurant of the National Portrait Gallery. She touched the edge of the frame. It was their first kiss.
Molly held her hand against her heart at the sight of the next picture, a photo of the Christmas star she had made for Georgina that magical morning.
And then the last image, so familiar, so evocative of everything, Edith’s portrait of Josephine.
“It’s a print, obviously.” Georgina stood at the sitting room door.
Molly brushed away tears. “You’ve done all this? Does it mean…?”
Georgina moved to Molly and took her hand in hers. “The last time we were together, we’d come back here the night before from a wonderful evening, and I’d watched you skip from lamp post to lamp post down the promenade. It felt so right. And then in the morning everything felt so wrong. We were talking about how the new owners would make the garden their own, and you were leaving, and then when your hand slipped from mine, I knew in that instant what to do. It became so clear what I wanted…” Georgina’s voice caught.
“You wanted?”
“I wanted to come home, here, to you, every day, forever. Could this be our home, do you think? We can replace the furniture of course.”
Molly squeezed Georgina’s hands tightly. “Yes. Yes, please. I love you so much. And I love this house and everything in it—you know I do. I couldn’t imagine anything more perfect. Except you, perhaps. There is nothing more perfect than you.”
Georgina kissed Molly. It was a passionate, complete kiss that filled every space in Molly’s heart and soul. It was a kiss that spoke of the memories they shared. And a kiss that spoke of the memories they would make and of the thrill of their future, full of joy and love, unhidden, for all to see.