‘Delilah, sit down, child. Dinner is on the table.’ Peggy Metcalfe’s voice carried across the large room filled with people and brought her daughter’s attention from the window.
‘Coming, Mum.’
‘Who you watching for anyway, Dee?’ teased Ash. ‘Father Christmas?’
Everyone laughed and Delilah pulled a face at him, to the delight of the kids.
Sunday lunch. It had been a tradition for as long as she could remember. All of them gathered around the big kitchen table, while Dad carved the beef and Ryan tried to steal an extra Yorkshire pudding. There were more of them now: Will’s wife and kids, plus Lucy and Nathan. There was also one missing. But today, for the first time in two years, that absence didn’t hang over them like a pall of black smoke. Instead, there was laughter. Even Will’s mood lightened as he cracked jokes with his younger brothers.
It was perfect. And Samson would fit right in.
With a last look down the track, Delilah turned from the window and took her place at the far end of the table. He was late. If he was coming.
* * *
Samson stood outside, clutching a bottle and a box of chocolates. He was nervous. Hesitant about getting this wrong. Anxious to get it right.
He took a step forward and stopped, the clink of china coming to him through the door. They’d already started. He was late. On the verge of turning round and heading home, he heard a burst of laughter.
‘It’ll be fine,’ he chided himself. ‘Just get yourself in there.’
He pushed open the door and walked in.
‘Hope I’m not too late?’ he said.
‘Samson!’ A hail of voices greeted him and he found himself being ushered to a chair.
* * *
Delilah heard it first. A vehicle pulling up. The snick of the latch on the outside door. Then the kitchen door was opening and she was smiling in anticipation. He’d made it.
‘Hope I’m not too late?’
But as the man stepped into the room, Delilah felt the smile slip from her face.
‘Rick!’ Peggy Metcalfe was up out of her chair and offering her cheek. ‘How lovely to see you!’
‘I couldn’t resist Will’s invitation. Good food and great company – what’s not to like?’ said the property developer with easy charm, greeting everyone in the room as Peggy set a place next to Delilah.
‘Not who you were expecting, sis?’ asked Will quietly, his focus on her alone.
‘I wasn’t expecting anyone,’ she muttered.
Will nodded. ‘Best keep it that way. Less chance of being hurt a second time.’
Then Rick Procter was taking his seat next to her and she was left making small talk and trying not to show the disappointment that was swelling in her heart.
* * *
‘So glad you could make it, son.’ Joseph O’Brien leaned towards Samson and laid a hand on his knee. ‘It means the world to me.’
Samson nodded. ‘Sorry it took me so long,’ he said, thinking of all the Sunday lunches his father had eaten alone. And as he sat there among the residents of Fellside Court and did his best to answer all their questions about the events of the last few weeks, Samson O’Brien tried not to think that, in six months’ time, he would be missing from his father’s table once more.