Maisie leant over and said something to Sophie but he didn't catch it, was too busy with the telling of what needed to be told, but then Sophie reached her hand to her eyes and both he and her realised she had a tear glistening on her fingertip and more of them brimming in her eyes. He stopped talking.
Sophie looked down at her hand, somewhat confused, then wiped at her eyes with her sleeve.
"Are you ok, Sophie?" Wolf Boy asked from across the table and he detected more care and concern in the boy's question than he suspected the other boy Tommy possessed in his whole being at this particular time in his life.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Don't know where that came from. Must be the candle doing it." Maisie and Wolf Boy both seemed to accept Sophie's reasoning (or were diplomatic enough to be seen to accept it) and returned their attention to Madam K. Sophie looked at her hand once more, at the drying swipe of tear still showing on her finger, and absently wiped it on the leg of her jeans.
"Don't cry, love. You see, all that pain...it did stop! I want you to know that. Old Dad's doing just fine. The hurt is long gone and even now that I remember everything, that stupid pain doesn't even warrant much of a spot in my memory. It's just a blip."
Sophie and her friends suddenly released each other's hands and he tensed, sure that he was about to be sent flying off into the world like a snapped elastic band but that wasn't the case and he was still there and of course he was because he didn't need their joined hands just like he no longer needed a hook now that he had stopped pulling away.
Sophie stood and so did her friends and he realised they were leaving. They wished Madam K a good night and she waved them away, exhausted. He would have liked to console the woman and to let her know that she was, quite possibly, at least a little bit in tune with the ghost-spirits but now wasn't the time. He stayed with Sophie as they walked out to the night air, onto a pier that was all orange lights and black streamers and glowing skeletons.
"You know what I really remember from the hospital near the end, Soph? I remember you and your Mum sitting with me and I remember your Nanna Grey and Nan and Pop Curtain and your Uncle Peter coming to see me all the time and I think I even remember my Dad, Poppa Grey, being with me even though he passed years before but given the whole situation we find ourselves in now that doesn't seem too unlikely does it? I remember your Mum and I deciding that you shouldn't come to see me anymore because I wasn't quite looking my best as things went on and you absolutely refused and said that if your Mum tried to stop you from coming you'd fetch my hammer from the shed and break one of your toes so the ambulance would have to come and then you'd be brought to hospital so that you could see me and you said that you had ten fingers and ten toes and ten plus ten was twenty and that was a lot of visits so it would be easier for all of us if Mum kept bringing you in our own car and we left the hammer out of it and I remember thinking this is the bravest, toughest seven year old in the world. I always wanted to be your giant but, in the end, it was you and your Mum. You were my giants."
He took a moment to see her as she had been then, all freckles and elbows and determination and he savoured the mingled feelings of happiness and sadness it brought because these were fine feelings and this was a fine remembrance to have after all this time of denying himself.
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