July
In the sleepy hamlet of Saxvirdan divorcee Tracey
Theobald lived with her daughter Carli and brother Mason.
Mason was a farmer and worked
up at Roman Farm and it was there, where he met and fell in love with Kelly
Harper who also worked there.
This made Tracey immensely
pleased and incredibly jealous in equal measure and that made her feel guilty
because she loved her brother and really liked Kelly.
Of course she may
have felt differently if she had known that things were about to change for
her.
It happened when
there was a party up at the farm to celebrate Kelly and Mason’s engagement
which wasn’t a big affair with only around twenty guests.
Tracey’s daughter
Carli was having a fun day, dividing her time between playing with her peers
and being spoilt rotten by the grownups.
In fact everyone
at the party appeared to be enjoying themselves including Tracey, although in
her case she was merely putting on a brave face, and when things quietened down
she slipped quietly away and wandered down to the lake, and as soon as she was out
of sight she leant against a tree and cried.
Tracey may have
slipped quietly away from the fun, but her departure did not go entirely
unnoticed, as Kelly’s cousin Tom saw her, and the reason for that was he had
barely taken his eyes off her all day.
They had been
introduced just after she and Carli arrived and as his daughter Becky was of a
similar age to hers, they spent half an hour or so in conversation, and the
only reason they stopped then was because they were instructed to take their
seats, and they got separated.
When he saw her
leave the party, and it was clear by the direction she took that she wasn’t off
to use the facilities, he got up himself and headed in the same direction, and
he saw she was heading towards the lake, so he followed.
When he caught up
with her, she was leaning against a tree and as he closed the distance between
them, he noticed that her shoulders were shaking.
“Are you ok?” Tom asked
“No” she sobbed
“Why?” he asked, “what’s wrong?”
“I’m a terrible person” she replied
“I find that hard to believe” Tom said brightly and
put a hand on her shoulders and in response to his touch she leant into him.
“It’s true”
“You’d better explain then” he urged and tried to turn
her to face him.
“No don’t look at me” she snapped
“Ok but you still need to explain”
“I love my brother, I really do and I’m so pleased
that he and Kelly are going to get married, she is so lovely, and they really
are perfect together” she said
“But?” he asked
“I’m jealous” she admitted “I’m jealous of his
happiness, God I’m so despicable”
“No you’re not” he said and tried to turn her again
and this time she yielded and buried her face in his chest
“You just want to be happy too, that’s perfectly
natural” he assured her
“It’s not natural to be jealous though, is it?” she
retorted
“Did you ever wish that they weren’t so happy?” he
asked
“No, not for a second” she snapped “They deserve to be
happy”
“So why do you feel so guilty?” he asked
“I don’t know, but I still feel guilty” Tracey said,
“I always feel guilty because of my jealous thoughts”,
“Well you’re not the only one who felt jealous today”
he confessed
“There’s someone else?” she asked “Who?”
“Me”
“Why were you jealous?” she asked and lifted her face
from his chest for the first time to look at him “Who were you jealous of?”
“The people sitting either side of you” he replied,
and she gasped
When Tom and
Tracey left the lake, all evidence of her tears had been wiped away, apart from
a damp patch on the front of his shirt, and as they walked, he was standing
tall, and she was smiling, and they were holding hands.
As they neared
the party again, they were greeted by their excited children, Carli and Cassie,
running in the opposite direction towards them.
When they got
closer, they stopped dead in their tracks when they saw the joined hands, then
they looked at each other, giggled and ran away
“I think we can
take that to mean we have their seal of approval” Tom said
“It would appear
so” she agreed and kissed him.
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