Begin Again | ongoing

seventeen

Viv doesn't call the next day. Or the day after that. Sunny goes about her life as usual on her days off, working her way through her CDs and hanging out with Ravi and Fraser, going over to Delilah's for supper on Wednesday before she gets a bus to her parents' house. Two visits in the space of a week is cause for concern, apparently, and Martha quizzes her over breakfast on Thursday morning. Sunny gives the bare bones of the truth – that she and Viv are still working through some things; that she messed up when she didn't invite Viv to the bar.

"These things pass, sweetheart," Sylvia says as searches the entire house for her keys. "And if they don't, that's quite a telling sign that maybe the relationship isn't going in the right direction."

"Mmm." Most of Sunny's responses have been noncommittal hums because her brain is so full of thoughts that she lacks the energy to verbalise properly. She is not a multitasker. Her style is dedicating energy to one pursuit at a time, and when her brain is busy, her body is out of action.

"It'll be okay, baby," Martha says, rightly sensing that Sunny doesn't much want to talk. "Want to come to the city with me today, have a bit of retail therapy?"

While there are several cities within reach of Black Sands, the city refers to York, the nearest and Sunny's favourite. She loves the tall walls that encircle the city, more than twice her height and hundreds of years old; she loves the magnificence of York Minster, a stunning feat of Gothic architecture. She loves rambling through The Shambles and freaking herself out with the ghost stories of spirits that haunt the old streets, ducking into one of literally hundreds of pubs for a little fortification before continuing on her adventures.

"Yeah, that'd be nice," she says.

Sylvia huffs. "Sure, sure, just forget about poor old me stuck in stuffy lecture theatres all day while you two go off gallivanting around town."

"Darling, I told you you'd be jealous when I retired," Martha coos, stroking her wife's arm. "There's nothing holding you in that job but yourself. If you want to join us, I'm sure no-one will question it if you pull a sickie."

Sylvia presses her lips together. Considers it. Shakes her head. "I like my job," she says. "Next time you plan an impromptu trip can we make sure it's on a weekend?"

"Uh, I'm pretty sure an impromptu trip can't be planned, Mum," Sunny says. "Spoken like a true English professor."

"Oh, shush, you." Sylvia flaps a stack of unmarked essays at her. "Aha! There you are, you little bastards." She seizes her keys from beneath the jumper Sunny dumped on top of them yesterday and jingles them. "I've gotta run. I'll see you later." She plants a quick kiss on Sunny's forehead and tips Martha's chin up to kiss her lips, and rather than be disgusted by her parents' blatant displays of affection, Sunny's touched. Her heart sings when she sees how happy they still are after so long, how Martha's cheeks still flush pink in the afterglow of a kiss from her wife.

An hour later they're in the car. Martha's wearing her glasses because she can't read the road signs without them, though she knows the route like the back of her hand, wending through the countryside until they meet the A64 and it carries them all the way to the city. A couple of times a year they'll follow the road to its end in Leeds and hop on the motorway down to Sheffield to see Martha's sisters, all of whom ended up in the city of steel. Sometimes they'll take the A1 all the way up to Edinburgh to see Sylvia's brother Eric, who was a stranger to the family for the first decade after Sylvia's transition because he couldn't cope with the loss of the person he thought was his brother.

Sunny didn't even know she had an uncle until she met him at the age of eleven, after his and Sylvia's parents were killed in a crash. It took their deaths for him to realise he wanted to know his sister, and after years of healing – and plenty of therapy for both of them – they're closer now than they were as children.