Begin Again | ongoing

forty

The front door flies open the moment Viv's car comes to a stop in the driveway, Sunny's parents spilling out of the house to shower her in hugs and birthday wishes. Martha was right – it is a glorious day, one of those beautiful May days when the sky is a clear, crisp shade of blue, the kind of blue that can be found in every child's drawing with a round yellow sun to match. It's warm, too. The kind of late spring warmth that feels more like the promise of summer to come, almost three hours until the sun will lay its weary head down for the night and the days stretching longer still.

"How has it been twenty-five years since we first met?" Martha asks as the four of them take their seats around the outside table, to make the most of the last of this perfect day with supper on the cat-covered patio under the cloudless blue.

"That's a weird way to put it," Sunny says with a laugh as she cuts her boiled potatoes in half and tops them with a generous dollop of butter. "Does it count as our first meeting if I have no recollection of it?"

This memory lapse, at least, she's able to admit to – nobody remembers being a baby, surely; nobody remembers laying their eyes on their parents for the first time, mere minutes old.

"Trust me," Martha scoffs, "I remember enough for the both of us. You'd have thought, with all this modern science, someone could have figured out a less traumatic way to have a child. It's barbaric, truly, the things we put ourselves through to ensure the continuation of our species."

Sunny wrinkles her nose. "Mum. What have I said about no birth stories when we'e eating? Actually, no, scratch that, no birth stories full stop." Over the years she has heard more than enough tales from the day she was born, far too many intimate details about the damage she did to Martha's body, the endless hours of agonising labour. Plus, she's fairly certain her existence has less to do with the continuation of the human race than it does with careless intercourse, a late in life mistake.

Sunny glances at Sylvia. Sylvia is always quieter, more reserved, when these conversations come up. It's a tricky one for her. She was a different person back then. The joy of her daughter's birth is tarnished by the turmoil she was going through, the inner crisis she had yet to clue her wife in on. There are so few photos of Sylvia with her newborn daughter, little baby Sunny. Sylvia shied away from cameras back then, when she despised the version of herself she saw captured in the lens.

"Okay, okay, sorry," Martha says, holding up her hands. "No birth stories. Let's just say, thank god you're an only child."

Sunny's relieved not to have to hear it again. Her eyes flick back to Sylvia, whose apprehension gives way to a soft smile as they stop dwelling on the past. If there is one thing Sunny has learnt over the last few weeks, it's that it's best to live firmly in the present. Beneath the table, her hand finds Viv's and her heart rolls over in delight when Viv squeezes back. Sunny has always counted herself lucky with the people she knows, the family she was blessed with and the one she has found, and in this moment – like so many moments recently – she is bowled over by her love for this woman she's still slowly getting to know.

Her eyes fill of their own accord. She doesn't feel the need to cry but damn it, she's soon blinking and her nose is starting to sting as emotions roll through her the way they do when she's had a little too much to drink, though she's only had one glass of wine with supper – hair of the dog.

"Honey, I didn't think you were so bothered about being an only child!" Martha says with a gasp, her hand flying out to cover Sunny's free hand on the tabletop.

"God, no, I don't care about that," Sunny says with a laugh and a sniff. "I'm just really happy." She casts her eyes over the puddle of cats on the patio, three fluffy moggies stretched out in the sunshine; she smiles at her parents and she turns to her girlfriend with adoration in her eyes, the purest love imbuing her dark irises.