"Oh, go on, Mum. You've never said before. Was there anyone before Dad? Was he your one true love?"
Mirabel looked down, shaking her head.
"Love, why do you ask such things? He was your Dad, that's all that's important."
Still, Jessie went on, cajoling, never letting up.
She had been like that as a young lass. Never letting up.
It used to get her into trouble.
Finally, Mirabel broke. Enough was enough.
"You cross the line, sometimes, Jessie," she said quietly, still looking down.
When she looked up again though, Jessie was quiet. She had not seen the steely determined look in her Mother's eyes for many years. Since the day that Dad started sleeping in the spare room.
"You should be careful what you ask, Jessie. You might not like the answer."
Mirabel could see the fear in her daughter's eyes now. Good. It was about time.
"Girl, the answer is no. He was never my one true love. He was the make-do after Geoff, my one true love. I was Geoff's mistress. He was my savior. And he died when he went off to fight in Aden. Three weeks after he was shipped out."
She paused for the shocked silence to reverberate in her ears, and drew another, haltering breath.
Slowly, she said, "They tied his wrists to a rope fixed to the bumper of a car, and dragged him through towns, until all that was left was a bloody stump. But you know what? They say he never screamed. Not once."
She lowered her eyes once again.
"Not like your Dad, who blubbed his eyes out when I caught him messing around with Cath. Cath from Bath, who got my wrath."
Mirabel snorted. Maybe like a pig? She snorted again. No, like a Mother whose time was overdue to be a woman once more.
"Look, Mum... " Jessie started. But there was no stemming the flow now.
It was time for Jessie to learn about consequences.
"Jessie, I'd like to say you're a good girl, but you're a chip off your Father's block."
Jessie's eyes flared now in anger.
"That's easy to say now," she started, her voice raising in pitch and volume. Her hands were clenched now, as if spoiling for a fight. But they weren't really. They were straight by her side, clenching the truth and trying to hold it down so it couldn't escape into the moment.
Mirabel laughed. A hearty laugh. A hearty, snortless laugh. A laugh more free than she had experienced in many years.
"Right, Jessie. He's dead, so we should honour his memory. I honour my life that I have back, now. I honour the man I loved, who died this Day, fifty-two years ago when I was only twenty years of age. My God, he was a man who honoured me. Why shouldn't I honour him? I thank God for the short time I was allowed with him. It is more than many get in a lifetime. And why should I honour a man who grasped me from a solitary emptiness, to give me an emptiness with a family and a lady who was there but not there. What, Jessie, do you suggest I honour about him?"
There was a crackling between them. Maybe enough was enough. Maybe she should let it lie, let things return to how they had been. Let the lies and deceit prevail?
"No," Mirabel said quietly.
"No what?" Jessie responded curtly, her arms crossed now.
"No you can't have a holiday home in the Bahamas. The ones you have been bookmarking on your computer over the last month are far too expensive for what you'll get from me."
Jessie's mouth fell open, a real life caricature of a shocked cartoon character.
It was almost funny.
"How?" Mirabel voiced for her daughter.
"How do I know what you've been bookmarking since I let you know I was dying of cancer a month ago?"
Her daughter had the grace to look downwards. She certainly was her father's daughter.
"The same way I know what you've been doing with Mr. Vibrating bunny rabbit while you have been looking at lady pictures."
Mirabel shifted her tablet to angle the camera towards the naked figure of a twenty year old man sitting besides her in bed.
"Gorgeous, isn't he? A hacker and a lover. Isn't the internet great? Would you believe he's called Geoff? He makes me snort like a pig. That's something your father never took the time to find out I did when I actually got pleasure from sex. Worth everything I'm spending on him."
"Hi Jessie," Geoff said, waving at the shocked woman on the tablet before him. "Nice body you've got, for your age."
Jessie squeaked. "You've hacked my computer. How? What - you - you've been watching them as well?.."
Mirabel laughed. Oh, the joy.
"Jessie, Jessie. Not just Geoff, my dear. I've made good money posting those on several sites. You really are an adventurous girl, aren't you? Happy thanksgiving, girl. And goodbye."
And with that, she turned off the tablet, put it down, and turned towards her new lover.
Geoff smiled, and stroked a strand of Mirabel's hair.
"Why did you tell her you pay for me?" he asked.
Mirabel ran her hand, brown-spotted, paper-thin with age, over Geoff's bare chest, and sighed.
"Geoff, every time we make love, a year of my old loveless life is shorn from me. I have become twenty again. Twenty when I had no money, only love to give."
Geoff looked confused, but listened attentively, as he always did.
"One day, I will be as I was when I was born. My last breath will be like my first. With all the fire of life. You give and take my life, Geoff. But at least finally, I have a life to give to someone who understands its value."
Geoff nodded, and lay his head down beside her.
"That's good. Granddad would have been pleased. It means he didn't die in vain."