Chapter 16
Dorothea played on Fiona’s mind while she was cooking the evening meal. She hadn’t truly understood the gap her father’s death had left in the old lady’s life. Guilt seeped around her as she realised that, even though she knew Dorothea was struggling to make friends in the sheltered complex, she rarely opened the compartment in her life labelled ‘Mum’, except on orange days. It didn’t mean there was no love there; it was just the best way of ensuring that there was a time and a place for everything in her life.
She stirred the pan, tasted and added more black pepper to the bolognaise. She’d thought this need for control had started after Amber, but, if she was totally honest with herself, she’d always been a private person, preferring to cope alone rather than being fussed over. Evidenced by the fact that she had wanted to delay announcing her pregnancy until at least twelve weeks, and by not wanting her mum to know about the miscarriage because Fiona knew it would lead to an influx of parental attention, which would only increase her emotional pain.
She dropped spaghetti into the pan of boiling water. Earlier this afternoon she’d seen her mother at her most vulnerable. And she’d been glad that her mother had called her and told her the truth about what had happened. She wished that Dorothea had told her weeks ago that she had started corresponding with Tony. Perhaps Fiona would’ve put more orange sunshine on the calendar or opened her mother’s compartment wider and discovered that, as with Adele, she enjoyed letting more light in. Now she understood the pain her mother must have felt over the years when Fiona had kept things hidden from her. Was it time to build a better relationship with her mum? Did she even know how to do that?
Fiona’s phone vibrated with a text message:
Feeling a bit queasy. Staying up here for a nap instead of eating dinner. Please can you tell Dad for me. He’ll likely go ballistic and think I’m doing it on purpose.
Fiona sensed fireworks ahead but did as she was asked, pleased that now Adele, as well as her mum, had felt able to confide in her.
“Adele! You are expected downstairs at mealtimes.” From the bottom of the stairs Joe hollered into the empty space above him. “We are causing Fiona enough trouble without also refusing to eat what she has gone to the trouble of cooking for us.”
“Leave her.” Fiona tugged at his arm. None of them would enjoy the meal with one of the diners there under duress and, after realising how broken her relationship with her mother had actually become, Fiona couldn’t cope with any further upset. “I’ll save her dinner and she can have it when she fancies.”
Joe shook his head and shouted upwards again, “Adele, I’m warning you!”
“I insist.” Fiona took his hands and made him look at her. “She’s not ten years old anymore. She’ll soon be a mother herself. We have to give her some leeway to make her own decisions.”
But even without Adele at the table the mood was awkward. Joe was furious with his daughter. Fiona hoped that Rose would reappear before too long to provide a better home for the pregnant girl.
“Are either of you going to let Rose know that very soon she’ll become a grandmother for the first time?”
“What?” It took a second for Joe to come back from wherever his thoughts had taken him. “We can’t. You saw Rose’s email. All devices are handed in on arrival and she’s left no physical address or landline number for wherever it is she’s staying.”
“She really was serious about this being her ‘me’ time.”
Joe stared at the half-eaten bolognaise on his plate. “She found the divorce difficult. Even though she instigated it, on the grounds that we’d drifted apart since the children had grown up. I still had my job but she didn’t know who she was anymore. It’s just a shame that Adele’s the one who’s suffering now.”
Fiona pushed the remainder of her spaghetti to the side of the plate and set her cutlery in a straight line. She could see something in common between herself and Rose and, after this afternoon, her mother as well. They were all struggling to move forward following the removal of purpose from their lives. They’d each gone from a situation of being needed to one of being superfluous. After years of bowing to the expectations of motherhood and marriage, Rose was in an empty house. After almost six decades, Dorothea had been widowed. And, following an all-consuming career, Fiona had to find purpose outside of the workplace. She understood Rose’s quest to find herself — in another life they might have gone together. She hoped the other woman wouldn’t regret the decision, which might mean her, unknowingly, missing the first weeks of her first grandchild’s life, and maybe alienating her daughter for a very long time to come.
“What about post? She must have had to leave a forwarding address somewhere for bills, bank stuff and so on?” Was it possible to disappear into the ether?
“Everything’s on direct debit. It’s possible she left a friend in charge of the Airbnb stuff. Rose is like you — very thorough.”
Was that a compliment or did it say something about the sort of woman Joe was attracted to? Did he prefer someone organised and in control because it meant he could be the laid- back, relaxed partner in a relationship? Fiona wasn’t sure she liked the idea of a partner who was willing to coast his way through life on the back of whoever he could find.
“But she couldn’t control your house being flooded or Adele turning up with her unborn grandchild.”
“And I’m grateful to you for picking up the pieces.” He squeezed her hand.
She looked at his plate; the knife and fork were splayed at an obtuse angle even though he’d finished his meal. Until he moved in, the fact that he didn’t set his cutlery at 12 o’clock hadn’t bothered Fiona. Now, after a few days of his continued presence, the habit was annoying her.
“Have you finished eating?” It was a superfluous question but she wanted to make a point.
“Yes. Thank you.”
She cleared both plates and scraped her leftovers into the organic waste caddy.