Chapter Six #3
“You didn’t want to help build the snowman?” he asked.
Jillian made a scoffing sound. “It’s already melting and falling apart.”
“Well, Olivia and I did have fun, and we would have loved for Jillian to play with us, but she wanted to do her own thing,” Cat said, setting the mug down. Cat looked at Jilly and lifted an eyebrow. “Tell your dad what you did do.”
Jillian opened her mouth and closed it without making a sound.
Olivia suddenly slammed her crayon down. “She went off again on her own and scared us half to death. Again.” Olivia’s voice rose with every word. “And I’m sick of it. I’m sick of her ruining everything with her bad mood.”
Rhys turned his attention to Jillian who still hadn’t bothered to look at him since he returned home. “Is this true, Jillian?” he asked, voice pitched low.
She said nothing but her silence more than communicated what she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, admit.
He sighed, frustrated and close to losing his temper.
“I was going to take you all out for a nice meal in Bakewell, but seeing as Jillian can’t act appropriately, she’ll stay here with Catriona and I’ll just be taking Livy to dinner.
” He turned to his youngest. “What do you think? Do you want to have dinner with Dad tonight? Just the two of us?”
“Yes!” Olivia didn’t even hesitate. She was out of her chair dancing around. “When do we go? I’m starving.”
“As soon as you’re ready.”
In the hall, Rhys drew Cat aside. “Are you okay with Jillian here with you?” he asked, voice low.
“Of course.”
“I know it’s your job,” he said, creases at his eyes, and fresh lines at his mouth. “But do you mind? I’d planned to take all of you—”
“I’ve had a long day, and a quiet evening here sounds wonderful.”
“I can bring you back something.”
“No, Jillian and I will figure out something. Don’t worry about us. Just have fun with Olivia. She deserves to be spoiled a little. She’s been wonderful.”
*
Cat stood at the kitchen counter, listening to the echo of the front door as Rhys and Olivia headed out into the cold dark.
The cottage felt strangely hollow without the chatter, without Rhys’s steady presence, and Jillian hovered in the doorway like a storm cloud, her skinny arms folded, chin tucked down.
Cat cleared her throat. “Right,” she said, determined to keep things normal. “How about we make ourselves a cheese toastie for supper?”
“No.” Jillian didn’t even look at her.
Cat nodded, not rising to it. “Probably because you don’t know how. Which is fair. But I can show you, if you like.”
Jillian’s silence was practically a statement. She stayed where she was, propped against the door frame, eyes fixed on some invisible point on the floor.
“Well then,” Cat said, digging through the cabinet for a sandwich press but finding none before briskly rolling up her sleeves. “You can watch.”
She took four slices of good farmhouse bread from the bag, laying them out on the board. “And just in case you don’t think I know the difference between an American grilled cheese sandwich and an English toasted cheese sandwich, you’re wrong. My friend Sarah, she’s my flatmate, and from Ireland—”
“Then it’s not an English toastie if she taught you,” Jillian said, finally looking at Catriona.
“Yes, but we’re not using Irish cheddar or Kerrygold butter, which Sarah says is a must for a proper sandwich. We’re using English butter and English cheese. The rest of the technique is the same, or would be, if we had a sandwich press, but since we don’t, we’re going to do it pub style.”
“Which is?” Jillian asked, more disdainful than curious.
“I will toast it under the oven’s broiler, open faced, and then fold the sandwich,” Cat explained.
“It doesn’t sound like a proper toastie at all,” Jillian sniffed.
“I guess we will just have to see.” Cat grated the block of cheddar cheese quickly, the shreds piling soft and pale-gold. She glanced at Jillian. “Would you like a bit of mustard? It gives it just enough flavor, but not enough to frighten you.”
“No.”
“Okay. Yours will be without, mine with just a dash.” Cat spread the thinnest scrape on her bread. Jillian didn’t move, but Cat noticed the subtle shift of her gaze.
“Okay, fine. I’ll try a little mustard, but only a very small amount.”
Hiding her smile, Cat added the lightest touch of mustard to Jillian’s, buttered the outside of each bread slice, assembled the sandwiches, and set it under the broiler, leaving the oven door open a few inches to keep an eye on them.
A toastie maker was definitely easier, but the kitchen was already filling with the warm, sharp scent of melting cheddar.
When the cheese was melted, Cat folded the sandwich and stuck it back under the broiler for a moment to toast both sides a bit more and then carried plates of neat, toasted triangles with oozing cheese to the table.
“Come sit,” she said, not commanding, just offering.
Jillian hesitated, jaw tight, but finally pushed off the doorframe and crossed the room. She slid into the chair opposite Cat, shoulders still stiff.
“Careful—it’s hot,” Cat said, lifting one triangle.
Jillian picked it up without a word. Steam curled from the center as she took a small, cautious bite. A beat passed. Then another. She kept eating, quietly, no complaints, no drama.
Just a girl with a toasted cheese sandwich after what had to have been an awful day for her too.
Cat didn’t comment. She simply ate her sandwich, grateful for the silence that, for now, felt like progress.
When they were both almost finished, Cat decided if she was going to be helpful at all—or annoying, if that was a better way to look at it—it needed to be now, before dinner was over and the opportunity was lost.
“You know my parents died when I was ten,” Cat said conversationally. “It was just a few weeks before Christmas and it was awful. I came from a small family, just me and my parents, and my dad’s mom that lived a couple hours away.”
Jillian kept chewing but Cat could tell she was listening.
“Overnight, everything changed. I had to leave my house and my school and my friends and move in with my grandmother in Kalamazoo. I’d always loved visiting her, but it was different living there full-time. I hated it. And”—Cat took a deep breath—“I hated her.”
Jillian’s head jerked up, her attention fully on Cat now as she continued.
“It wasn’t my grandma’s fault that someone had been drinking and ran a red light and crashed into my parents’ car.
It wasn’t my grandma’s fault that they both died.
All I knew was that I wanted my life the way it was, and it wasn’t that way anymore.
It couldn’t be that way anymore and so I blamed her because she was there. ”
“But it was your dad’s mom,” Jillian said. “She lost her son, right?”
“Yes. But at that time, with the pain I felt, I didn’t care. I just wanted her to leave me alone. Obviously, she couldn’t, but that didn’t stop me from being horrible to her.”
Jillian’s forehead puckered. “What did you do?”
“I yelled. Threw things. Broke things. Said really mean things.” Cat looked down at her empty plate and felt the old shame return.
“But my grandmother was a rock, and in hindsight, probably close to a saint because she loved me through it. She loved me even when I was my most unlovable. She understood I was hurting, and she did her best to be there for me. But yes, she was hurting, too, and I don’t know how she got through her grief, but every day she got up, and loved me, and did her best to keep me safe and make sure I had the life my parents would have wanted for me. ”
Tears welled in Jillian’s eyes. “That’s so sad.”
“I’m ashamed that I wasn’t kinder to her, but my grandmother’s steadiness and love showed me what love was, and it’s why I was able to do well in school and go to college on a good scholarship—”
“My dad did that,” Jillian interrupted. “He was poor too. If he didn’t get scholarships, he couldn’t have gone to the schools he did, and he wouldn’t have become a doctor.”
Suddenly Cat wanted to cry. Suddenly, the weight of the last few days made her heart ache for all of them. Life was not easy. Life was filled with loss. But it was also full of beauty and hope—and love—if one just looked for it.
Cat was still looking for it. “It’s okay to get mad,” Cat said quietly. “It’s okay to be sad and frustrated. Everyone has emotions. The key thing is to not get stuck in anger or frustration. We have to find ways to move through.”
For a moment, Jillian said nothing then she looked up at Cat. “Are you telling me this because of what I’ve said to you?”
“I’m telling you this so you know I understand that it’s hard when parents divorce and the world you knew, and loved, changes.
It’s hard when you feel abandoned, and no longer safe, not the way you once did.
It’s okay to grieve for what you lost. In fact, if you don’t grieve, you might find it harder to feel better later. ”
Jillian processed this for several moments. “So, who is your family now? Now that your grandmother is gone?”
Cat’s eyes burned, hot and gritty.
She forced a smile to keep her own intense emotions in check. “I don’t really have anyone. My mom grew up in foster care, and her biological parents never wanted to meet her. My dad was an only child. For years, it was just my grandma and me.”
“And now it’s just you?” Jillian said slowly.
Cat kept smiling even as her eyes stung and a lump filled her throat. “Yeah, but it’s okay. Someday, I’ll meet someone and get married and have a family of my own.”
Jillian nodded. “You’ll be a good mom someday.”
“Thank you.” Cat laughed and rose, gathering their plates. “But just not in your family, right?”
Laughing, Jillian stood up and pushed her chair into the table. “Right.”
Cat flashed her a smile because Jillian did have a wicked sense of humor, and Cat appreciated it more than Jillian knew.
“Do you want help?” the girl asked awkwardly, glancing at the sink, the plates, and the broiling pan.