Chapter Twelve #2
‘And tidied up and put away still festering.’
‘Yes,’ Rachel said, and she looked over at Moira with less wary eyes.
Dominic had been right. She must be pretty special to have got all that information out of her dad.
Rachel was starting to see how much she had lost by keeping her distance from people, and as her father helped Phil in with the cake, she relaxed and opened up to Moira.
‘Does it change things?’ Moira asked. ‘Knowing that he called?’
‘A bit,’ Rachel admitted. ‘Although I know he was trying to get hold of photos and things. Still, it helps to know that he paid for the funeral.’
They watched the dancers on TV for a moment, but then Rachel had a question for Moira.
‘How did you get Dad to tell you?’
‘I asked him,’ Moira said. ‘After that dinner we had I knew there was something bothering him, but when I asked what it was he said it was none of my business.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I didn’t say anything. I went and got my coat,’ Moira said. ‘And when he asked why I was huffing off, I told him that if he wanted me in his life, then it most certainly was my business. That I’m not going to be fobbed off.’
And apparently there was someone else who refused to be fobbed off.
‘Er... Rachel...’ Her dad stood at the living room door, his face bright red and clashing with his lilac jumper. ‘You’ve got a visitor.’
And there behind him stood Dominic.
He did not stand quietly, for there was such a presence to him, dressed in black jeans and a black jumper, unshaven and pale.
She couldn’t take her eyes off him.
‘Dominic.’ Moira stood and introduced herself. ‘I’m Moira—a friend of Dave’s.’
‘It’s nice to meet you, Moira.’
Rachel watched as Dominic walked in and shook Moira’s hand. It was all so terribly polite and so very odd to have Dominic Hadley back in the Walker living room.
* * *
It was more than odd for Dominic. There was the strangest feeling of déjà vu as he stood at the fireplace where he all those years ago had told Dave Walker that he’d got his daughter pregnant.
He’d been terrified then, but he wasn’t terrified now—because he was here to finally put things right.
‘I’m sorry to mess up your evening,’ Dominic said to the one friendly face in the room.
‘No, no,’ said Moira, ‘it’s no bother. We were just watching the television.’ She glanced over to Rachel, whose skin was bright red, her eyes all puffy and glassy from crying. ‘And having something to eat...’ she added rather lamely.
‘Rachel.’ Dominic turned to her then. ‘I was hoping that we might speak.’
She nodded—what else could she do?
‘Perhaps we could go for a walk?’
‘Sure.’ She pulled herself up from the chair and gave a thin smile to her worried-looking dad.
‘Take care,’ Dave said, and his voice was gruff.
Dominic could feel his reluctance to let her leave, but he stepped back and allowed the two of them to pass.
* * *
Rachel couldn’t quite believe he was here. Her head was still whirring from the fact that he had called her dad. Twice. That the man she’d thought had walked away without a backward glance had spent two years sending money to her father.
That was the Dominic she had known—the man she had loved from the start.
‘He’s watching us from the window,’ Dominic said as they walked. ‘I can feel it.’
‘I know...’ Rachel sighed. ‘He means well.’
‘He does,’ Dominic said. ‘He’s a good guy.’
She gave a mocking laugh, because she knew the two men she loved did not get on.
‘He really is,’ Dominic said. ‘I can’t imagine losing the woman I love and then having to run my own business as well as raise five kids.’
‘Nor can I,’ Rachel admitted.
‘And then, just when he’d got them almost done—just when the youngest was close to finishing school—along came some guy and got her pregnant.’
Her cheeks were sore from the tears that were still trickling down as they walked familiar streets, passing their old school and the tree where they had shared her roll on the first day of the school year—where she’d smiled her metallic NHS braces smile at Dominic Hadley as she’d handed over her heart.
Because she had fallen in love at first sight.
And love could be so hard.
Impossible, even, when you were told it was just a crush, that you were too young, and your feelings would fade.
They paused a moment at the school gates, where she’d stood waiting for him to finish his exams so she could tell him about the baby, and she remembered watching his smile fade.
‘Come on,’ he said, and they walked on past the school and towards the park.
‘Why did you leave without saying goodbye?’ Dominic asked quietly.
‘Because we’d said all we had to say.’
‘Had we?’ Dominic checked. ‘Because there are an awful lot of things I want to say to you that I haven’t, and I’ve always felt you’ve been holding back.’
‘That’s right. I’m cold.’
‘You’re not, though,’ Dominic said. ‘Are you?’
‘No.’
They arrived at the park—the same park where her brothers had swung her and bounced her, so she’d return home with a smile rather than admit to her pain. The same park where she’d lain on the grass next to Dominic and told herself she could never have him.
There were so many hurts, but there was one in particular that still festered beneath all the others that were beginning to heal.
‘I loved you,’ she told him, without looking at him.
‘Yet you never once told me that.’
‘Because I was scared to,’ Rachel admitted. ‘Because I loved you and you didn’t love me.’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘But I did know that,’ Rachel said, and turned to face him. ‘I loved you the day I met you and I had to hold back from telling you over and over. I would have married you baby or no baby—would you really have wanted to hear that?’
He was silent.
‘The day we got married I wanted to come to this park and spin and dance like I was Maria in The Sound of Music. I wanted to cry because I was so happy. Yet there was a part of me that knew you’d only married me because of the baby.’
‘Perhaps, but—’
‘No buts,’ Rachel said. ‘Please don’t lie to me here, Dominic.
You married me because I was pregnant. I knew it, you knew it, and everyone else knew it too.
And so, yes, I held back. I was so happy, but I felt guilty for being happy, so I tried to hold back, because I didn’t want to smother you.
I didn’t want to be hanging-off-the-lampposts happy when the truth was we were only together because of the baby. ’
‘No,’ he said. ‘We were together first.’
‘You didn’t love me, Dominic. At least not the way I loved you.’
Rachel felt oddly relieved. The truth was out and there was nothing to hide any more.
* * *
Dominic opened his mouth to speak and then closed it. Because her revelation had been unexpected. Because he’d thought he might have to coax an admission of love from Rachel.
Now he faced the force of it, as they sat on the bench in silence and looked out at the park.
Dominic needed to think about this—not just dismiss her deepest thoughts, or sugar-coat things just to whitewash their history—and he took a moment to consider.
She was right, and she was wrong, and she was all shades of everything in between.
‘You say you loved me, Rachel, but you never trusted me. I know you were grieving and depressed after we lost Christopher, and I’m sorry for my handling of that, but you pushed me away right from the very start.’
‘No—’
‘Yes,’ he said firmly. He stated it calmly and as fact. ‘You never let me in. Even when I asked about your mother...’
‘You didn’t want to hear all that.’
‘Of course I did,’ Dominic refuted. ‘I didn’t expect you to open up the day you first told me, but even over the weeks, over the months, over the years, you never gave me the parts of you that mattered the most.’
He said it not as a criticism—in fact, he held her hand.
‘I get it, Rachel. I didn’t then, but I do now. You were shut down by your family. But as for me not loving you...’
He was trying to be logical, but he was also bewildered.
‘I didn’t know what love was back then, Rachel,’ he admitted.
‘And I’m not making excuses—it’s the truth.
My parents told me they loved me in the same breath as they told me all the things they did for me.
But that didn’t feel much like love. And then everyone told me I’d ruined both our lives and that we’d never make anything of ourselves, and that didn’t sound a lot like love. ’
Rachel turned and looked at him.
‘I know that I wanted to look after you, and that I failed to do so.’
‘It wasn’t your fault.’
‘It felt as if it was at the time,’ Dominic said.
‘You say I didn’t fight for us—but I tried.
I even offered to move in with your dad!
And when you said it was time to put it all behind us, to move on with our lives, that all we’d done was make each other unhappy, I believed you meant what you said.
You know how I felt about my mother staying with my father.
I would never have wanted to keep you in an unhappy marriage. ’
‘I overheard your dad talking to you,’ she admitted.
‘He never spoke for me. Those were his words—never mine. I’ve barely spoken to him since that day. Why didn’t you just ask me what I wanted? How I felt?’
‘Because I was scared to,’ Rachel admitted. ‘Because I knew how much I loved you and I didn’t want to hear that you didn’t love me.’
‘And do you still?’
‘Still what?’
‘Rachel!’
* * *
‘Do I still love you?’
Rachel looked at his velvet brown eyes and she was simply too tired to deny, deny, deny. It was finally time to be honest, no matter what the consequences.
‘Yes, Dominic, I do.’
‘Then what were you doing walking out on me the other day? You left me with those photos, Rachel, and that hurt.’
‘You’d just told me you didn’t want both a relationship and work,’ she reminded him, ‘and then you headed out to get takeaway.’