Chapter 2 #2
After more than two decades away, it was no wonder the word home felt so odd when she was talking about Port Agnes.
It was probably why James had looked at her as if she’d suggested moving to Mars.
Yet in the wake of her own marriage falling apart, she was suddenly sure that moving back to Cornwall was the only thing she could do.
Her mother had returned to the village a few years ago after almost twenty years away, when Dean’s mother had died and left her cottage to them.
So now her parents were back to living in the same village.
Her father and Marion had a son together, Charlie, who was now twenty-two and on a post-university adventure travelling through Asia.
Rowan adored her little brother and she got on well with both sets of parents and stepparents, but for years it had been like a military operation keeping them apart to keep the peace.
She’d always hoped they’d patch things up one day and there’d been a definite thawing of the previously very tense relationship between her parents, once her mother and Dean had moved back to Cornwall.
So she knew they’d all rally around to provide a support network if she asked them to, and she needed that more than anything now that her marriage was over.
‘When you say home, do you mean Cornwall?’ James had continued looking at her like she had two heads.
‘Yes.’ She’d been more certain than ever in that moment, the doubt on his face just serving to harden her resolve.
‘I could come with you.’
‘What the hell for?’
‘I’ve been thinking…’ She should have cut him off then and told him he had no right to think anything, let alone make any kind of suggestion about where she and the kids might go.
He’d made this mess and she was the one who needed to find a way to try and clear it up.
Except for some reason she hadn’t stopped him, she’d wanted to hear just how ridiculous his suggestion for the way forward was going to be, but even she hadn’t anticipated what came out of his mouth next.
‘There’s no reason why everything has to change. At least not all at once. We could stay living as a family and raising the kids together. In fact, it would probably be easier now we all know where we stand.’
‘Oh, would it?’ Rowan had somehow kept her tone level, instead of screaming at him, even if sarcasm was dripping from her voice. ‘And what about Euan, is he going to move in with us too?’
‘Of course not.’ James had tutted then, as if she was being deliberately difficult. ‘But I could apply for a parish somewhere, and if Euan got a job up there he could get to know the children bit by bit, as Daddy’s friend at first and then—’
‘As the man who blew their parents’ marriage apart?’ She’d cut him off, but she was shaking her head. ‘No, actually that wasn’t Euan, that was you. If you think I’m being part of some weird throuple, just to make life easier for you, then you’re sadly mistaken.’
‘It’s not about us, it’s about the kids.’ The pious look on his face had made her blood boil, as he tried to turn it around on her.
‘Is that who you were thinking of when you were snogging his face off outside the food bank? Anyone could have seen you, but I did.’ He’d tried to protest, but there were things she’d needed to get off her chest and he’d lost the right to take the moral high ground a long time ago.
‘I know you think I’m supposed to understand and feel sorry for you, but no one would expect me to do that if Euan had been another woman.
Either way, you don’t get to have any say in where I take the kids until we can get through the fallout of what you’ve done, and you’re ready to be honest with them.
You sure as hell don’t get to come with us while you work through it all.
In fact, you’re going to have to find somewhere else to live while I’m working my notice, because I can’t spend the next few months pretending nothing’s wrong. ’
‘If I move out everyone’s going to start asking questions and what if Odette or Pippa give one of them the answer?’
‘It’s not going to stay a secret forever.
’ Rowan had sighed, because she’d been no more ready for it to come out than he had.
She was still processing it herself. She might think his idea of slowly introducing Euan to the children was ridiculous, but giving them time to adjust to life in Port Agnes before they had to come to terms with everything else didn’t seem like a bad idea at all.
‘You’ve been offered the chance to take a sabbatical to Tanzania before and I think now would be the perfect time for you to go.
By the time you’re back my notice period will be almost over and I’ll have been able to make a plan for the longer term. ’
‘I don’t think we should rush into something so final.’ James had widened his eyes. ‘And Tanzania… It’s not somewhere I can see myself—’
‘It’s up to you.’ She’d cut him off, her tone as cold as ice.
‘You can either face everyone now and tell them the truth, or you can give me some space and get out of my life until I have the chance to get out of yours. But I’m leaving and taking the kids with me, and there’s nothing you can do about it. ’
She’d been so sure back then that she was doing the right thing for Bella and Theo, and nothing that James, Pippa or Odette could say had dented that belief.
She’d held on to that certainty through handing in her notice and applying for new jobs all over Cornwall.
It had sustained her through the interview at the same village school she’d attended as a child, overriding her fears about taking such a huge step back in her career.
She’d accepted the job and would be starting after the holidays, having rented a house in Port Agnes, still certain it was right for her children.
But now, looking at her daughter’s reflection in the rear-view mirror again, she was suddenly far less certain.
‘Okay sweethearts, we’re here.’ Rowan forced a smile as she pulled up outside the place that would be their home for at least the next six months and turned to look at her children.
Usually they’d have bickered about which one of them got to sit in the front seat, but they’d both been determined to sit in the back, despite the fact that on every other trip to Cornwall Bella had insisted it made her feel sick.
‘I want Daddy.’ Theo stuck out his bottom lip and his sister reached for his hand.
‘Me too, but he said he’ll come and see us as soon as he can.’ Bella threw her mother a look of undisguised disgust. ‘As soon as she lets him.’
Digging her nails into her palms to stop herself from reacting, Rowan let go of a long breath.
She’d promised herself she wouldn’t badmouth James to the children, no matter what.
She knew better than anyone how harmful that could be to a child and she’d never forgotten her father saying that her mother couldn’t possibly love her, not really, not when she’d been willing to choose Dean over her.
Part of her had always believed he must be right and she didn’t want Bella or Theo to ever feel that way, even if the children thought all of this was Rowan’s fault.
‘Let’s go and have a look at your new bedrooms, shall we?
Then you can FaceTime Daddy and let him see them too.
’ Keeping the smile firmly fixed on her face, Rowan refused to give into the tiredness that felt as if it was seeping into her bones.
She had to make the best of this for the children and keep reassuring them that it was all going to be okay.
She had no idea if that would turn out to be true, but the ‘fake it until they made it’ approach was the only option right now.
All Rowan had to do was hold it together until they were both in bed tonight.
Only then would she give in to the doubts that had crept in more and more the closer they got to Port Agnes, and the tears that would inevitably fall when she did.
* * *
The day after Rowan and the children arrived in Port Agnes, she woke up at 5 a.m. to a cacophony of sound.
The seagulls screeching out to one another were so loud that she wouldn’t have been surprised if a couple of them had been perched at the foot of her bed, their beady yellow eyes trained on her face.
Thankfully the only thing at the end of the bed were suitcases.
She’d done her best the night before to unpack everything they’d brought with them and to make the house feel a bit more like their home, and less like the holiday let it usually was.
There’d been room in her parents’ houses for her and the children to have been able to stay, and she’d received offers from both of them.
But she’d have felt like she had to justify choosing one over the other and that was something she definitely didn’t feel up to doing.
There was also the risk if she stayed with her mother that something would be said about the ending of her marriage, which she didn’t want the children to overhear.
And if she stayed with her dad, he might start asking too many awkward questions that she didn’t feel ready to answer either.
So, despite the extra cost, renting somewhere had felt like a far better option.
The cottage was furnished, so making it feel like their home mostly relied on putting up some photographs and a few carefully selected ornaments, like the little wooden horse they’d bought on a family holiday to France.
She’d included photos of James amongst the selection, knowing how important it would be to the children.
Even though seeing his smiling face, as he played the devoted husband and father in the pictures, made her want to hurl the photo frames against the wall and watch them smash into a thousand tiny pieces.