Chapter 19
After Kyle had left, Lucy was floored by a wave of exhaustion.
She picked herself up and went into the sitting room, where her mother and Faith had been exiled.
Elizabeth’s trinkets decorated the mantlepiece and her crystalware was proudly displayed in a mahogany cabinet, as it had been since Lucy was a little girl.
She was glad to see they had lit the fire, so the room was cosy and inviting.
She flopped down onto the sofa beside her sister.
Faith shuffled up beside her and squeezed her arm. ‘Are you okay?’
Lucy nodded mutely, not trusting herself to speak in case tears came out instead.
‘You look exhausted, you poor thing. How did it go?’
‘I guess it was good to see him and talk … but we’ve a long road ahead.’
‘Has he gone back to Dublin already?’ Madeleine asked.
Lucy shook her head. ‘He’s going to stay in Cavendish Hall for the night.’
‘Cavendish Hall?’ Faith asked, clearly surprised.
‘Well, I could hardly ask him to stay here. We’ve no free beds. And besides, even though we’re trying to work through our problems, I still need space. It wouldn’t be good to have him under the same roof while we sort it all out.’
‘So, is he planning on sticking around for a few days?’ Faith asked.
Lucy nodded. ‘We’ll see how it goes. We’re going to meet up again tomorrow.’
‘Well, I think it’s a good thing that you’re talking to him,’ Faith said. ‘No matter what you decide, sis, you know I’ll support you.’
Lucy smiled at her younger sister. She had always been her rock. ‘Thank you.’
‘Would someone care to enlighten me? What’s going on between you and Kyle?’ Madeleine asked.
Lucy sighed. ‘I should probably have told you, but Kyle and I are going through a tough time right now. We … we’re having some difficulties.’ She was deliberately vague, knowing her mother would barge in with opinions that she didn’t want to hear.
‘Go on, darling,’ Madeleine encouraged.
Lucy stalled. Should she tell her mother what was happening? She couldn’t deal with one of Madeleine’s lectures, but she knew she’d have to come clean eventually. ‘We’ve been … well, we’ve been trying to have a baby, but it’s not happening for us,’ she confessed.
‘Well, I’m sorry to hear that,’ Madeleine said, her voice soft. ‘I didn’t realise. It’s not easy to go through something like that.’
The girls looked at her, unused to her uncharacteristic sympathetic tone and understanding.
‘It sounds like you’re talking from experience, Mum?’ Faith said softly.
‘Well, your dad and I had a bit of a wait to get pregnant too,’ Madeleine admitted.
Lucy’s mouth hung open. Their mother so rarely mentioned their father, and the girls seldom spoke about him, for fear of upsetting her. ‘H-how long were you and Dad trying for?’
Madeleine smiled at Lucy. ‘We were married for three years before you decided to make an appearance. We had given up hope. We were resigned to the fact that we were going to be a childless couple, then lo and behold, I was sitting in the kitchen one day, and your father was cooking fish for dinner, and all of a sudden I couldn’t stand the smell.
I had to run and be sick. Then I realised it had been a while since I’d had a period, so I took myself off to our doctor and I was overjoyed to find out that we were expecting you.
’ Madeleine smiled at the memory. ‘Then when Lucy was only three months old, I felt that same nausea again, this time when I was cooking eggs. It reminded me of when I had been pregnant with Lucy, and so I did a test and discovered I was pregnant again. Neither of us could believe it. After waiting three years to get pregnant, I’d been able to get pregnant twice in quick succession.
It was a busy time for us, but it was marvellous in so many ways. ’
As she spoke, she looked younger, almost girlish. When she talked about the past, the stress and tension left her face and the years faded away. They got a glimpse into what she must have looked like before she became a hardened career woman.
‘You’ve been through it too,’ Lucy said.
She was so used to their mother being a closed book.
The woman had so many walls around her, she rarely let her guard down, so for her to admit something so personal and share her own story really touched Lucy and helped to console her at a time when it felt as though, there would never be any light at the end of the tunnel.
Madeleine nodded. ‘I have, darling. I know how tough it is to keep your chin up month after month. It takes its toll. In those days people didn’t talk about it, so it felt like a very lonely road to travel.’
It was difficult to imagine this version of their mother: a young woman who was happy to be a stay-at-home mother to her daughters.
‘Try not to lose hope, darling. Although I know it’s easier said than done… How is Kyle dealing with it?’
Lucy shrugged. ‘I don’t think it’s as hard on men.’
‘He might not be showing it, but it’s difficult for men too, trust me.
Your father tried to put on a brave face for my sake, and sometimes that used to infuriate me.
If I was upset, he tried to lift my spirits by saying something like “it’ll happen next month, don’t worry”.
It used to drive me insane. It felt as though he was dismissing my feelings, as though the whole ordeal was water off a duck’s back for him.
It used to make me think that if he could say something so trite, he didn’t really understand what I was going through.
It was only one day after you girls were born and we were talking about the long road we had travelled to become parents that he admitted that he had been as devastated as I was by the whole ordeal.
It pained him to see me so broken-hearted every month, and the only thing he could do was to try and stay strong for my sake, but he hadn’t meant to come across as uncaring or insensitive.
As difficult as it is right now, you need to try and stay united.
I pray you will be blessed with the pitter-patter of tiny feet one day, but you were a couple first and foremost, whether you have children or not, and you need to remember that Kyle is still the man you fell in love with. ’
It was a side to Madeleine they weren’t used to seeing.
For the first time in her life, Lucy appreciated her mother’s wisdom and advice, and found herself keen to hear more.
They were so used to Madeleine sticking her oar in with unsolicited advice, usually about their education – or, in recent years, their careers – so to hear her personal experience of such a difficult topic was helpful to Lucy.
It was food for thought. Kyle was struggling too but he had shown it differently.
‘Well, I think it’s too late for that because he wanted to take a break.’
‘A break?’ Madeleine asked cautiously. ‘From you – or from trying to conceive a baby?’
‘He said it was from trying to conceive, but I can’t help but feel it’s a break from me he needs,’ Lucy admitted sadly, fingering a loose thread on her jumper.
‘I see.’ Madeleine sighed. ‘So that’s why you came down here?’
Lucy nodded.
‘Oh, lovey, what a horrible few weeks you’ve had.
’ Madeleine slowly got to her feet and balanced on her crutches, then crossed the room to where Lucy was sitting and pulled her into a hug.
For a moment Lucy froze, taken aback by the unexpected display of affection.
Her usual self-defence mechanism with her mother was to push her away but this time, for some reason she didn’t understand, she allowed her mother to hold her.
She found herself snuggling into her mother as if she was six years old again and she was being comforted because she’d fallen off her bike and had grazed her arm.
If only her mother had a Band-Aid to fix her wounded heart.
Lucy felt tears well in her eyes and she willed herself not to cry. She hadn’t cried yet. She had shed tears, of course, when Elizabeth passed away, but she had refused to allow herself to be upset over her marriage. The tears spilled down her cheeks. Mortified, she quickly brushed them away.
‘Oh, sweetheart,’ Faith soothed her, jumping up and running into the kitchen for a tissue. ‘Here you go,’ she said, returning with the box and handing one to her sister.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m crying.’
‘Because you’re hurting,’ Faith said softly. ‘It’s okay to cry, you know? It’s not a sign of weakness.’
Lucy was so used to always holding things together, of always being the strong one.
Why was she dissolving now? When they were growing up after their father had died, even though she was only thirteen months older than Faith, Lucy had taken on the role of caring for Faith as their mother had thrown herself into work.
‘Faith is right.’ Madeleine held her daughter tightly. ‘It’s okay to let people in. We all need a cry now and again.’
Lucy couldn’t help laughing through her tears.
Madeleine laughed too. ‘I know I’m not great at taking my own advice. Maybe we’re more alike than I realised…’
‘Do you know something? This has been lovely, the three of us together, talking and crying and laughing. It’s been a long time.’ Faith beamed.
‘Look at my beautiful daughters,’ Madeleine said, tears brimming in her eyes as they embraced.
‘I’m so proud of both of you. I feel I owe you an apology.
I’ve been so busy in my job that I haven’t always been there for you, I realise that now.
I should have known what was going on in your lives; I should have supported you.
Being away from work has given me the time to see that.
I was so caught up in the corporate world that I couldn’t see anything outside work.
I’m so sorry, girls. From now on, things are going to be different. Family comes first.’