Chapter 16
CHAPTER 16
M ac
I’m running late and don’t get to the coffee shop until a little before eleven. I was pleased when Josh invited me to the grand opening the last time I paid him a visit. The way he’s managed to carry on is nothing short of a miracle, but then I guess he already knew what his father was capable of and is relieved he can now live a life free of his influence. It’s good to see him and Alex making a life together. The shop is already busy, but if what I’ve heard about Alex’s coffee is true, then it doesn’t surprise me.
“Detective West.” Alex greets me as I reach the counter.
“Please, call me Mac. I’m off duty. Can I have two cappuccinos to go? I’ve heard talk of the amazing coffee you sell and I’m visiting my mum.”
I turn and catch Annie Walker’s eye. She gives me a nod and I give her a small smile back. She’s another person, since I’ve been in Larchdown more regularly, who’s been advocating for me to get in touch with my mum. I guess the village grapevine will hear all about it now. Just one of the many reasons I dislike small towns—I don’t like everyone, or even anyone knowing my business.
“Mackinley.” My mum’s smile is tentative as she opens the door to me. She’s one of the few people who call me by my full name. She retreats and I follow her through to the kitchen, the heart of her house. I stop, unsure of myself, then I remember the cups I’m holding in my hands.
“I brought coffee,” I say as a way of a greeting, holding out one of the cups to her. “It’s a cappuccino. I know you used to like them . . .” I trail off, as I have no idea what she likes now.
“You remembered, thank you.” Her smile is warm as she takes the cup and puts it on the table. “Sit, please.” She fetches a tin of biscuits and pulls out a chair.
I sit opposite her and take a breath. Suddenly I’m stumped; I don’t know what to say. I’ve talked to every type of member of society, from people with titles to those who have nothing, those who uphold the law and those who break it, but I can’t seem to find the words to speak now. It’s been too long. Maybe there’s no way we can reconcile. But as I look at her, with the hope in her eyes the same as when she surprised me here last week, I can see she wants it, and deep down in a part of me I don’t visit often, I do too. But also I want answers, because what drove me away in the first place was her refusal to tell me the truth. While I’m still cycling through my head how to start this conversation, she begins.
“I’m sorry, Mac. I should never have lied. I never meant to, not to you. I told everyone the story when I moved here, so they wouldn’t ask questions.” She keeps her hands on top of the biscuit tin, retaining it close to her body as a shield, or for comfort, I don’t know.
“Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”
She swallows before she continues. “I’d planned to, but you learned it from Mrs Crocer... that meddlesome woman.” My mum adds an aside and I can’t help but huff a laugh despite the seriousness of the situation. Mrs Crocer was a childminder and one of the worst village gossips I’ve ever known. She was also an opinionated and rather intolerant person from what I recall.
“Then you asked me questions in front of her, and of course I had to answer them, digging myself a deeper hole.”
“Why didn’t you tell me the truth afterwards?”
“Mac, you were five years old, and I still needed Mrs Crocer to look after you when I needed to work. I couldn’t risk you telling her a different story. She was the only person available in the village, and I knew she would take you if she thought I was a widow. If she knew I was a single mum, a girl foolish enough to get herself knocked up, then she would never have even spoken to me, let alone looked after you.” She bows her head, and I see for the first time what it might have been like for her. I’d never considered how hard she must have found it, to be here, bringing me up alone, having people judge her. Even when I found out it wasn’t the truth, I was too hurt to think why she might have done it. When she refused to tell me even then, I was so angry I took off and never looked back, never even stopped to think why, letting the hurt build a rift between us that’s lasted for years. I reach out and take her hand across the table, pushing the tin out of the way.
“I never thought about how it must have been for you. How hard, how lonely?—”
“I was never lonely. I had you.” She lifts her head, her eyes glistening with tears waiting to fall. Tightness grips my chest and closes my throat. I was all she had, and I left. I squeeze her hand tightly, unable to speak for a moment. When I can draw breath again my voice is scratchy.
“Why did you never tell me?”
Her expression becomes tender and one corner of her mouth lifts in an attempt to smile.
“I wanted to, but you were so proud of who you thought your father was. You used to talk about him to anyone who would listen. You told everyone what a hero he was. If I’d told you it would have crushed you.”
“It did, Mum. It did.”
“I know, my love.” This time she squeezes my hand.
My own eyes fill with tears, as I remember the shock I felt when I found no record of my father. I was angry for him, for her. I thought he’d been written out of history. When I confronted my mum only to hear that it was all made up, I turned on her, hurt filling me up so much that I could barely listen. She wouldn’t tell me the truth even then, so I packed and left for Oxford the same day. I was eighteen. The hurt, anger, and shame that I’d believed it all kept me going for a long time, then I replaced it with work. But for a few brief respites, that has been my life—no softness, no lasting love, no light. Over the years the hurt and the anger have eroded me from the inside, like water hollowing out stone. I’m hollow, just an empty shell. Maybe Wren was right; I am nothing without my work. And that suddenly seems like a sad sort of existence.
“I’m sorry. I know I can’t undo the past, but I am so very sorry.”
“Why didn’t you tell me the truth when I asked?” I say quietly.
“Mac, you came in here with your eyes blazing. You were shouting and demanding and even then you were tall, over six feet. A force to be reckoned with. It was so unlike you that I was caught off guard. I had no time to prepare for what you were going to fling at me. I didn’t want to tell you in the state you were in, and then you left before I got a chance to explain.”
Oh, again I’d never considered how it might have been for her. I’ve been told in the force that I can be intimidating, but I guess I never thought how it might have looked. How could I have been intimidating toward her? She was my mum, and I, her son. I loved her... I do love her.
“I would have talked to you when you’d calmed down, but you never came back. I called you but you never answered. In the end I gave up trying. I figured you would come back when you were ready.”
I never did.
I broke her heart the day I left, and I never looked past my own pain to recognise that.
She runs her thumb over the back of my hand, a gesture of forgiveness which threatens to break the dam of my tears.
“I’m sorry, Mum. I allowed my pride to rule me.”
“You always did have a stubborn streak,” she says softly and then gives me a smile, a little light in her eyes that I don’t deserve. “You get that from me.”
She withdraws her hand and brings the tin to the centre of the table.
“I made your favourite,” she says, taking the lid off. “Well, they used to be . . .”
I peer into the tin, seeing the perfect swirls of chocolate and vanilla.
“You made chocolate pinwheels?” They are my favourite... Well, they were. I haven’t had them for years, not since I left home. A wave of nostalgia washes over me, and it suddenly feels like I’ve never been away and I’m eight years old eagerly waiting for the warm cookies to come out of the oven, knowing they taste best while warm and still gooey.
I take a cookie and bite into it, savouring the perfect blend of flavours and buttery taste. My mum looks at me expectantly, and I can’t help breaking out into a grin.
“They’re every bit as good as I remember,” I say and she gives a pleased smile.
“Now, how about that coffee? We can’t let it get cold.” She reaches for her cup and takes a mouthful. “That is delicious.”
I try my own and it is very good coffee, almost as good as—no, maybe it has the edge on my favourite coffee cart. I put my cup down.
“Will you tell me about him? My father?”
She nods but hesitates, as if she doesn’t know how to start.
“Is he still alive?” I ask, remembering I spent the first eighteen years of my life believing my father was dead.
“Truthfully, I don’t know, but I have no reason to believe he wouldn’t be.”
“Tell me about him. What was he like? What is his name?”
“He was tall and handsome, just like you.” She gives a small wry smile as if recalling a fond memory. “His name was Niall Fisher and I met him in a diner just outside Winston-Salem.”
“He’s American?” I exclaim. I would never have thought that.
“Yes, and he was charming and I fell for it, all of it.”
Then I ask the question that’s been burning inside me since I uncovered the lie.
“Does he know about me?”
She shakes her head. “No, he does not.”
“Why? Doesn’t he have a right to know?”
“No Mackinley, I don’t believe he does.” Her face closes down and she looks pained. I reach for her hand again but she pulls it away and folds her hands into her lap. She doesn’t look at me. “He was a charmer, and like most of them he was also a liar. I believed him when he said he was making his way across America, and it had fit in with my plans so we journeyed a couple of days together. It was the first and only time I’d met anyone on that trip and I was flattered, very much so. On the second night I had more to drink than I’d planned and my judgement wasn’t as sharp as it should have been. I tried to be careful, I begged for him to use protection. He agreed, but I was foolishly too drunk to notice. I only realised he’d lied about that too in the morning when I couldn’t find any evidence. And by that time he was gone. All I found was a note thanking me for one last fling before his marriage that very day. I pity the poor girl he did marry.”
She stops talking and I move from my seat and around the table, crouching down next to her chair. This time I take both of her hands and envelop them in my own.
“I had no idea about US healthcare or anyone I could contact, so I hoped for the best and tried not to think about it.”
She grimaces slightly and I understand—along with my stubbornness I also get my willingness to put my head in the sand from her.
“I was already back home when I discovered I was pregnant with you. Even if I’d wanted to get in touch with Niall, which I didn’t, I had no way of finding him. All I had was his name and that he was from somewhere in South Carolina, some logging town near the mountains. I didn’t care about him, but I also didn’t want to mess up the life of his wife. She didn’t deserve that, it was bad enough she’d married someone like him.”
She raises her head, her face sad but her expression tender. She pulls a hand out of my clasp and cups my face.
“Also, I wanted to keep you all to myself. I was too ashamed to stay where I was so I moved here, to have a new life, where no one knew me or would judge me. I invented a story so no one would ask questions. I never expected it to backfire on me.”
I lean a little into her hand and she strokes my cheek.
“You’ll always be my baby, Mackinley.”
I wrap my arms around her and hold her tightly, the first time since I was a teenager. The tears roll down my cheeks, for her story, for mine, and for all the years we’ve lost.