Chapter 18 #2
“Here we go.” Lucy set up her laptop on the kitchen table and Juliet handed her a mug of tea before sitting down. “They’re not statements,” Lucy warned her. “I mean, my art isn’t political or anything. . . .”
“Thank God for that. And stop making excuses. Let them speak for themselves.”
“All right,” Lucy answered, and pushed the laptop towards Juliet so she could see the screen.
Juliet hadn’t really considered what to expect when it came to Lucy’s paintings. She hadn’t thought about them all that much, but if she was honest with herself, she would have expected them to be a little simplistic, a bit amateurish, and yet heartfelt. Kind of like Lucy herself.
What she hadn’t anticipated was that they’d actually be quite good.
They weren’t going to set the art world on fire, by any means, but there was something warm and welcoming about each painting: bluebells in a shadowy wood, daisies blowing in a breeze.
She captured a scene and made you want to enter it.
And yet there was a surprising sorrow about the paintings too, as if the artist knew that flowers were fleeting, that the scene was nothing more than a moment in time.
“I like them,” Juliet said at last.
“You have to say that.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Do you really think,” she told Lucy, “I wouldn’t tell you if I thought they were rubbish?”
“Well . . .” Lucy considered this and then let out a laugh. “Of course you would. So that gives you an admirable amount of credibility.”
“They’re not mind-blowing or anything,” Juliet continued, determined to be both honest and fair. “But not everything has to be. They’re comforting; they make you want to walk in that field or that wood. I like them,” she said again, stating it firmly, and Lucy smiled.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice soft, and Juliet knew it meant something to her, that she did actually like them. And it felt surprisingly good to realize Lucy cared about her opinion.
“So come on, really. What’s going on with you and Peter?” Lucy asked, and Juliet lurched upright, nearly spilling her tea in the abrupt change of subject.
“I told you, nothing—”
“Come on, Juliet. I’m not an idiot. Something happened between you two. You’re avoiding each other—”
“How would you know? You’re at school all day—”
“I live with you, and this is a small village. People notice things, like you not going to the pub quiz, for starters.”
“I only went three times.”
“And so did Peter. Coincidence? I don’t think so. Other people don’t, either.”
Juliet stilled at that, a horrible thought creeping up on her like a cold Cumbrian mist. “What do you mean?” she asked, hardly wanting to ask the question. “Has someone said something to you?”
“Maggie Bains told Diana Rigby that she saw the two of you in the pub last week,” Lucy answered, “and she said Peter walked out in a hurry.”
Juliet rose from the table on the pretense of fetching a dish towel, but more as an excuse to hide her face from Lucy, and the appalled expression she could feel contorting her features.
“What a load of nonsense,” she managed as she swiped at the nonexistent spills on the table. Lucy had, for once, not scattered sugar everywhere.
“Is it?” she asked. “Were the two of you at the pub?”
“Well, obviously. I don’t think Maggie is a pathological liar.”
“Then what happened?”
“Nothing. We had a drink and a chat and Peter had to leave. The end. Honestly, this is ridiculous.” She turned away, the towel clenched in her hand.
“Juliet.” Lucy’s voice was soft, almost tender. “Don’t bullshit me.”
“What gives you the right to get into my business?” she demanded, but it came out less stridently than she’d wanted it to.
“Nothing gives me the right,” Lucy said after a moment. “But you’re my sister and I am actually quite fond of you, even if we had a rocky start and you can be kind of awful sometimes—”
Juliet gave a snort of laughter. “Now don’t start getting all mushy on me.”
Lucy ignored her, continuing more seriously. “I care about you, Juliet, and I can see that you’re hurting—”
“Okay, really, now stop.” She shook her head, dragged a breath into lungs that felt like concrete blocks. “I can’t stand this kind of sentimental claptrap. It’s nauseating.”
Lucy sat back with a little smile and sipped her tea. “So tell me, then.”
Juliet hesitated, torn between the contrary desires of wanting to both unburden and protect herself.
She decided to try for both. “I just made a practical suggestion and Peter took it entirely the wrong way.” She twitched her shoulders as if to dismiss the subject. “He can be such an oaf sometimes.”
“A practical suggestion,” Lucy repeated after a moment. “What kind of practical suggestion?”
“Nothing that onerous, really,” Juliet hedged. She didn’t want to get into details, because she had a strong feeling that Lucy would side with Peter. “Just . . . helping me out with something.”
“This wouldn’t be helping you out with the baby thing, would it?” Lucy asked, and Juliet twitched her shoulders again. Her sister was too perceptive by half.
“Maybe.”
“Oh, Juliet.” Lucy sighed and shook her head. “So what exactly did you suggest?”
“I asked him to donate sperm,” Juliet answered, all brittle indignation now. “I wanted my baby to know his or her father. I didn’t think it was too much to ask, just an afternoon at the clinic in Carlisle—”
“Juliet.” Lucy looked appalled, just as Juliet had thought she would. “You know it would be more than that,” she protested. “He’d be your child’s father.”
“But I told him he wouldn’t have any obligation—”
“And I bet that went over well.”
Juliet pressed her lips together. “Not too well,” she admitted. “He was angry,” she continued reluctantly, feeling she somehow owed Lucy the details now. And she realized she wanted to confess them. “Offended, really.”
“And why do you think that was?”
“Don’t play psychiatrist with me, Lucy,” Juliet snapped.
“We both know why it was. Because he’s not the sort of man to father a child and then just go about his business.
” She blinked rapidly, and then set her jaw.
She hadn’t admitted that to herself, much less to anyone else, but she knew it was true.
They were talking about Peter Lanford, after all.
A man who carried on his family’s flagging farm, who cared for his ailing father.
Who believed in responsibility and duty and even honor.
“If you knew that,” Lucy asked, “why did you make the suggestion to him?”
“Because I didn’t realize . . .” Juliet felt her throat go tight and she swallowed in an attempt to ease the soreness. “When I was thinking about it, it didn’t seem so . . . I don’t know. I was just focused on my child knowing his father. And Peter is a good man. . . .”
“He’s cute too.”
“Oh, honestly, Lucy. If you like holey jumpers and knobbly toes.”
Lucy’s eyebrows shot up. “How do you know he has knobbly toes?”
“He took his socks off once—oh, never mind.” Juliet rose from the table and dumped her half-finished mug of tea in the sink. “This conversation is pointless, because I did ask him, and he got rather cross, and I’m not sure we’ll ever be on speaking terms again.”
“You could say ‘sorry,’” Lucy suggested. “Wait till he cools down a bit, and then talk to him?”
“It’s been over a week. I don’t think he’s going to cool down much more.”
“But have you tried—”
“I’m not sure there’s much point.” And the thought of talking to Peter again, of seeing that awful contempt on his normally gentle face . . . no. She couldn’t do it. She wouldn’t.
“Can I ask you something?”
Juliet gave her sister a shrewd glance. “I think you’re going to anyway.”
“Why didn’t you just let things happen naturally with Peter? I mean, he obviously liked you—”
“He didn’t. Not that way.” The response was automatic, although Juliet couldn’t even say why.
“Juliet, he did. He brought you that rosebush. He came to see you. The only reason he agreed to come to the pub quiz was because you were going—”
“You don’t know that.”
“No, but I think it’s a fair assumption. I might not be great with my own love life, but I can see what’s going on in other people’s.”
“I don’t even have a love life,” Juliet retorted. “Nothing has happened between us in that way.”
“But it might have, if you’d given it time,” Lucy countered. Juliet shrugged, not able to voice or even acknowledge what she felt. It hurt almost unbearably to think she might have messed up even more than a friendship. “Can I say something?” Lucy asked, and Juliet rolled her eyes.
“What, again?”
Lucy gazed at her steadily. “I think you didn’t let something happen with Peter because you’re afraid. Afraid of being rejected the way our mother rejected you. The way that married jerk rejected you.”
Juliet simply stared, trapped by the knowing compassion in Lucy’s eyes. Trapped and horribly, horribly exposed.
“It’s hard to try again, Juliet,” Lucy continued. “Trust me, I know that.”
“Do you?” Juliet managed, the two words squeezed from her throat with painful difficulty.
“Yes, I do. I’m not attempting to equate my experience of our mother with yours.
I know you had it worse. But having her criticize me so terribly in public, having the entire world take notice and do the same?
” Lucy let out a huff of sad laughter. “Yes, I know how rejection feels.” Juliet didn’t say anything, and Lucy took a deep breath, staring at the ceiling.
This conversation was almost as hard for her, it seemed, as it was for Juliet.
“I dated this man, Thomas, for three years back in Boston,” Lucy said.
“He had two sons. I was trying hard with them, but they wouldn’t have anything to do with me, the turds.
” She let out a long, shaky sigh. “Anyway, when the whole thing blew up in the paper, he called it off. Well, technically, I called it off. He said I shouldn’t come around for a while because the publicity would be bad for his boys.
I told him I needed his support and all I got was silence. ”
“And what happened then?” Juliet asked.
“I called it off, but I was really just bluffing. I wanted him to realize he needed to be there for me, and guess what?” She finally looked at Juliet, her face bleak. “He didn’t.”
Juliet thought about asking Lucy if she was thinking about trying again with Alex, but decided not to. She didn’t trust herself to manage a full coherent sentence just then.
“I’m saying all this because I can see how it would feel easier to keep yourself from caring about anyone, from putting yourself out there, even if it’s a little lonely.”
“A little lonely?” Juliet said, her voice torn from her, a ragged thing. “Lucy, you have no idea.”
“Then tell me.” Juliet shook her head, knowing she didn’t trust herself to put it into words. “Juliet . . .”
“I haven’t been a little lonely,” she finally said, her voice hoarse and grating.
“A little lonely is a night at home with the TV. I’ve been .
. .” She stopped, gasping for air as if she’d run a mile, or forgotten how to breathe.
“I’ve been drowning in loneliness. Or frozen in it, a great big ice block of isolation.
” She drew in a ragged breath, hating that Lucy was seeing her like this.
“Oh, Juliet,” Lucy said softly, and she shook her head, vehement now, her voice choking.
“Don’t. Don’t.” She could feel the tears gathering in her eyes and she blinked them furiously back. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m afraid. Maybe I just don’t know how. It doesn’t matter, anyway, because I can’t.”
“You could try—”
“You don’t get it, do you, Lucy?” Juliet said, her voice sharpening.
Anger was better than grief. “I’m not like you.
I don’t bounce around making friends and sending little rays of sunshine everywhere like some kind of do-gooding fairy.
There’s no trying with me. I can’t, and that’s that, and this discussion is over. ”