Chapter 25 #2
“Why don’t we see you anymore?” she demanded.
The awkwardness, Lucy thought, was palpable. “You do see me, Poppy,” she said in that cringing too-jolly voice she’d stopped using with children ages ago. “At school every day.”
“I don’t mean at school,” Poppy declared. “At home. You never come round anymore.”
As if she’d had a habit of coming round, when she’d been only twice. But two times to a seven-year-old probably felt like a lot.
“I’ve been busy,” Lucy said feebly, and Alex reached for Poppy’s hand.
“Let’s get in the queue for hot chocolate,” he said, and Poppy turned to him with an eager smile.
“And toffee apples?”
“Fine.” He pulled Poppy along, and Bella followed them with one last fleeting glance at Lucy.
Irritation warred with hurt and Lucy decided not to give in to either. This discomfort between her and Alex had to end. Either they could be civil and preferably normal with each other or they couldn’t.
“So what do you think of Guy Fawkes Day?” Maggie Bains asked as she came up to Lucy.
“It seems like a nice way to get the village together,” Lucy answered. “I don’t know about burning effigies, though.”
“Oh, we don’t do that anymore,” Maggie assured her, then added, “Not much, anyway.”
“Good to know.”
Maggie narrowed her eyes as she cocked her head towards Alex, who had lined up at the food stall with Poppy and Bella. “How are things with Mr. Kincaid, then?”
For a moment Lucy thought Maggie knew about her and Alex. Then she realized Maggie must be asking about work, and relief rushed through her. “Oh, fine. You were right—his bark is worse than his bite.”
“He’s a good man really,” Maggie said. “But he hasn’t had an easy run lately, bless him.” She laid a hand on Lucy’s arm. “You must give him time, Lucy.”
So it seemed Maggie did know about her and Alex. At this rate Lucy wondered who didn’t. Soon they’d feature in a question on the pub quiz. Which staff member was seen entering the head teacher’s house?
“Thanks for the advice,” she mumbled, and with a fleeting smile she left Maggie and went in search of some solitude.
She stayed on the edge of the crowd, away from the light cast by the flames of the bonfire, watching as people mingled and talked, laughed and joked.
She felt both part and not part of it all; the village had embraced her in so many ways, and she had embraced it.
But in a few weeks, if she went back to Boston, this would be nothing more than a quaint and distant memory.
And if she stayed?
Lucy’s heart lurched at the thought. She was afraid of so many things: of interaction with Alex being uncomfortable forever, and of not being able to find a decent job. Of failing again, just as she had in Boston. She didn’t want the people she’d come to know and like see her fall flat on her face.
And if they did? They might help you back up again.
“Lucy?”
Lucy turned to see Bella standing next to her. Dressed completely in baggy black, the girl was nearly invisible in the darkness. “Hey, Bella,” she said cautiously.
Bella dug her hands into the pockets of her hoodie, staring at her feet as she asked in a low voice, “Look, I have to know. Did you and Dad, you know, stop being friends because of me?”
“Oh Bella, no.” Lucy started to reach for her to give her a hug, and then thought better of it. She patted her on the shoulder instead. “No, not at all. We’re still friends.”
Bella glanced at her, scorn combating with uncertainty in her young face. “I’m not stupid. Dad liked you, and now he never talks about you anymore. And like Poppy said, you don’t come round.”
“I only came round twice, Bella—”
“But you guys liked each other. I’m not a baby. I could tell.”
Lucy stayed silent, wondering how honest she should be.
She felt instinctively that this should be a conversation Alex had with his daughters, not her, but Bella was here with her now and maybe she deserved some straight answers.
“You’re right, we did like each other, but I’m only here temporarily and your dad has a lot going on in his life.
So we decided to take a step back and just stay friends.
” She blew out a breath, hoping she hadn’t opened a Pandora’s box of teenage angst. “So it’s all okay. ”
Bella kicked at the ground with her trainer. “It’s not okay,” she muttered. “Dad’s miserable.”
Was it wrong for Lucy’s heart to lift a little at this admission? Probably.
“He might be,” Lucy allowed, “but you know he cares about you, right?” Bella just shrugged and she persisted, “Don’t let this stupid grown-up stuff mess up your relationship with your dad, Bella.
He loves you. I know he doesn’t get it right all the time and it’s going to be hard to talk about all the awkward girl stuff with him, but he really does love you.
I believe that with my whole heart, and you should too. ”
Bella was still staring at the ground, but Lucy could tell from the little sniff she gave that she’d gotten to her. Maybe. “I mean it,” she added for good measure.
“The thing is,” Bella said after a long moment, her voice so low Lucy had to bend down to hear it, “I kind of liked having you around.”
“Oh, Bella . . .”
“But I know I didn’t act like it, and Dad might have messed things up with you because he thought that would be better for me. But it isn’t.”
Lucy swallowed past the ache in her throat. “Whatever might have happened between me and your dad, Bella . . . it wasn’t just about you and Poppy. It was about us—”
Bella looked up, her expression turned accusing. “You mean because you’re leaving? Because you’re not happy here?”
“I’m very happy here,” Lucy answered. “And the truth is I don’t know if I’m leaving or not, but—”
“What?” Bella stiffened. “Does Dad know that? That you might be staying?”
Lucy felt the conversation slipping out of her control. “No, but I’m not sure it really matters—”
“Of course it matters,” Bella retorted. “Lucy, you have to tell him.”
“I . . .” Lucy imagined herself waltzing up to Alex and telling him she was staying in Hartley-by-the-Sea.
Somehow she didn’t think he was going to snatch her into his arms and kiss her senseless.
Her optimism stretched only so far. But she did need to talk to Alex.
For all of their sakes. “I will talk to him, Bella,” she said.
“But don’t expect it to change anything. ”
She found him a little while later, standing apart from everyone else, a cup of soup cradled in his hands. Poppy and Bella were hanging out with some kids from school, and Lucy knew she needed to take the opportunity to speak to Alex when he was on his own.
Sucking in a deep breath, she started towards him. “Hey, Alex.”
He turned to her, his expression already guarded. “Lucy.”
“I just came over to say that I don’t want things to stay weird between us.”
“They’re not weird,” Alex protested automatically, and Lucy raised an eyebrow. “All right, yes, they might be a bit weird,” he amended. “But I’ve never had a—a thing with someone at work before. I’ve not even sure what the policy on that is.”
“Good thing we ended it before it went anywhere, then.” She shifted her weight; her feet were going numb from cold in her Wellies. “How did you meet your wife, anyway?”
“In a coffee shop,” Alex answered after a second’s pause.
“She came and sat down right opposite me and started chatting. She asked me why I looked so serious. She invited me to the cinema that same day.” He sighed, his distant gaze on the leaping flames of the bonfire.
“I don’t think I ever would have worked up the courage to ask her out on my own. ”
The little snippet of his former life made Lucy feel a rush of sadness—and jealousy. “You must miss her.”
“I do, but I miss what we had a long time ago.” His mouth tightened.
“I shouldn’t have moved her up to Hartley-by-the-Sea.
She didn’t like it here, but I’d always had this crazy dream of living here.
” He slid an almost embarrassed glance towards her.
“I came here as a kid, with a group from the foster home. A day at the seaside, it was, and I remember standing on the beach and looking at all the families with their pails and butterfly nets and ice-cream cones and wanting to be a part of it all.”
“Oh, Alex.” She knew exactly how he’d felt as child, because it was the same way she’d felt. On the outside, looking in.
“But Anna didn’t have that dream. She was from a wealthy family in Macclesfield, and it was a step down for her to live on my teacher’s salary.
Her parents kept buying her things—little things, at first, and then a car and a holiday for her with the girls.
. . . I tried not to mind, but it always felt like they were showing me up.
The last straw was when they bought us a house, this gorgeous Victorian villa in Manchester that cost half a million pounds, at least. And they didn’t even ask us first.” He shook his head.
“I don’t know why I’m telling you all this now. ”
“Maybe you need to tell somebody.”
“Maybe,” he allowed. “In any case, soon after they bought us the house, I accepted the job as head teacher here. I told Anna it was for the girls, that I wanted them to grow up with the freedom a place like this provides, but I was also doing it to get away from her parents. And if I was chasing that stupid childhood dream, I never found it here. Anna died only six months after we arrived here, and they were a pretty miserable six months.”
“I’m sorry,” Lucy said. She’d had no idea that asking Alex about his wife would bring up all these bad memories.
“So am I. Sorry I didn’t do things differently, and sorry that Anna didn’t, either.” He turned to her with a weary smile. “And sorry I off-loaded all that onto you.”
“I don’t mind, Alex.”
“I’m sorry things didn’t—didn’t work out between us,” he said in a low voice.