Chapter 27 #2
Fiona didn’t answer for a moment. Lucy could hear the ragged tear of her own breathing and she closed her eyes, wishing that her mother didn’t affect her this way. She was too tired and fragile for this now.
“I haven’t proved to be much good at that role,” Fiona finally said. “I think I’m better as Fiona Bagshaw the Artist than Fiona Bagshaw the Mother.”
Lucy stared at her mother with her mouth agape. “I didn’t know you even tried,” she said, shocked at the spite in her voice and yet knowing she meant it utterly.
“What did you want me to do, Lucy?” Fiona asked, eyebrows raised. “Wear a frilly apron and bake cookies for you and your friends? I was never going to be that sort of woman.”
“You don’t have to resort to stereotypes,” Lucy protested. “But as it happens, yes, baking cookies or even buying them from the store would have been nice. Thinking about me once in a while—”
“Do you really believe I never thought about you? Never cared about you?”
Lucy considered the handful of happy memories she had of her mother, of those rare times when she’d felt as if Fiona actually cared.
They’d been so fleeting. Her mother would give her a moment’s attention when she’d been a child and then move on.
“‘Never’ is a strong word,” she said. “But it’s pretty close to how I feel. ”
“I admit I haven’t been the best mother,” Fiona said after a pause. “But I’m not completely thoughtless. I chose not to go to your gallery showing for your sake, Lucy, not mine.”
“So you’ve said. But I really don’t see how writing that awful editorial was doing me a favor.”
“I know it probably didn’t look that way—”
“That,” Lucy interjected, “is a gross understatement.”
“I wanted you to succeed on your own terms, Lucy, like I did. Trust me, it means so much more—”
“Fine. I get that. And actually, Mum, I wanted that too. I never traded on your fame. I usually tried to avoid it.”
“I know,” Fiona said.
“You could have just said you weren’t going to go,” Lucy said, her voice cracking.
“Privately. Why did you have to go and write an editorial about it? And trash my paintings in a national newspaper? You were making it as hard to succeed as possible, but I don’t even care about that.
It was the fact that my mother was treating me that way that hurt so much, not that the famous Fiona Bagshaw didn’t like my work. ”
Fiona was silent for a long moment, her face drawn in haggard lines. “I never said,” she finally answered, “that I didn’t make mistakes.”
“Actually, you’ve always implied that you don’t,” Lucy replied. She felt tired now, tired and defeated. She and her mother would never see eye to eye on this, or anything. And maybe she needed to accept that. Accept that her relationship with her mother would always be fraught, fractured. Painful.
“What about Juliet?” Lucy asked abruptly, and Fiona stilled, her gaze widening. She said nothing. “I did tell you I’ve been living with her for the last three months.”
“Yes,” she answered warily.
“Juliet thinks . . .” Lucy didn’t want to betray her sister’s confidences, but she didn’t want to ignore them, either. “Why don’t you ever see her or speak to her?”
Fiona pressed her lips together. “That’s not your concern, Lucy.”
“She’s my sister, and I am living with her. I think I have a right to ask.”
“What did Juliet tell you?”
Lucy hesitated and then said, “Not all that much. Only that you never wanted her and the two of you never had a real relationship.”
Fiona looked away. “That’s true.”
“Mum.” Lucy stared at her, and reluctantly Fiona turned back to look at her. “Why? Why have you never . . . ?”
“Like I said, that’s between me and Juliet.”
“But you’ve never told her, either.” Fiona said nothing and Lucy persisted, “Don’t you think she deserves to know?”
“Some things,” Fiona answered, “are better not known.”
“Don’t you think you should let Juliet decide that?
” Still Fiona said nothing and wearily Lucy shook her head.
She was so tired of it all. She half wished she’d never come back to Boston, even though she knew she’d had no choice.
Her mother may have let her down a thousand times, but she didn’t want to let her down in return.
“I can’t let her decide,” Fiona said, and to Lucy’s shock her voice choked. “I wish I could. I wish . . .” She took a deep breath. “I wish I hadn’t made so many mistakes, but I know I did. And maybe the biggest mistake was not admitting that.”
Lucy searched her mother’s face, saw regret warring with stubbornness. “And now?” she asked.
“I’m about to have major surgery, Lucy. I can’t . . . I can’t cope with anything else right now.”
“But eventually?” Lucy pressed. “Whatever mistakes you’ve made, Mum, you can still right them. You can still talk to Juliet.”
Lucy thought she’d refuse, retreat into hauteur as she often did. Then finally she gave a little nod. “Maybe,” she said, and Lucy knew she’d have to be content with that.
A few hours later the surgery was over, and Lucy joined her mother in the hospital room. Her mother was groggy, her chest swathed with bandages, her gaze unfocused.
“Well, I survived.”
“Yes, you did. The doctor says it went well.”
Fiona glanced down at her bandaged chest. “I suppose I’ll need some new artistic inspiration.”
Lucy smiled, glad her mother could joke at a time like this. “This might be a whole new start to your career.”
“I didn’t want a new start,” her mother answered, her face crumpling a little, and then she leaned her head against the pillow and drifted back to sleep.
Lucy gazed at her mother lying so still in the hospital bed and thought how fragile she looked. In sleep, her silvery bobbed hair spread out on the pillow, Fiona appeared diminished, the aggressive vitality Lucy had always associated with her mother now absent.
Her mother, Lucy thought as she sat down next to the bed, was just a woman. Fallible, vulnerable, if not completely lovable. Human.
It comforted her, in a strange way, to know her mother was weak. Lucy knew she’d built her mother up in her eyes, ever since she’d been a child. She’d bought into the Fiona Bagshaw the Artist persona just as her mother had, and somehow they’d both forgotten that Fiona was just her mum.
And she was her daughter.
Leaving her mother to sleep, Lucy went out into the hall to check for messages. She switched on her phone, and her heart lightened to see Juliet had called. Twice. Quickly she pressed the button to call her back.
“Hey,” she said when Juliet answered with her usual brisk “Tarn House.”
“How did it go?”
“Okay. She’s out of surgery. The doctor says it went well, but there’s still a lot ahead of her. She’s hoping to have breast reconstruction in a few months, when the mastectomy has healed.”
“So she can do a whole slew of new sculptures. My Breasts, Rediscovered.”
“Probably,” Lucy agreed. She couldn’t tell from Juliet’s tone whether she was still angry with her, but at least she’d called.
“How are you?” Juliet asked. “How’s Boston?”
“Fine. I haven’t seen much of it. I’ve just been to Mum’s apartment and the hospital.”
“Are you going to see your friends?”
She hadn’t even texted Chloe to say she was back. “Yes, probably. Since I’ll be here for a while.”
There was a silence, and then Juliet said flatly, “You mean you’re staying through her recovery, until she has the reconstruction?”
Which meant months, not weeks. “I haven’t thought that far ahead, Juliet, but I can’t just run off.”
“I never said that.” Another silence, taut with tension.
“It’s too bad you’ll miss Christmas here,” Juliet said finally.
“The carol service down at the Lifeboat Station with Father Christmas—well, Rob Telford in a shabby old Santa suit. And of course the tractor pull down on the beach on Boxing Day is fun, especially for the children. The Christmas Market in the village hall is small, but sweet.”
“I’d love to see all of it,” Lucy said. She could feel a lump forming in her throat.
“Maybe next year.”
Lucy took what she hoped her sister meant as a peace offering. “Yes, next year,” she said. “Definitely.”
After she’d hung up from Juliet, she decided she might as well as call Alex. Get all the awkward phone conversations over with.
“Hello?” Alex’s voice sounded faintly harassed, and Lucy could hear the girls behind him. It sounded like they were emptying the dishwasher, possibly onto the floor.
“Alex, it’s Lucy.”
“Lucy—Poppy, a little quieter, please!” There was the muffled sound of his hand on the receiver. “Sorry about that. It’s a bit chaotic here.”
“I miss that chaos,” Lucy said. She heard Charlie bark and her heart gave a sorrowful little pulse.
“How’s your mum?”
“Okay,” Lucy said, and told him what she’d already said to Juliet.
“So it sounds like you might not be back by January,” Alex said neutrally.
Lucy’s hand tightened on her phone. “I’m not sure,” she said. “It really depends on my mother’s recovery and . . .” In that moment she couldn’t think what else it depended on. “Well. You know.”
“Yes, I know,” Alex said, and again she felt that awful subtext running beneath their words.
“Alex, I want to—”
“Look, Lucy,” he cut across her. “I understand that your mother needs you. Trust me, I do. If my mother had stuck around long enough for her to need me, I’m sure I’d have been there like a shot.
” Which made her feel only worse. “But the truth is, your leaving has made me think.” He paused, and she heard him moving through the house, closing a door.
“Maybe we should just put things on—on hiatus.”
She wasn’t surprised, and yet his suggestion still hurt. Unbearably. But she wouldn’t beg. Not this time. “If you think that’s a good idea,” she answered after a pause.
“I do. It’s not what I want, but I think it’s sensible. I don’t want Poppy and Bella to get their hopes up for something that might not happen.”