Chapter Thirty
D anni screeched the Land Rover into the big farmyard, kicking up a cloud of dust. She’d been meaning to get her mail redirected for months, but she supposed there was no point now. In fact, she wasn’t even sure why she was picking it up.
She banged through the front door, stopping at the big wooden table in the hall that held keys and syringes and letters and God knew what else.
Probably only bills and crap about farming regulations, she thought, as she picked up a bundle clearly marked with her name.
She shoved them into her coat pocket and was about to make her escape when a voice called her name.
“Danielle.”
Danni winced. There was only one person in the world that called her by her full name. Well, two if you counted the policeman that had once given her a speeding ticket. Assuming that Hector hadn’t decided to employ an ex-cop, that meant that there was only one other person standing behind her.
Turning slowly, as if delaying the inevitable, Danni finally found herself face to face with the woman that had given birth to her and then spent the following decades perfecting the art of disappointment. Her mother stood in the living room doorway, arms crossed, looking as formidable as ever.
“We need to talk. ”
“Mum, I really don’t—”
“Now.”
Danni considered running. It was a solid option. She was in good shape, her mother was wearing slippers, she could probably make it. But then, her mother knew where she lived, so the long-term prospects of escape didn’t look promising.
In the end, she tossed her coat onto the hall table and followed her mother down the corridor toward the kitchen.
The old wooden table was scarred and scratched and, out of habit, Danni took the second chair on the right side. That had always been her seat when she lived at home. Not that this was home. Not anymore.
Her mother put a pot of tea on the table, poured two cups out of it, then sat down opposite her. Not her usual seat at the table.
Danni folded her arms and sighed. “Alright. What do you want?”
Her mother took a measured sip, then said, “I heard about what happened with this Eleanor.”
Danni stiffened. “Oh, yeah? And what of it? Want to gloat at me failing at marriage? Would that make you feel a bit better about yourself?”
For a second, her mother looked at her, then she shook her head. “Just wanted to say I’m sorry. Even if I never met the woman.”
“Why do you even care?” Danni scoffed.
Another moment of silence, then her mother sighed. “Because, despite everything, you’re still my daughter.”
That shut Danni up. It was a rare thing for her mother to say something so direct, so honest. Rarer still for her mother to admit anything that came even close to an emotion or a feeling.
“Look,” her mother continued. “I know we’re not close. We never have been, and I expect we never will be.”
“Well, that’s uplifting,” Danni muttered, grabbing hold of her mug of tea.
“Do you want to know why?”
Danni raised an eyebrow. “Oh, please, do tell. ”
“We’re too much alike, you and I,” her mother said. “I look at you and I see me. And it’s not always a pleasant sight.”
“Did you get me in here just to fling insults around?” asked Danni, stung. She hadn’t spoken to her mother for months, and this, right here, was the reason why. Everything ended up being an argument.
“I wasn’t commenting on your appearance,” said her mother.
“I’m simply saying that looking yourself in the eye isn’t always an easy thing to do.
You see the mistakes you made, you see how you wanted to do things different.
” She sighed. “And, if I’m being honest, I look at you and I get jealous. Always have been, I suppose.”
Danni nearly knocked her tea over. “What?”
Her mother looked down into her cup. “You were always strong, always fearless. Even as a kid. You went after what you wanted and never let anyone stop you. That’s the kind of woman I always thought I would be. And watching you become that, well, it wasn’t easy, truth be told.”
Danni didn’t know what to say. She’d spent practically her whole life thinking that she wasn’t enough like her mother.
That she was too brash, too reckless, too wild and willful.
But jealous? All this was new. It was something she’d never heard before, and it grated against her sense of reality, her sense of how things should be.
“If you admired me so much, why didn’t you support me when I bought the farm?” Danni asked, a hard edge creeping into her voice. “All you ever did was tell me I was wasting my time and money, telling me I was going to fail.”
Her mother let out a long breath and looked up. “Because I wanted better for you.”
“Better than what?” Danni demanded. “Better than the beautiful home you have? The healthy life, the decent kids, the loving husband?”
Her mother’s mouth twitched into something almost like a smile. “Yes. Everything except the husband.”
Danni blinked. She wasn’t sure what she was hearing, wasn’t sure what was happening here.
“Farming life is hard, Danielle,” her mother said softly.
“You of all people should know that. It’s hard and unpredictable and there are no breaks, no holidays, no thanks.
And at the end of the day almost all small farmers have to sell up.
The only thing that made all of it worth it for me was your father. ”
The large chair at the head of the dining table stood empty.
Danni couldn’t look at it, hadn’t been able to for two years now.
Not since her dad went out to the top field and didn’t come home again.
A heart attack, they’d said. Nothing anyone could do, which seemed wrong because as far as Danni knew, her dad had had the biggest heart in the world.
But it was only now, looking at her mother, that she realized that she’d never truly thought what that loss had meant to anyone other than herself.
“It’s none of my business,” her mother said.
“I know that. I know I’ve got no right telling you what to do and not do with your life.
But if there’s one thing that I know, it’s love.
The kind that burns deep and hard and doesn’t ever go out.
And I’ll tell you something, girl. You have that and you’re throwing it away, well, you’re not as like me as I’d have thought. ”
Danni swallowed, her throat tight and thick.
And she actually looked at her mother. Really looked at her. Not as her mum, the complaining, shouting, nagging woman that had always pushed her to do bigger and better. But as the woman who looked a little smaller, a little sadder, than Danni had remembered her. A woman who was, perhaps, lonely.
“I might sell the farm,” Danni said finally. It seemed the best she could do, let her mother think that she’d been right all along.
But her mum simply nodded. “You can come home anytime. But I don’t think you will.”
Danni exhaled. “No. I don’t think I will either.”
“Then go,” said her mother, pushing her chair back. “Have the adventures that I didn’t have.” She cast a steely-eyed look at Danni. “But before you do, you make sure you make things right with this Eleanor. ”
Danni bit her lip. “What… what if she doesn’t take me back?”
“Then she doesn’t,” shrugged her mother. “You can’t help that. You can only do your part, speak for your own feelings on the matter. But you need to know that you did the right thing. That’s the one thing about you, Danielle. You always do the right thing.”
Danni rolled her eyes, but couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at her lips. “Yeah, yeah.”
“Don’t you roll your eyes at me, young lady,” said her mother. And she turned her back, going to the big kitchen sink and starting the washing up. “You see that brother of yours, you tell him that I’ll need a pint of milk if he’s expecting any lunch from me.”
“Yes, mum,” Danni said, standing up. She paused for a second, looking at her mother’s back. “Thanks.”
“Don’t go getting all touchy-feely on me. Now get out of my kitchen and go tend to your own business.”
IT WAS EIGHT o’clock before Danni could get away from the farm. The windows of The Fox and Hounds were lit up bright in the growing darkness, and she pulled into the pub car park and jumped out of the Land Rover, knowing she was late.
“It’s about damn time,” Hector grumbled, when she finally got inside.
Tommy, who was already halfway through a pint, narrowed his eyes at her as she slid into a seat. “Alright, what’s going on? You’ve been weird all week.”
“I’ve not been weird,” Danni protested. “I’ve just been… thinking.”
“Oh, that’s dangerous,” Indi muttered, taking a sip of her drink.
“Charming,” said Danni. “And aren’t you supposed to be working? You can’t drink on the job.”
“I work in a pub,” said Indi. “Drinking is part of the job. And I’m on break, thank you very much.”
Hector rapped on the table. “Order, order,” he said. “Some of us have a farm to run. Are you going to tell us why you called us all here or not?”
“It’s like at the end of Poirot when he gets everyone together to tell them who the murderer is,” said Tommy.
“You’ve not killed anyone, have you Tom?” Indi asked.
Hector cleared his throat.
“Sorry, sorry,” said both Indi and Tommy.
Danni leaned forward, planting both hands firmly on the table. “I’ve got you here because I need your help.”
Tommy groaned. “Oh no, not another one of your plans.”
“Excuse me, my plans are brilliant.”
“Your plans are chaotic,” corrected Indi. “And half the time they involve someone almost dying or at least getting covered in muck.”
Hector sighed. “Alright, fine, what did you need our help with?”
Danni grinned. “Just a little thing.”
“What little thing?” Indi asked suspiciously.
“A little plan that I’m calling Operation: Save Brewster Manor,” said Danni. “And it’s a doozy.”