Chapter Thirteen
Diana
Something was off. Diana knew as soon as she saw them sitting together. But what exactly was off, she couldn’t put her finger on.
Faye wouldn’t look at her. The usual rosy shade tinting her cheeks and chest was now a sickly white. She turned to Molly, searching for any clues in her expression, but she was the opposite. Relaxed. Comfortable. Oddly so.
What is going on?
“Everything alright?” she asked, keeping her voice level.
“Yeah. We should go, or we’ll be late.” Molly jumped up from the bench, casting a glance behind her. “You coming?”
Faye nodded, but her face said she’d rather do anything else. They headed towards the reception where the offices were held, something unspoken thick in the air.
Had something happened?
Diana was too afraid to ask.
But then Molly filled in the gaps for her, and her eyes almost fell out of her head.
“Mum, this is Faye. We kinda used to date.”
The bundled ball of nerves in her stomach jumped into her throat. Used to…date?
A beat of silence stretched too long as Diana glanced at Faye. Her guts wound together, twisting into something ugly and sickly. Did Faye know that she was Molly’s mum?
Seeing the same horror reflected on Faye’s face, she knew the answer to that. Of course she didn’t—but god, what a mess.
When did they date? How did Diana not know about this? What else had she been missing in Molly’s life?
She hummed a response, a mixture of mild interest and intrigue. “Were you together long?”
“Mum,” Molly gasped. “You can’t ask that. Honestly.” As Faye pushed through into the reception, Molly hissed at her, “We didn’t exactly end things amicably.”
They waited by the wooden desk, time seeming to slow down as Diana’s brain fought to catch up. She needed more information than this.
“Funny how we bumped into each other here after all this time,” Molly chirped, looking at Faye in a way that made Diana want to throw up. “Don’t you think?”
“It is quite…improbable,” Diana replied, chancing a glance at Faye. She looked how Diana felt. Sick. Like she might collapse at any moment. She’d been planning to see her later, to pick up where they’d left things last night, but now…
God. She really might vomit if she thought about it too hard.
She could just imagine Jason’s reaction. Not only have you abandoned your daughter, you’ve traumatised her as well.
Her heartbeat kicked up a notch as she pictured Selena reporting her to the local news. Respected professor involved in family sex scandal.
Thankfully, the man with the hairiest knuckles Diana had ever seen walked through the doors; she’d never been so happy to see Marco Marcos, even if his name suited a tacky kids’ TV presenter rather than a doctor.
“Ah, you’re here.” He straightened his glasses. “Are you ready to start?”
“Yes.” She nodded, waiting until he’d unlocked his office and headed inside before turning back to the others. “I’ll see you later.” Her gaze locked with Faye’s, and a swirl of conflicting emotions tumbled in her belly before she looked away.
Don’t throw up. Don’t throw up.
She closed the door behind her, taking a deep breath in as she contemplated knocking her head against the wood.
So much for having a little harmless fun. She’d just made everything severely more complicated.
And if Molly found out?
All the progress she and Molly had made would be lost. Not just lost, but blown into teeny, minuscule pieces never to be fixed again.
How has this happened?
“Everything alright?” Marco Marcos asked, his deep voice jarring her upright.
Diana stepped away from the door, remembering where she was, and dusted her hands over her playsuit. Be professional. She offered him the sincerest smile she could muster, though her hands were still shaking. “Absolutely fine.”
He pursed his lips, then offered the seat opposite with a practised gesture.
Diana sank into the cool faux leather. On the inside, she continued to sink lower and lower, wishing she could disappear completely.
She couldn’t have spent the night with one of Molly’s exes. Life couldn’t be that cruel.
She suppressed the urge to roll her eyes at herself. Life absolutely could be that cruel.
“She’s gone, Dee,” her dad’s words echoed in her ears, and suddenly she was small again, sitting in the oversized armchair in the living room. The room still smelled like fresh bread from that morning.
She’d been pencilling her mum a picture of colourful flowers, the kind she always admired in the fields, albeit more lopsided.
Their neighbour, Mrs Waddington, had told her it was a lovely idea, so she’d sat in the corner, creating picture after picture until her fingers ached, until her neighbour had returned home to let her two terriers out for a wee.
But now Mrs Waddington had gone, and her dad stood in the doorway like a hulking shadow, groaning as he dropped his bags beside the door.
“Gone where?” she asked, in a small voice.
He groaned again as he slipped his coat from his broad shoulders and hung it over the door. His long days working the farm meant he was always carrying aches and pains somewhere.
Diana held a breath as he crossed the room, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lighting one. The orange tip glowed, highlighting the thick scruff on his chin. He grasped her shoulder, giving it a little shake.
“She’s gone with the angels now. With Grumps and Granny Sue.”
“No.” Tears she’d been fighting all day filled her eyes. “Tell her to come back.”
His hand stilled as he took another drag, the stinky smoke curling around them. “That’s not how it works, Deedee.”
She scrunched her nose, tears escaping freely.
She hated the nickname. She hated how teasingly he used it after her mum asked him not to.
Deedee Dumdum. She hated the smoke and how it would stick to everything like a parasite, lingering long after the cigarette had been stubbed out.
Mum always made him smoke outside or in the kitchen when Diana was home. But Mum wasn’t here.
It was all wrong.
“It’s just the two of us now, Deedee.”
Diana moved her shaking hands from her face, and the bright lights of the office brought her back to the present. A lone tear slipped down her cheek, and she brushed it away with her fingers.
Wordlessly, Marco Marcos offered her a box of tissues.
She tugged one from the top and dabbed under her eyelids.
Her chest tightened as the flood of emotion continued to rock inside her.
How she waited up every night, hoping there’d been a mistake and her mum would walk through the door.
How she took on the role of housekeeper while her dad worked himself into the ground, smoking like a chimney.
Her life had changed irreversibly that day. The weight of it still floored her. It was too much for a little girl to carry.
“I never got to say goodbye.” She sniffed, embarrassed by her confession.
Marco Marcos stilled, kindness falling over his features as he waited for her to continue.
“My mum died when I was ten. Brain aneurysm. One day she was there, the next…she was gone.”
“I’m sorry. That must’ve been very difficult for you.”
Diana wiped her nose. “I’ve been thinking about her a lot. Since being here.” She sighed, feeling a lump rise in her throat. “There was so much I never got to say to her.”
“It sounds like you’re still holding onto a lot of that pain.”
Her eyes snapped up from the beige carpet. “Have you ever lost a parent, Marco?”
He wilted a little under her gaze. “No, I haven’t.”
“Then how would you know how it feels?”
Another wave hit her hard, and she put a hand to her forehead, feeling a headache coming on as another memory came to her.
Her dad slammed his empty glass down on the counter, plucking the photograph from her fingertips. “You need to stop with all this blubbering now. It’s not helping anyone.”
She’d wiped her eyes on her sleeve, flinching when her dad’s voice boomed through the kitchen again.
“And stop dirtying your frock. What would your mum say to that?”
“Sorry, Dad.”
“We have to move on now.” He snapped the album shut and picked it up. “This is for your own good.”
Diana bit hard on her lip as his heavy footsteps sounded through the house, drawers slamming open and closed.
If he hid the album in his bedroom, she knew she’d never find it.
Diana never went in there anymore. The safe space where her mother used to read to her, wrapped up in the softness of fresh sheets, had become a dark, stinky pit the sunlight never touched.
She’d not seen any photos of her mum since that day.
She touched a finger to her lip, finding blood where she’d been biting down. She let out a sigh. “I’m sorry, Marco. I know you’re only trying to help.”
“That’s alright.” He readjusted the glasses on his nose before taking them off and cleaning them with a tissue. “Grief that’s not dealt with can manifest in many ways. We can push it into corners and sweep it under rugs, but it’ll always be there unless we grieve for what we lost.”
“I have grieved her. I grieved her every day until—”
Her dad’s furrowed brow popped into her vision, cigarette smoke teasing at her nostrils.
Revisiting those memories, her body had curled in on itself.
The home she’d once loved, filled with homemade apple pie and her mum’s happy hums from the kitchen, became a bear’s cave where she was stepping on eggshells.
The best days were the spring and summer months, when her dad worked long, gruelling shifts.
She’d always rise after he’d left for work and go to bed before he arrived home—the best way to avoid conflict.
But those quiet winter months filled her with dread.
He always found something to criticise. The laundry wasn’t white enough, and the soup was too bland.
Diana couldn’t wait to get out of there.
But she’d go on to trade one suffocating man for another; she just didn’t know it yet.
Sometimes, when the nights were lonely and her mind a pit of jabbing thorns, she feared that what Jason said about her was true. Could she have been a better mother herself if her own hadn’t died? What would her own mother say about this situation with Faye? Would she scold her or offer her advice?
Diana had finally let loose a little, followed her instinct, tried to have some fun, and where had it got her? With herself in boiling hot water and someone threatening to close the lid.
What am I going to do?
“You grieved her until what?” Marco prompted gently.
She shook her head, but she could feel the words about to spill like the torrent of emotions flowing out of her. “My dad hid all our photo albums because I wouldn’t stop crying. We never really spoke about her after that.”
“How did that make you feel?”
“Terrible.” A tear streaked down her cheek, and she wiped it away with the tissue. “Sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologise for here.”
“I’m not sorry, I just—” She pressed her lips together, frustration replacing the sadness swelling inside.
“People deal with grief differently. That’s not to say there’s a right or a wrong way, but you were just a child, Diana. You needed more support.”
“I’m fine.”
He scribbled some notes on his pad, then looked up at her. “Have you ever thought about writing a letter to your mum?”
“I don’t think the Post Office deliver where she is, Dr Marcos.” She cringed. “God, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be so rude.”
A hint of a smile twitched his mouth. “Don’t worry.” He threaded his knuckles together. “Writing a letter can be a powerful tool. Expressing the feelings and emotions you’ve buried can help you move forward. It can bring closure, getting to voice all the things you never got a chance to say.”
Diana nodded, letting his words sink in. “A lot’s happened in thirty years.”
“If anything comes to mind, and you’d like to voice it, I’m here to listen.”
She didn’t have the strength to laugh. There was so much swimming in her mind. The pain from her mother’s death, the confusion and stress with Faye and Molly, the pressure of her career hanging in the balance. How was there room in her brain for anything else?
But she met Marco’s kind gaze, breathed in deep, then started talking.