Chapter 31
Chapter thirty-one
Rachel
“So what did Claire want?”
Meghan stood in the doorway of the kitchen while Rachel stared down at the papers she’d shoved in a drawer. Her application to the University of Lancaster. She closed the drawer and turned to face her sister.
“She’s got a job in London. Figures.”
“So she’s leaving?”
“Looks like it.” Rachel shrugged dismissively and opened the fridge to look for something to make for tea. She wasn’t surprised Claire was leaving, not really. She just hadn’t expected it to hurt quite this much.
“So who will take some of your cleaning jobs?”
She’d forgotten she’d actually told Meghan her plans, after sending that stupid text to Claire, when the world had seemed as if it were shimmering with possibility.
Now she recognized that as an illusion. Except she wasn’t going to let Claire West ruin her plans.
“I don’t know. I’ll figure something out. ”
“You’ll still go to uni?”
Rachel closed her eyes briefly. “Why do you care?”
“Because I actually care about you,” Meghan answered. “You dolt.”
“Thanks.”
“I mean it, Rach—”
“I know you do.” Rachel took a deep breath.
“We’ll figure something out, Meghan. I wasn’t depending on Claire to make it all work, trust me.
” Except she sort of had been, at least a little.
She’d envisioned Claire taking over part of the business, stepping in when Rachel went to classes. Being there.
Sighing, Rachel closed the fridge door. “How about fish and chips for tea?”
Meghan brightened. “Seriously? We never get takeaway.”
“Maybe it’s about time.”
“What about Mum?”
“You can stay with her while I go—” Rachel stopped. “Actually, how about you go? And I’ll stay.” Maybe things needed to change.
“Okay.” Meghan’s smile looked genuine, and almost strange because of it. No mockery, no taking the mick. “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”
While Meghan went out, Rachel settled Nathan in front of the telly and then went to check on her mother.
Janice was lying propped up in bed, her face slack, her expression glazed and vacant.
Just looking at her made Rachel’s insides twist with sympathy and more than a little horror.
To be so helpless, so trapped . . . It made her realize what a brave face her mother had put on her back injury all these years, trying to downplay the pain, not to fall apart when her husband left her alone, an invalid with three kids to raise.
Rachel had been so consumed with how much she’d lost, she’d never really considered how much her mother had. A husband, a partner, a life.
“Hey, Mum.” She took a step into the room, and her mother blinked at her, her face jerking in what Rachel had come to recognize as a smile.
“You all right?” She sat on the edge of the bed, something she rarely did, and touched her mother’s hand.
Her flesh was plump and puffy, cool and slightly damp.
Surprise flared in her mother’s eyes at the touch, and Rachel felt another twist inside, this time of guilt, because how often had she ever shown her mother affection?
She’d stayed in the doorway; she’d busied herself as an excuse to keep from dealing with the difficult stuff.
The stuff Meghan had had to deal with every single day.
“You have a rehab appointment on Monday,” she said, and her mother gave a jerky nod—at least Rachel thought that’s what it was.
She and Meghan had taken their mother to rehab twice, both times requiring a monumental amount of effort simply to get her out of the house.
A wheelchair had finally arrived courtesy of the NHS, but even heaving their mother from bed to chair was a Herculean task.
Even harder was the actual rehab; Rachel had noticed how much better Meghan was at it than her.
She sat with their mother, listened to the nurses, offered encouragement.
Smiled while Rachel shrank back. She must have been doing similar stuff for years, and Rachel had never known.
Rachel had tasked Meghan with taking Janice to most of her doctor’s appointments, and then she’d breezed in once in a while to make sure everything was on track. Supervising without suffering.
Janice tried to speak, but Rachel couldn’t make out the garbled words. She shook her head. “Sorry, Mum. I can’t understand.”
Janice tried again, and then again, enunciating each word as best as she could. “Oo . . . ah ree . . . ?”
Finally Rachel realized what she was trying to say. You all right? Or areet, if they were going to be Cumbrian about it.
Gently Rachel squeezed her mother’s hand. “Yes, Mum,” she said. “I’m fine.”
Rachel didn’t see Claire for the rest of the weekend, and on Monday morning, when she drove by the post office, she didn’t glimpse her inside. Had she already left, without so much as a goodbye? Wouldn’t be the first time.
Monday afternoon Rachel canceled her last cleaning job so she could be back home when Lily returned from sitting her exam. She’d made a cake, a gooey chocolate mess that hopefully tasted better than it looked. Her heart was beating hard, although with excitement or nervousness she couldn’t tell.
Then the front door opened, and Rachel came into the hall to see Lily trying to slip upstairs.
“Well?” Rachel asked eagerly, even though Lily’s closed expression didn’t bode well Anticipation burst in her chest anyway. “How was it? Not too hard, I hope?”
Lily turned around, taking a deep breath. “I didn’t sit the exam, Rachel.”
For a few seconds the words didn’t penetrate. Rachel simply stared at her, her mouth opening and closing like a fish. Finally, stupidly, she said, “What?”
“I didn’t sit it,” Lily repeated, her voice clear and firm, and she walked past Rachel into the kitchen.
Rachel followed, anger and incredulity blooming inside her where once a wonderful anticipation had been. “You didn’t . . .” She could barely get the words out. “You didn’t sit the exam? You didn’t take it?”
Lily was at the sink, pouring herself a glass of water. She shook her head.
“Lily. Why on earth . . . ? Did something happen? Were you ill—”
“No. I just decided I wasn’t going to take the exam.”
“You just decided,” Rachel repeated.
Lily looked at her warily. “Yes.”
“You just decided, even though you’ve spent the last two years preparing for this exam.”
“Yes—”
“You can retake it anyway,” Rachel cut across her, her mind racing. “We can say you weren’t feeling well. You’ll have to delay entrance a year, but you can still sit it next year.” She closed her eyes briefly. “Damn it, Lily.”
“I’m not going to take it next year, Rachel.” Lily’s voice was almost gentle. “Or ever. I don’t like biology. I don’t want to study it in university. I certainly don’t want to take out forty thousand pounds’ worth of student loans to study a subject I’ve never enjoyed.”
“But . . . but you’re so good at it.”
“And you’re good at cleaning people’s houses. Does that mean you want to do it for the rest of your life?”
“It’s not the same—”
“Maybe it is,” Lily returned evenly. Suddenly she seemed very grown-up. “More than you’ve ever been willing to believe.”
Rachel raked her hands through her hair, unable to formulate any coherent or measured response.
This was so unexpected, and yet maybe that was simply because she’d been so willfully blind.
Meghan had warned her. Lily had been trying to tell her.
But for her sister to simply throw everything away . . .
“Why?” she asked finally. “Why didn’t you at least sit the exam? Since you studied for it? You could still turn down Durham, but at least you’d have had the qualification.”
“Because I knew I’d cave to pressure and go anyway if I did,” Lily said.
“Pressure? You mean . . . from me?” Lily nodded. Rachel’s breath came out in a rush. “Is that how you see me?” she asked. “As someone who is pressuring you? Nagging you?”
Lily hesitated. “Sometimes,” she said. “Yes.”
Rachel walked into the sitting room and sank onto the sofa next to Nathan, who immediately curled into her, leaning his head against her shoulder. Absently Rachel stroked his hair, and Lily followed her into the room; she sat opposite and waited, her hands tucked between her knees.
“Are you angry with me?” Lily asked in a small voice.
“Angry?” Yes, she was angry. She was bloody furious, but even more than that, she was sad. So terribly sad. “I’m not angry, Lily,” Rachel said wearily.
“Really?” Lily sounded skeptical—and no wonder.
Rachel had spent a lot of time being angry or irritated or just impatient, so sure that she was doing the right thing. The hardest thing. And it hurt to think that maybe, all along, she hadn’t been.
“I don’t know what I feel,” Rachel admitted. “Sad, mostly.”
“Because I’m not going to Durham?” Lily’s voice had thickened, as if she was fighting back tears.
“Yes,” Rachel admitted. “I had such plans for you. And I still think going to Durham is the best thing for you.” She sighed and leaned her head back against the sofa.
“But I recognize that decision is not one for me to make. You have to make your own choices, Lily, and that means making your own mistakes.”
“So you think staying at home is a mistake.”
“I’m afraid it’s a mistake,” Rachel corrected carefully. “You don’t realize the opportunities you could have. . . .”
“Actually, I do. I went to Durham, Rachel, remember? I saw the beautiful old buildings and the student union and all the rest of it. I know what I’m giving up. Mostly.”
“Then why . . . ?”
“Because I don’t like biology. I don’t want to be a biologist—”
“You know a degree from a good university can get you just about any job—”
“Not the kind of job I want.”
Rachel fell silent. She knew there was no point to this argument; Lily had already made her choice. “So what is your plan exactly?”
“I’m going to apply for a part-time course at the Lakes College, in art and design.”