Chapter Thirty-Two
‘So, you finally told him. It was about time,’ Mel said, reaching for the last choux bun on the plate. She shot me a reluctant Do you want this? expression, and I shook my head. I had a feeling if I’d gone for it, I could have ended up with a fork in the back of my hand.
We’d both taken time off work that morning to attend the second fitting for the outfits Jackson had chosen for us to wear at his wedding, which was fast approaching.
‘If that dressmaker could only see you now,’ I teased.
‘I did warn her she’d need to let out the seams again,’ Mel said around a mouthful of pastry and cream.
My eyes dropped to the small bump of her belly, and I smiled, loving the person behind it before I’d even met them.
Having demolished the final pastry, Mel delicately patted her lips with a napkin. ‘Don’t think I didn’t notice that you avoided answering me, by the way. How did Rhys take it when you told him about your mum?’
‘Better than you did,’ I said. ‘There was no melodramatic gasping or clutching of the chest in shock.’
‘In my defence, I was extremely hormonal when you told me. I still am. You have no idea what this pregnancy business does to you. And as for libido, it’s just about off the charts. Steve has started to look very scared at bedtime.’
I laughed.
Mel settled herself more comfortably on the wooden bench in the café booth where we’d stopped for a quick coffee before going back to our respective jobs.
‘It went okay with Rhys, though?’ Mel asked, returning to the topic like a bloodhound on the scent.
I closed my eyes and the scene from the previous night began playing in my head like a movie reel.
I’d waited over four weeks before telling Rhys, and I still wasn’t entirely sure why.
‘You’ll feel better when there are no secrets between you,’ Henry had told me with a look in his eyes that suggested he knew what he was talking about.
‘It’s just so hard to admit that you haven’t been entirely truthful with someone who you lo—’ I’d broken off, shocking myself far more than I had my elderly friend, who I suspected knew me quite well by this point. ‘Someone who you care about,’ I’d amended.
‘Secrets can fester,’ Henry had told me. ‘Nothing you tell that man of yours will make him change his mind about you, but the longer you leave it, the harder it will get.’
Both Jackson and Mel had said exactly the same thing.
They’d both been shocked that I’d hidden my mother’s death from them for so long, but it hadn’t damaged our friendship.
So why was I so worried that it might do so with Rhys, that I’d let all of September slip by before I finally found the courage to tell him?
We were having dinner at my place. We alternated between his home and mine on the evenings when we chose not to go out. And I’d wanted to be on home turf when we had the conversation I had been putting off for far too long.
Perhaps I should have told him all those weeks ago, after Annalise had barged into his flat.
But we’d been so new, so caught up in the whirlwind of burgeoning feelings that I hadn’t wanted to bring us down.
Is lying by omission as bad as just flat-out lying?
It was a question I asked myself repeatedly, usually in the middle of the night on the occasions when we didn’t share a bed.
They were becoming fewer and fewer. Some of my clothes and toiletries had migrated to his flat, and I’d cleared out a drawer for him in my closet.
I liked where we were going. I liked the time we spent together, both in and out of bed.
I liked the way he spoke about future us, as though it was something that might actually happen.
And I really, really liked the memory of the night when he’d gathered me into his arms, our bodies still hot and sated from making love, when he’d quietly confessed, ‘For so long I was scared of ever letting anyone get close enough to hurt me again, but now I know the only thing I should have been scared of was letting the wrong person in.’ His voice had dropped until I had to strain to hear the words. ‘Thank God it was you I found.’
There was only one thing I didn’t like about us, and that was the fact I’d been hiding something from him, lying to cover up something I should have come clean about a long time ago.
‘Do you usually spend Christmas with your mother?’
It was a reasonable question for him to ask, but it had come out of nowhere.
I dropped the serving spoon onto the table, leaving a trail of pasta sauce.
I bought myself a few seconds’ thinking time as I retrieved a cloth.
It was time. It was past time. Part of me felt terrified, the other part felt relieved.
I cleared up the spill slowly, before lifting my eyes to his.
‘We do. There have been times when it was a bit strained, but it always felt wrong not to see her over the holidays.’
He nodded understandingly, an emotion I was afraid was shortly going to evaporate.
‘I probably will visit her this Christmas,’ I said, choosing my words carefully. ‘In fact, I’ve been visiting her fairly regularly for quite a while now.’
He put down his drink and looked at me with obvious surprise. ‘You have? I thought you hadn’t heard from her for ages.’
I nodded sadly. ‘That too is true.’
I could almost see the wheels turning in his head as he tried to make sense of my conflicting remarks. My lips were suddenly really, really dry. I licked them nervously.
‘Isn’t her home quite some distance from here?’
I nodded, my thoughts going to the house that I still hadn’t been able to bring myself to sell.
‘Then how have you been able to visit regularly?’
I drew in a deep breath, readying myself for the disappointment I was convinced I’d see in his eyes.
What I’d done wasn’t normal, and continuing to lie about it was downright dishonest. And that spoke to my character.
I didn’t want him to think less of me; I didn’t want to dim the warmth I’d got used to seeing in his eyes whenever he looked at me.
And I was terribly afraid that when I revealed the truth about my lie, he’d never entirely trust me again.
‘My mother is dead, Rhys.’
Whatever answer he’d been expecting, I could tell this wasn’t it.
‘What? I’m so sorry, Ellie. When did this happen?’
‘She got sick last year and passed away after a short battle with cancer . . . nine months ago.’
‘What? Why didn’t you tell me this before?’ His eyes were green pools of confusion.
‘Because, I forgot she had died,’ I said. The tears I hadn’t expected had found the one sentence guaranteed to release them. ‘When the lightning struck me, it took away all memory of her illness, her death, the funeral, everything.’
‘Oh, Ellie,’ Rhys said, pulling me to my feet and gathering me into his arms.
‘What kind of shitty, ungrateful daughter forgets that her own mother has died?’ I sobbed.
‘Hush, hush,’ Rhys soothed, his hand running down the back of my head as though settling a petrified animal. ‘You are none of those things,’ he said. ‘Your memory was affected by the lightning, everyone knows that. That wasn’t something you could have prevented.’
His arm was around my shoulders, holding me gently against him. But I couldn’t relax until he’d heard it all. It was the next most obvious question to ask, and I was ready for it.
‘When did you finally remember what had happened?’
I leant back, my eyes still wet as I studied his face, wondering if this was the last moment he would ever look at me with one hundred per cent trust.
‘Very soon after the lightning strike. Months and months ago.’
‘Why didn’t you say anything back then? Why did you continue to talk about her as though she was still alive?’
That was the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, and I still wasn’t sure I knew the answer. Not all of it, anyway.
‘Because I blamed myself for the rifts that I had allowed to deepen, for all the times when I could have said, “Hey, Mum, you know what, it doesn’t matter.” “It’s all water under the bridge.” And “I still love you.”’
I looked up at him sadly. ‘I don’t think I said any of those things.
I can only recall bits and pieces. But I can remember being determined to restore her faith in me.
She’d been a tough one to impress, and I really wanted to do that in the time we had left.
That’s why I started working even harder to make my business a success.
I was desperate for her to be proud of me before she died.
But I can’t remember if she ever said that she was. ’
His arms tightened around me. ‘I’m sure she was. How could she not be?’
‘I was a horrible teenager, Rhys. I blamed her for sending my father away. I was furious with her for not even telling me his name, as though who he was could never be important to me. I didn’t see all the things she did for me; I just focused on all the things she didn’t.’
‘I know I never met your mum,’ he said sadly, ‘but I do know what it’s like to be a parent.
There’s no rule book to follow. Most of the time you’re just winging it.
Sometimes you’ll get it right, sometimes you won’t.
But I’m sure that even when you and she were at odds with each other, even when you argued, the love was still there. ’
‘I felt like I couldn’t tell anyone how sad I felt when I eventually remembered losing her, because I’d spent so long acting as though I never really cared. I felt like I’d forfeited the right to grieve for her. So, I hid behind a lie.’
‘She would always have known that you cared. Trust me,’ Rhys said tenderly.
I gave an inelegant sniff. ‘That’s what Henry says.’
‘Who’s Henry?’
‘He’s a man I met in the cemetery. We’ve grown quite close over the last few months.’
He took a beat as his trust in me took a second knock in as many minutes.
‘Close? As in friends, or is this something I should be worrying about?’
I didn’t expect to laugh during this conversation, but I did then.
‘Henry is a lonely old man in his seventies who visits his dead wife Bee’s grave practically every day. He’s kind of taken me under his wing.’
Rhys pulled me close and kissed my forehead. ‘Then I’m very glad you had someone looking out for you while you went through this. I wish it had been me, that you’d felt able to tell me, but I’m glad you found this old chap.’
‘Me too,’ I said solemnly.