Chapter 33 #2
“No, Nelly, of course I don’t. But I’d like to understand.” Caroline poked at Nell’s chest. “You, big sister, have a lot of explaining to do.”
Relief flooded her at the sincerity on Caroline’s face and the unexpectedly warm, generous eyes considering her. “Later,” she said.
They were sitting in the parlour, Christmas tree, sans tinsel, in the corner, and curtains closed.
Everyone else had managed to escape to their respective local homes.
Nell was the only one who lived further away, which was why she stayed for a few nights.
God forbid she should suggest staying at a hotel.
Instead of watching a re-run of A Christmas Carol or a festive edition of a quiz show, the three of them were reading.
Unable to focus on anything after her conversation with Caroline, she’d snagged her father’s seeds catalogue and was drawing up a mental shortlist of purchases.
Was it worth trying to grow cauliflower next year?
“You’ve been quite peculiar all evening, Nell,” her mother said, glancing at her over the Radio Times.
Nell’s pulse ticked higher as she looked up from the catalogue. “Peculiar how?”
“Skittish.” Her mother’s nostrils flared. “Bordering on hysteria.”
“I’m not hysterical.” Broad beans? Maybe not, she still had bags of them in the freezer from this year’s crop.
Her mother peered over the top of her glasses. “You’re certainly something.”
“I certainly am.”
“Nell!” Her father slapped the newspaper into his lap. “There’s no need for insolence.”
She tossed the seeds catalogue on the side table and stood. Now she’d said these words once, to Caroline, they refused to be contained. “I’ve met someone new. A woman.”
The Radio Times fell from her mother’s fingers and dropped into her lap. Her eyes bulged. “A woman? You mean you—”
“Yes, Mother, a woman. And I do mean whatever it is you can’t bring yourself to say.
” The brie Nell had eaten for supper curdled in her stomach at the abject horror on her mother’s face.
Her mother looked over at her father, presumably seeking guidance on how she was supposed to respond.
It’d always been that way and, it would seem, nothing was likely to change. Nell steeled herself to turn to him.
The repugnance on his face. It was...devastating. She closed her eyes to it. Don’t cry. Don’t let him see your tears. He doesn’t deserve them.
He snapped the broadsheet shut, folding it into its preordained shape. “You will see yourself out.”
“Pardon?” Nell snort-laughed in front of him.
His face twisted. “You heard me.”
Her mouth dropped open as he walked stiffly out of the room. He closed the door with a quiet but succinct click.
“Oh dear,” her mother said weakly.
Nell turned to her. “Is that all you have to say? No sympathy? No concern for your daughter?”
She picked up the TV magazine and opened it again. “You heard your father.”
Recognising her mother’s supercilious tone, Nell bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted copper. “I’ll go pack my things then.”
Upstairs, in the childhood bedroom that was stamped indelibly in her memory, she texted Caroline while also flinging toiletries, clothes, and the presents she’d been gifted into her small suitcase.
She couldn’t drive home yet, not with three glasses of chardonnay and a generous tot of brandy in her system. Can I stay at yours overnight, please?
Of course. Won’t do for a chief inspector to get nicked for drink-driving.
Nell laughed, but there was no mirth to it.
She was forty-seven years old, and her parents were chucking her out of her childhood home.
Potentially, she’d soured her relationship with them for what was left of their lives.
Was there any way back and, even if there was, did she want it?
Right now, her head was too close to bursting to be able to deal with questions like that.
Suitcase in hand, she hesitated in the hallway. Should she call out and say goodbye? Her father was almost certainly squirreled away in the parlour again, now that she’d vacated it. What of her mother? She hesitated, until that supercilious tone of hers replayed in her mind.
The night air was frosty and sharp. The suitcase’s wheels rumbled in a pleasing clunk-clunk-clunk rhythm.
Caroline had offered to collect her, but she wanted to walk, to process what had happened.
She was aching, and jubilant, and heart-sore, and angry, and a jumble of other emotions she couldn’t pare down individually.
She’d come out to her parents. All for a woman who was more committed to her job than to her and was currently in the same venue as her friend-with-benefits.
Was she putting two and two together and making four hundred?
Nell shook her head. Green with jealousy, she was now even more like the Grinch.
At the crossroads at the end of her parents’ street, she turned left, hoping that she was going the right way. And then one single, concise thought struck her. She hadn’t come out for Mattie, or for them as a couple, if they were indeed still a couple. She’d done it for herself.
Unbelievably, she’d managed to lift an invisible load.
Merry Christmas to me.