Chapter 51
Tabitha
Without my own car to peel away in, I’d sequestered myself on a bench in the yard long enough that I knew Tim had driven to his mother’s, but it didn’t sound like the others had left.
My default was always to be polite, and I didn’t want them feeling like they had to stick around. Best to face them.
At the entry to the kitchen, Isla lunged at me for a big hug.
“Let’s talk. I can stay as long as you want,” she said.
The brothers looked so uncomfortable, understandably.
I’d been raving about Tim all week, how we’d finally found our way back to each other, how I trusted and loved him, which made this so much more humiliating.
Even Declan, who always knew what to say in any situation, was silent and obviously searching for words.
I peered at the eight of them through puffy eyes. “I’m sorry you came all this way.”
“Not at all,” Darcy murmured, and William nodded. “Can we do something? Drive you back to London?”
“You know, I think I’ll stay the night and get the train back tomorrow. And I’m sorry I don’t feel like…talking or anything. Please take some of this food for the car trip back.”
“Love, do you want to talk upstairs?” Isla asked.
Slowly, I shook my head. “Thank you, though.”
Of course no one wanted to take the leftover supper. I stood in the driveway, waving them off, food piled high on the counter, drinks left half drunk, feeling wretched, with inflamed eyes, a lump in my throat, and an ache in my chest.
“Are you telling me you two are friends?”
“Oh no. Not friends, of course not.”
“Yeah, you’re right. She can come off as dull and boring and not much fun. Like you say, not someone I’d want to work with, but sometimes you have to work with people you don’t want to hang out with.”
His words just kept running around in my brain.
But I couldn’t ignore how horrified he’d looked when he heard himself onscreen either.
And then his apology. Was my pain-filled reaction because I still hadn’t fully recovered from Perry’s betrayal?
The exec had basically spoon-fed Tim what she’d wanted him to say, and perhaps there was an element of bewilderment in his response.
He had asked them not to use his words, and they’d assured him they wouldn’t.
Although believing that they wouldn’t was misguided, at least he’d tried.
Or had I felt sliced open because it was Tim, and I’d never expected those words to come out of the mouth of a man I loved?
In some sense, he was just another person in a long list of people who had disappointed me… And it’s become my expectation that people won’t stand up for me, for what I need and want.
I turned and looked at the house—painful, because this was something Tim and I had created together—and imagined what it would have been like growing up in this brightened, ordered house, a place where a family lived and loved, and where the parents acted like adults.
It was time to talk to Mum and Dad, so I went hunting and found Mum outside, crouched by the pond.
“Mum, I need to have a word.”
“Oh yes, of course.” She fluttered her hands. “Is it about Tim’s comment? I’d just brush it off, darling.” She sighed and rested her chin on her hand. “Do you know? I was just standing here, watching all the animals, and thinking you were like them growing up, totally free-range.”
I breathed out and clenched and unclenched my fists, gathering my thoughts. Free-range? “Mum, that’s exactly what I wanted to talk about. You see, I didn’t want to be free-range. I was a child. I loved boundaries and timetables and lists and stability.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Yes, you were quite an uptight child. You seemed to crave certainty.”
My spine stiffened with annoyance. “Every child craves certainty. They don’t want to have to fend for themselves as soon as they can hop on a stool and get the ruined milk from the fridge.”
“But all this lovely space to roam…” She swept her hand over the pond and back pastures. “All these wonderful animals.”
“Mum, I wanted structure. I wanted you to be the adult and get me up in the morning and help me pack my lunch and take me to school, fetch me home, and afterward, help me with my homework. There was never money. When there was, it was gone within days. Slips weren’t signed, I never had the proper kit for school, and you didn’t attend the parents’ days or for prize-giving.
And you never ever told me you were proud of me. ”
She glanced at me and then back toward the sun rapidly ducking behind the hills.
“Oh gosh.” Tapping her lips, she seemed to consider that for a while and turned back to me.
“Tabitha, I see what’s happened here. Your father and I both went to boarding school from age five.
Our parents were strict, aloof, and distant.
At home, we only had animals for company.
And for all the money our parents had, they were never happy.
That’s why we both became free spirits, to revolt against our upbringing.
And I guess we were never ones for lauding achievements, because well, quite frankly, I suppose we never achieved anything. ”
I kicked at a clod, taking a beat, beginning to understand more. They realized they lived in chaos, but it made me heartsick they didn’t want to change.
It must have shown on my expression because Mum’s face fell. “Darling, I know we’ve been a disappointment to you,” she said.
She didn’t get it. Disappointment didn’t cover it—I’d had to worry about them all my life.
“You’ve got to let us go, you know,” she said.
I drew back.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Let you go?”
“You’re not going to change us or make us better or make our lives easier. You’re just not. We’re always going to find our way back to the chaos, because that’s where we live.”
“What if I’d just left you to it? You’d have had to hand over your house to the bank and go—where?”
She blinked, unconcerned. “Oh, we’d find a little place out the back of old friends’ or relatives’, even if it was just a glorified barn.”
“You’re saying you’d live in a barn?”
“Well, we’d have to,” she said. “But they’d probably let us inside until they tired of us. Darling, don’t worry about us. There’s always someone who will help us. Because we’re not so silly that we don’t know how to be terribly charming when we need to be.”
I cringed, feeling horribly embarrassed for her. “Mum, that’s no way to live.”
She shrugged at my expression. “That’s no way for you to live. But this is us, and this is the only way we know how to do things.”
Dispirited, I shook my head, heavy with doubt.
“Darling, you have to live your own life now, not ours,” she said. “You have to move on. Grab that handsome young man and make your life. He is marvelous.”
“Mum, stop. He’s not my young man.”
“He wants to be.”
I shook my head sadly.
Twitching like a tiny magpie, something caught her eye on the other side of the pond, and she started gurgling with amusement about some mess one of her animals had found themselves in. But she stopped herself. “Darling, I’m getting your father. Wait here.”
I petted some of the animals grazing around the edges of the water as she hunted around in the back fields and returned with Dad, who looked so sad and so nervous. I almost felt sorry for him but stopped myself. He hated conflict or talk of feelings besides high jinks.
He gave me a hug. “Your mother filled me in, and I’m sorry, darling. I had no idea you’d needed all those things from us.”
I was thirty-two years old, and he’d had no idea.
But his actions and his words were something.
I could have continued to be bitter about how incomplete this conversation would be for most people, how unsatisfying, how lacking in any closure or firm direction.
And yet this was the reality of my life, and I had to accept it.
This was what they could offer me.
And I was going to take it. Despite what Mum had said about not being able to change, I felt that I couldn’t give up without trying one more time. Too much work had gone into the house to simply quit now.
They hadn’t been perfect parents, but they’d never given up on me, so what choice did I have?
Back inside, we took a seat at the new kitchen banquette, and I laid out my spreadsheet.
We discussed the plans for the inn again, and they agreed to hiring a cook and a cleaner.
They listened as intently as I’d ever seen them while I explained how things needed to operate for them to make a profit.
I smiled, with more faith in my plan, but knowing in many ways it was now out of my hands.
Dad squeezed my shoulder. Neither of them was terribly demonstrative with me, though they were very loving with the animals. “We will try, Tabs darling. We realize this is our last chance. And we are sorry. For everything. We are very limited people, and that is the truth.”
Afterward, Mum and Dad grazed on some of the leftovers and drifted back outside, and I got a text from the new TV people about the writer and presenter job on the show about country homes. I had some decisions to make.
Feeling lighter and lifted after talking with Mum and Dad, and even though it was nine p.m., it was still light, so I grabbed a towel and a new swimsuit I’d bought in London and wandered down to the water hole.
I changed behind a tree and waded in, diving under and letting the water swirl all over me.
I floated on my back, singing one of Taylor Swift’s songs about being brokenhearted, and I realized again that I wasn’t looking forward to returning to London tomorrow.
I was tired of London, tired of working so many hours.
I wanted this—peace and quiet, nature, being able to swim here in the summer…
and maybe even in the winter. I had led my life being stoic, polite, full of forbearance.
I had made decisions based on my parents’ needs and some even based on men.
But what was in my heart? What did I want?
I felt like myself here, totally comfortable in my own skin.
I’d missed my parents, and now that I’d truly accepted them for who they were and not hoping against hope they’d change, I felt released, like I’d let myself out of the prison of my own expectations for them.
And what did I want next in my career? I hadn’t liked how this renovation show had been slanted, how the management had no qualms over sacrificing me.
But I had liked working in a team, the intense deadlines, and how my planning and design came together in one heady, exhilarating rush.
I’m good at this. And it makes me happy.
Maybe moving back to my hometown was the thing that could kick-start a fresh beginning for me.
I climbed out of the water and wrapped my towel around me. It was time to put new plans into action.