Chapter 34 #2
Then Maisie pushes forward, completely unbothered by the decades of trauma swirling around her.
‘Hi! I’m Maisie. Are you my aunt?’
Lily blinks. Looks down at this small, fierce creature with the gap-toothed smile.
‘I… Yeah. I suppose I am.’
‘Cool.’ Maisie nods decisively. ‘I’ve never had an aunt before. Do you like dinosaurs?’
Lily’s face cracks into a real smile. ‘Dinosaurs are okay. I prefer sharks.’
‘Sharks are good too. Uncle Jude knows loads about sharks. He was going to be a marine biologist but then he didn’t.’
‘Maisie—’ Jude starts.
‘It’s fine.’ Lily’s looking at Jude now. Really looking. ‘Marine biology, huh?’
‘It was a long time ago.’
‘Doesn’t mean it has to stay in the past.’
Something flickers across Jude’s face. I can’t tell if it’s hope or pain or both.
Kit clears his throat. ‘Maybe we should go inside? This feels like the kind of conversation that needs tea.’
‘And biscuits,’ Maisie adds. ‘Do you have biscuits? Nana—’ She stops. Looks at Helen. ‘Can I call you Nana?’
Helen’s eyes fill with fresh tears. ‘You can call me whatever you like, sweetheart.’
‘Nana it is.’ Maisie grabs Helen’s hand and starts pulling her towards the house. ‘Come on, Nana. Show me where the biscuits are.’
Helen laughs – a wet, surprised sound – and lets herself be dragged inside.
Kit follows, one hand on Lily’s shoulder. I hear him say something low to her, see her nod, and then they’re gone too.
Which leaves me and Jude.
Standing in the garden.
The daffodils nodding between us.
‘You found her,’ Jude says.
‘I found her.’
‘And Lily. You found Lily.’
‘Yeah.’ I shake my head, still not quite believing it myself. ‘I have a sister.’
Jude nods. Doesn’t move.
The silence stretches. It’s not comfortable, but it’s not hostile either. It’s the silence of two people who have too much to say and no idea where to start.
‘I read the letters,’ he says finally. ‘Last night. Kit and I – we went to your cottage. The key was still under the boot.’
I purse my lips and notice his gaze drift down to them.
And I want him to kiss them. Want him to dare to kiss them.
I want him to be the man who is brave enough to do that.
To do everything. ‘Damn I forget about that key,’ I finally say, after he’s studied my mouth for what feels like a decade and a split second all at once and my heart is trying to escape my ribcage.
‘I know.’ He almost smiles. Almost. ‘We found the box. Read what our mother wrote to your father. What he wrote to her.’
‘Jude—’
‘You were going to tell me.’ It’s not a question. ‘That night. Before Dad collapsed. You were trying to figure out how.’
‘I only found out properly the morning of your dad’s collapse.
I’d had one night with it – one night of staring at those letters trying to work out how to tell you without detonating your entire life.
I didn’t keep it from you because I was being malicious.
I kept it because I was terrified of exactly what happened. ’
He looks at the ground. At the daffodils. At anything but me.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘For what I said at the hospital. For telling you to get out. For—’ He stops. Breathes. ‘I was angry and I didn’t know what to do with any of it, so I aimed it at you. That wasn’t fair.’
‘No. It wasn’t.’
He flinches. Good. He should.
‘But I understand why you did it,’ I continue. ‘Your whole world had just collapsed. Everything you thought you knew about your family, about your mother – it all turned out to be a lie. And then you looked at me and saw someone else who’d kept the truth from you.’
‘For one day.’
‘You didn’t know that.’
‘I should have asked.’ He finally looks at me. His eyes are red-rimmed, exhausted. ‘I should have let you explain instead of assuming the worst. That’s what Dad would have done – jump to conclusions, burn bridges, refuse to listen. And I just … did exactly the same thing.’
‘You’re not your father.’
‘I acted like him.’
I can’t argue with that. Don’t want to.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘You did.’
He takes it. Doesn’t flinch this time.
‘So what now?’ he asks.
I look at the house. At the red door, the yellow curtains, the family inside trying to stitch themselves back together after twenty years apart.
‘I don’t know,’ I admit. ‘A week ago I came here because I didn’t know where else to go.
I spent all my childhood wishing I had a sibling.
Someone to be with, instead of being—’ I blink back the stinging in my eyes.
I refuse to cry. ‘Alone.’ I grind my boot into the pavement.
‘And I thought maybe if I found your mum, found the truth, it would be something. Better than sitting in that empty cottage waiting to see if you’d ever come looking for me. ’
‘I did look for you, Brynn. Regardless of how irrationally cross I was, this ache settled in me, and it had nothing to do with Dad, Mum, any of it. It was you. This joy you’ve sparked back to life within me began to fizzle and die without you there. And…’
I hold my breath as he pauses.
‘This thing you lit up in me started going out without you there. And honestly, sleeping rough in that death-trap cottage of yours is the most at home I’ve ever felt. I’m not going to pretend otherwise.’
‘Good. Because I’m not interested in pretending.’
‘Neither am I.’ Another step. ‘I’m interested in figuring out if there’s still something here. Between us. If we haven’t completely destroyed it.’
My heart is doing something complicated. Hope and hurt, all tangled together.
‘There’s still something here,’ I say carefully. ‘But I don’t know what it is yet. And I don’t think you do either.’
‘No,’ he admits. ‘I don’t.’
‘You’ve got a lot to deal with. Your mum, your sister, your dad—’
‘My dad can wait. Tom’s checking on him.’ Jude’s mouth twitches. ‘He’s practically a doctor.’
‘He’s a vet.’
‘Same basic concept.’
I almost smile. Almost.
‘I can’t promise I’ll never mess up,’ he says.
He’s close now. Close enough that I can see the exhaustion in his face, the days of not sleeping, the weight of everything he’s carrying.
‘But I can promise I’ll try. And when I do mess up – because I will, I’m a Harding, it’s basically genetic – I’ll listen.
I’ll let you explain. I won’t just…’ He gestures vaguely. ‘Burn the bridge.’
‘That’s a low bar.’
‘I know. But it’s where I’m starting.’ He reaches out. Stops just short of touching me. ‘Can I—’
‘Yes.’
He takes my hand. Just holds it. His fingers are cold, calloused from ropes and nets, and the sea.
‘I don’t know what to do with my life, Brynn.’ His gaze lifts to the blue stretch of sky above us. The spring storms have passed – for now. ‘It feels like everything I built it on was a lie.’
‘Then maybe you get to build it on something true this time.’
He nods. Swallows. I want to throw my arms around him, but I don’t. It wouldn’t be right to make this more complicated than it already is. We need to earn our way back to each other. Not fall back into it because it’s easier than standing apart.
So instead we stand there. Holding hands in the garden. The daffodils bobbing their heads, the red door gleaming in the April sun.
Inside, I can hear Maisie’s voice – something about sharks and biscuits. Lily laughing. Helen saying something I can’t quite make out.
Family. All of them. Finding their way back to each other.
As if he reads my mind, he turns, giving my fingers a gentle squeeze. ‘That’s my family in there.’
Grinning, I nod. ‘Your sister is very opinionated.’
He laughs and my heart doubles in size. ‘Sounds like her sister.’
I can’t say he’s wrong.
‘Introduce me to my sister, Brynn.’ His voice catches on the word sister. ‘I think I’d like to meet her.’
I squeeze his hand.
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Let’s go meet Lily.’
We walk up the path together.
For now, that’s enough.