Chapter 12 #2
happy family and you didn’t have to know that your f-father was a monster. But those last few years of his life, Tad worried so much about what would happen
after he was gone.”
“To me?”
“To us,” Mum says abruptly. A familiar tension has sprung between us and I can see from the reluctance on her face that she’s struggling with whatever she wants to say.
I reach across impulsively and put my hand on hers.
“He said that these secrets were barriers that kept us from one another,” she finally continues.
“That you needed to know so that you could understand me . . . so that you could be there for me. Which was absolutely absurd because a mother’s job is to protect her child!
You might be fifty years old but I never wanted you to bear the burden of the mistakes I made before you were even born. ”
“You were a kid who trusted an adult in a moment of desperation. That wasn’t a mistake. You should have been safe with him,” I say fiercely. Mum flinches and shakes her head. Half a century of shame is written
on her face, and it just about breaks my heart. I shift to kneel beside her chair, pushing her knitting off her lap to grab
her hands in mine. I’m shaking with the force of it all as I stare up at her and whisper, “I’m glad I know. It changes not
one thing about how I see myself and everything about how I see you. You saved me and you saved yourself. You’re a goddamned hero, Mum.”
“Tad was the only hero here,” she says, jaw stiff. The rims of her eyes are red and she’s looking past my shoulder, unable
to meet my gaze.
“I don’t love that he took your story and wrote it down without your permission—he should have respected your agency, let
you handle this the way you wanted to. And the fact that he only ran it by you after it was too late for you to stop it happening
just shows he knew you’d be upset,” I say, and she finally meets my gaze. There’s surprise in her eyes and I know it’s because
I’m defending her—that I would take her side. I recognize this reaction because it’s the same surprise I felt when she sent that radio with Erin.
For too long, we’ve assumed the worst about how we see each other. This is a chance for us to believe the best.
“I hadn’t thought of it like that.”
“Tad was generous to a fault. Kind to his very soul. He loved people—but he loved and even understood them best from afar. It was like he was long-sighted when he came to relationships—the closer people were to him, the less he understood them. And some part of him was always distracted by his latest story, so he was rarely fully present even with the people he lived for, even in the most important moments of his life. I loved Uncle Tad with my whole heart but the man was a mess of contradictions,” I sigh softly.
Mum’s tears finally spill over as she nods. She turns her forearms over and squeezes mine in return.
“Fiona, surely you know by now—the best people always are.”
“But I’m not sorry at all about how this turned out because I love you and I want to be here for you. So don’t tell me the
things I’ve learned today are a burden, because they just aren’t. Knowing all of this makes me feel closer to you, and that’s
all I’ve ever wanted.”
“I gave you Virginia’s name for your middle name,” Mum says, touching my cheek gently as she brushes away a tear. “I took
her identity to save our lives. It seemed fair.”
“Did I really call him Uncle Dad when I was small?”
“Is that in there? Oh yes, you most certainly did.”
“You should read his book one day, Mum,” I say softly. “Maybe see yourself through his eyes.”
“I miss him every single day.”
“Me too.”
“I think I’m glad you know, Fiona.”
I nod tearfully, and then I rise up to pull her into my arms. She hesitates just a moment before she returns the embrace and
she starts to weep against my shoulder. That’s when I know that the flawed, brilliant man who was my only father figure throughout
my childhood has given me the gift he knew I needed the most—my mum, warts and all.
We talk for a while—I tell her more about the book, and the way Tad went about telling their story.
We both agree that we’ll make sure no one else close to us reads The Midnight Estate—except for Jon.
I’ll call him this afternoon and ask him to come home for a few days, because this is all heavy and complicated
enough that we need to be together while we process it.
I can see that this is all very difficult for Mum to talk about, but she’s trying, and that’s more than enough. We’re both
exhausted, and when she suggests we move to the kitchen for a coffee, I happily agree.
As she’s working at the machine, I say quietly, “So, you’re really only seventy, huh?”
She half smiles. “Now do you think I look my age?”
“You still look good for your age! But seriously Mum, you are way too young and far too smart to be so terrible with technology,”
I say, laughing softly. “You need to enroll in a course or something!”
“I didn’t want to learn,” she admits sheepishly. “I like having a reason to call the girls.”
“You don’t need a reason to call them. You don’t need a reason to call any of us. We love you.”
“And I . . .” She looks back at me, overcome, then back to the coffee machine. “I love you all too. So very much.”
I wish Tad were here to see this. He’d look at me right now, raising those big bushy eyebrows, and he’d mouth, Did she really just say it aloud?
“Tell me . . .”I say cautiously. “Your brother . . .”
“What did Tad call him in the book?”
“Irving.”
“His real name is Rowan—or was Rowan, I have no idea if he’s still alive. Rowan Webster—that was my maiden name. I don’t even know what happened to him.
He was mixed up with Julian’s business so I’ve always feared the worst.”
“We could google him?”
“Google him?” Mum repeats, slightly alarmed. “You really think we could find him if we do? Would he know?”
“No, it doesn’t work like that,” I say, as I slip my phone from my pocket and set it on the table, just as a message arrives
from Jack.
Cats are microchipped but I called the previous owners and turns out they abandoned them when they moved a few months ago.
Kitties are healthy, already desexed. I vaccinated and dewormed them and gave them a flea treatment. Am I taking them to the
pound?
I smile as I reply: Please don’t. But I’ve never had cats before so I’m going to need some expert advice on how to care for them.
I knew it! The best way to help them settle in is to keep them confined to one room for a few weeks. Are you happy for me
to let them out of the traps in your bedroom?
Go for it.
“That’s a lot of typing,” Mum says, glancing anxiously at my phone as she slides the coffee in front of me. “Is this how much
typing it usually takes to google someone? I imagined there was some spot you just put the name in.”
I wince.
“Sorry, Mum. I was texting Jack about something. Give me a second.”
I switch out to Google and type in, “Rowan Webster.” It gives me four million results, so I add “Jennifer Lentfer” and “Porterville” to try to narrow it down.
“What is it?” Mum asks, when I gasp at the results. The first hit is for an organization called Jennifer’s Voice, and I feel
goosebumps break out of my skin as I click the link. It’s an About Our Founder page, and there’s a photograph of a balding
man with faded red hair at the top. He has gentle, kind eyes.
Rowan Webster was a teen when his sister, Jennifer, asked him to help her leave her husband, Julian. She talked of suffocating control but it was not a story Rowan recognized as abuse because she insisted there was no physical violence.
Rowan failed to understand the danger his sister was in and later told her husband that she had come to him for help.
It is the biggest regret of his life.
After Jennifer disappeared in 1960, Rowan learned that Julian had been married once before, to Gertie De Luca, who went missing
in 1956. Gertie’s family later explained to Rowan the pattern of escalating control she had reported in the months leading
up to her escape from his house. She was able to hide with her parents for some weeks, but the abuse had only escalated from
there, as Julian stalked and harassed her entire family. Gertie disappeared in the night while her parents slept in the next
room, and her remains were finally identified in 1994.
Only in hindsight could Rowan recognize the same patterns in his sister’s marriage and the same determined efforts by Julian
to isolate her from Rowan, her only surviving family member.