Serena followed her daughter out the front door, her heart rising into her throat. How much had Em heard?
The little girl was sitting on the front step, shivering with what could have been cold or emotion. Serena slowly lowered herself down beside her, only then realizing that tears streamed down Em’s face.
“Hey,” she said softly. “Do you want to tell me what that was all about?”
Em looked up at her, eyes still brimming. “Did you tell Daddy to leave?”
The question pierced Serena through the heart like a shot. She took a second to catch her breath and make her voice level. “Why would you ask that?”
“Sophie said she heard her parents talk about it. She said he died because you kicked him out. Is it true?”
Now everything was beginning to make sense. Sophie’s father was an executive at Edward’s company, the man who had moved into his position after his death. It was entirely possible that Edward had confided his marital problems before he died, and in true eight-year-old fashion, Sophie had drawn her own conclusions from an overheard conversation. Was that why Em had been fighting? Defending her mother?
Serena took Em’s hand between both of hers. “Daddy wasn’t leaving us, sweetheart. And I didn’t kick him out. He and I were arguing, and we decided it would be best if we had some space while we worked things out.”
Instead of brightening, Em just sobbed harder. “But I heard you yelling at him about me. I didn’t mean to be bad. If I’d have been better, you wouldn’t have argued and he might still be alive.”
“Look at me.” Serena took Em by the shoulders and turned her to face her. “None of this is your fault. Daddy and I were married for a long time. And we had some problems. But we did love each other. We didn’t want you to think that you had anything to do with our arguing, so we agreed it was better that we live apart for a little while. But that wasn’t why he died. He had a heart problem that nobody knew about, and it could just as easily have happened while he was on his business trip. The two things aren’t related. And neither had anything to do with you.”
Em looked uncertain, but the tears weren’t falling anymore. “Do you promise?”
“I promise. I wish you’d told me the first time Sophie said something. You wouldn’t have had to worry about this by yourself the whole time.”
“I didn’t want to hurt your feelings,” Em said with a sniffle. “Besides, if I told you, we wouldn’t have come to Skye and you wouldn’t have met Malcolm.”
Serena couldn’t argue with that logic. She put her arm around her daughter and gave her a tight squeeze. “I love you, cupcake. You know that, right?”
Em nodded.
“And you know that you can tell me absolutely anything? No matter what it is? You and I, we’re in this together.”
Now Em managed a watery smile and leaned her head against Serena’s shoulder. Serena heaved a sigh, her heart aching. This was never what she’d wanted for her family. But now that Em knew the truth, the only thing she could do was be honest and reassure her that it hadn’t been her fault, that Serena’s first priority would always be her and Max.
They had to be, no matter what.
“So you tell me what you want to do. Do you want to go home, or should we go back inside for a while?”
“Auntie would be sad if we left early. I don’t want to upset her.”
That was her sweet girl. Always thinking of other people. Serena pulled her close and kissed the top of her head. “I’m proud of you, Em. I’m happy I get to be your mum.”
But Em held back. “Mum?”
“Yes, cupcake?”
“Did you mean what you said earlier, about staying here on Skye, even if you and Malcolm weren’t together?”
A note of warning crept into Serena. She should have been more circumspect in her comments. The last thing she wanted Em to worry about was whether her relationship status determined her decisions. “I absolutely did. You and Max and your happiness will always be my first priority.”
Em hesitated, then threw her arms around Serena’s waist. “Felicity was telling me about the autumn festival at school. And there’s a big Christmas program. I might even be able to play piano.”
Serena chuckled. “So I take it you’ve decided you want to stay?”
“Yes!”
Serena smoothed Em’s hair and led her back inside, where conversation immediately hushed when they entered. Em wiped her eyes with her sleeve and looked embarrassed at the attention as they rejoined the group on the sofas.
Malcolm came to the rescue. “If I’m not mistaken, not all the gifts have been opened.”
“That’s right, Auntie, you still have to open ours.” Ian stood and retrieved a large cardboard box from the top of the piano. “Sorry we didn’t have time to wrap it. We were afraid it might get opened in customs.”
Muriel took the box and lifted the flaps, unwrapping layers of paper and bubble wrap to reveal a beautiful carved wooden elephant in traditional caparison, painstakingly painted in bright colors and gold leaf.
“In Hindu culture, elephants symbolize wisdom,” Grace said. “We visited Jaipur during Holi, which is the festival of colors. We couldn’t resist bringing a piece of it back home.”
“It’s lovely. Grace, Ian, thank you.” Muriel examined it closely, then set it carefully on the table beside her. “I will display it to remind me of you while you’re overseas. Though now that Ian is again based in London, I expect to see you two more often.”
“I certainly hope so,” Ian said.
Malcolm removed a small box from the inside of his coat and passed it to Muriel. “Something to thank you for your hospitality these past months.”
Muriel untied the ribbon on the box and removed the lid, her eyes softening. She withdrew a hammered silver brooch in the shape of a thistle. “It’s beautiful, Malcolm. I love it. You certainly didn’t need to get me a gift.”
“You’ve treated Kylee and me like family, so thank you.”
Serena smiled at Malcolm. He did everything right, but it never came off as calculated. He was completely sincere in both word and action. Could anyone blame her for falling in love with him?
“Do you think we should get home?” He nodded toward Max where he lay asleep on the rug.
“Probably.” His use of the word we seemed unconscious, but it summoned a warm glow to her chest. Serena rose. “Do you mind if we go and get these two into bed?” There she went using the word we herself. In that moment she’d have given almost anything to have it be a real we.
They said their good-byes, Serena giving hugs to her brothers and sisters-in-law and her aunt, Malcolm shaking their hands warmly. Then he scooped Max up from the rug and carried him out to the car while Serena and Em trailed behind.
When the kids were safely buckled in, she held him back. He’d neatly diverted the subject away from Em’s outburst, but he must have questions. It was time for him to know the whole truth about her past. “Give me half an hour and then come over. There are probably some things you should know.”
“You don’t have to share anything you don’t want to, Serena.”
“I know. But it’s time.” She squeezed his arm, then climbed into the driver’s seat. “Thirty minutes.”
“I’ll be there.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
HE SHOULDN’T HAVE BEEN NERVOUS. There was nothing Serena could tell him that would make Malcolm feel differently toward her, but still he felt the twinge of apprehension as he pulled into his drive, just feet away from where Serena was putting her children into bed. He walked into his home, where Kylee was watching television in flannel pajamas and fuzzy slippers.
“So how was meeting the family?” she asked in a singsong voice.
Malcolm chuckled and dropped onto the sofa. “It was fine. What did you do?”
“No homework tonight, so this. Well, I worked on a new song too, but that doesn’t count.”
“Can I hear it?”
“It’s not d
one yet. I’ll play it for you once I get the bridge right.”
Malcolm took a deep breath. “I wanted to talk to you about something. You know your grandmother is in Glasgow. If you’re going to uni there—”
“There’s no reason for you to come with me and leave Serena,” Kylee finished with a knowing smile. “It’s okay. I know you’re in love with her.”
“What? I—”
“Oh, come on, Uncle Malcolm. Girls know these things. I can tell. It’s okay. It’s only, what, five hours away? Close enough to come home over a long weekend. And yes, Grandmum will be there if I need her. So it’s fine. Really.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.” Kylee smiled and gave him a bump with her shoulder. “You keep looking at your watch. Let me guess, she invited you over for more dessert?”
Something in Kylee’s tone made Malcolm wonder exactly what she thought he was doing when he went next door for his nightly visit, but there was no way he was going to have this conversation with her. If he’d misunderstood, she’d be too embarrassed to talk openly to him again. And this wasn’t really the time to get into the issue of sex and why she should absolutely plan on never having it. At least not while he was still alive and responsible for her. He prayed Nicola had covered all that with her a long time ago. So far he’d been lucky that she was far more focused on music than boys.
“No dessert tonight,” he said finally. “I’m stuffed. Just tea.”
“Do you want me to wait up?”
“If you want. I’m not sure how long I’ll be.”
As soon as the hand on his watch ticked off thirty minutes, he pulled on his coat and wandered next door. When Serena opened the door, she looked as nervous as he felt. “I just put the tea on. Come in.”
“They’re asleep?” He followed her inside and shut the door behind him.
“They are. But maybe we should talk outside. I don’t want them to overhear this. Some things children shouldn’t know about their parents.”
Malcolm retrieved a thick wool blanket off the sofa while she poured their tea, and they went out on the back steps. He wrapped her up in the wool and gave her knee a squeeze of encouragement.
He thought she’d changed her mind until she finally said, “Edward and I were separated when he died.”
He reached for her hand, their fingers intertwining automatically. “But Em didn’t know that?”
“Not until a few months ago. She goes to school with the daughter of one of Edward’s colleagues, and I guess the little girl overheard something she shouldn’t have.”
“What happened exactly? I mean, what went wrong?”
“Nothing went wrong. I’m not sure things were ever right to begin with.” She glanced at him, and even in the dark, he could see her expression was pained. “When I met him, I was twenty-five and a curator at a contemporary gallery in Edinburgh. The gallery often rented out its space for events, and his company held a Christmas cocktail party there.”
Her voice softened. “I was taken with him immediately. He was polished and handsome, a little older than the men I had been dating. He flirted with me all night and then, before he left, said that he would like to take me to dinner. He gave me his business card, which I thought was very respectful of him, letting me make the next move. Now I know that was calculated.
“I was young and stupid and I fell hard. I was taken by the fact he was a VP at such a young age and that he got so serious about me so quickly, like some fairy-tale whirlwind romance. I just didn’t realize that when he said he wanted a wife and children, that didn’t necessarily mean me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He was ambitious. He knew because he was so much younger than his colleagues, he needed to appear dependable and settled, responsible. That meant getting married. He met me, learned I was well educated and had extensive connections because of Mum’s family. He figured I would make the perfect trophy wife.”
“Surely that wasn’t the only reason he married you,” Malcolm said softly. Maybe marriage was still seen as an alliance in some circles, but he had a hard time believing that any man could spend time with Serena and not fall in love with her.
“I’d like to believe he loved me at some point, but I really don’t know. What I didn’t realize at the time was that marriage with Edward had to be conducted on his own terms. He didn’t like the hours I worked at the gallery, so he gently ‘suggested’ that I would be happier quitting and doing charity work instead. I missed my job, but I liked that it left me with plenty of time to paint. But he thought that was a waste of my time. We needed to focus on starting a family, before I got too old.”
The picture she was drawing was getting clearer by the second. “Did you have any say in these decisions?”
“Of course I did. At least that’s what I thought at the time. He had an argument for every one of my objections, and he had a way of making me feel unreasonable if I didn’t agree with him. It took us a while to conceive Em, and I dreaded having to tell him each month that I still wasn’t pregnant. Things were getting tenser and tenser between us, as if I were purposely defying his plans. When I did get pregnant, I was so relieved. I thought he would be thrilled. But he only said, ‘Finally,’ like it was another item on his list that could be crossed off. He started spending less and less time at home, excusing his time at work by saying he had to support his growing family.”
“Do you think he was unfaithful to you?” Malcolm asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. A mistress would have disrupted his plans.” She looked at him, her expression pained. “I don’t want you to think that there weren’t good times or that I didn’t love him, because neither of those are true. I just never knew which man I would come home to—the one who enjoyed spending time with me or the one who saw me as an item to be ticked off his to-do list.”
The resignation in her voice stirred up anger. She was such a vibrant, giving person, and now he could see how Edward’s control had stamped out her spark. “Did having Em change things?”
“For a while. But she, too, was an item on his list. He knew exactly how her whole life was going to play out, and our future children after that. Except there weren’t any more children. For years. It was like because he had no say in that, he became even more controlling. But things were good when he was happy, so I just went along with it. For far longer than I should have.”
Serena swallowed hard. Malcolm brought her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers in a show of silent support.
“The final straw was when Em was almost five. She began to get very nervous and insecure. Wouldn’t even pick out her clothes without making sure Daddy approved. At first I thought she just wanted his attention because he was gone so much, but then I realized she’d become deathly afraid of doing something wrong.
“And I realized she had learned the behavior from watching me. I had gone along with everything he dictated for my life, but now he was doing the same thing to our daughter. Teaching her to always seek others’ approval. So I started putting my foot down. And he lost it.”
“Did he . . . hit you?”
“No. But Edward was a master of manipulation. He knew I hated when he was upset with me and that I would do everything to prevent it. So he told me that clearly I didn’t care about his feelings or I would take his opinion into account.”
“But you didn’t budge this time.”
“No. Not when it came to Em. As things dragged on and I refused to give in, he must have decided it was time to punish me. He told me he wanted to separate to ‘think about what we really wanted out of marriage.’ It was outright manipulation. It wouldn’t do for him to be divorced. So I told him I thought he should get his own place for a while.
“We intended to tell Em, but we never got the chance. He left on a business trip and came back to his own flat. He had been there only a couple of days when he had a heart attack. His landlord found him after a neighbor complained that his alarm
clock had been going off for hours.”
Malcolm scanned her expression to gain some clue of her feelings, but her face was blank, as impassive as her voice. “I’m sorry,” he said gently. “Even with your problems, that must have been a shock.”
“It was.” She turned to him, a film of tears glimmering in her eyes. “The worst part is, I felt relieved. I never wanted to be divorced. I saw how it tore my family apart, how my parents pitted my brothers and me against each other, even unintentionally. But I didn’t see a way out. Edward was so obstinate that he would never have given in. And I knew that if I caved, he would never let me forget it. I would have had to spend the rest of my life making up for what I put him through.”
Malcolm could hear the helplessness in her voice, but her tears still didn’t fall. “Serena, that’s all understandable. You were in an impossible situation. Of course you were conflicted once it was over.”
“I just wonder if anything would have been different if I’d told him.”
He blinked as he realized the one detail missing from the narrative. “Max. Edward didn’t know you were pregnant.”
“I didn’t tell him. I was afraid he would somehow use it against me. But now I wonder . . . would we have worked things out had he known? If he hadn’t been alone, if he had been home that morning, he might not have died.”
And they might still be married. Selfish as it was, Malcolm hated that thought. Not just for himself but because she’d been so horribly unhappy.
As if she guessed his thoughts, she said, “Maybe our marriage couldn’t have been saved. But Em and Max would still have their father.”
Malcolm shifted the blanket from her shoulders so he could wrap his arms around her. “I’m sorry. I know relationships can be complicated, but I don’t understand how he couldn’t look at you and thank God for every day you were in his life.”
She lifted her head, her lips parting in surprise at the words, naked vulnerability in her expression. He brushed his fingertips across her cheekbone and smiled. “I think now I understand why you reacted how you did when we first met.”
Under Scottish Stars Page 24