by Sarah Morgan
“Not all the stuff you just told me. But she knew Becca was leaving you. She knew about the affair. She didn’t know you knew. It’s the reason she’s been feeling so insecure I think. Her mother was leaving you, and the only home she’d ever known. Izzy couldn’t figure out what that meant for her. She didn’t know what her future was. Was Becca going alone or taking her and Molly? Just Izzy? She was going crazy with it, and then Becca died and she couldn’t ask her.”
“She could have asked me. I’m her father.”
“She didn’t want to be the one to tell you her mother was having an affair and about to leave you. I sympathize with that. I made the same decision. Believe me, it wasn’t easy, only in my case it was just my ethics and principles that suffered. For Izzy it was far more personal. She was embarrassed by her mother, mortified, shocked, angry—you name it, she felt it. Mostly she felt insecure. She believed she had no right to be living in your home.” Clare couldn’t remember hearing Jack swear before, but she heard it now.
“How do you know all this? I didn’t know she was talking to you, although obviously I’m glad she was talking to someone.”
“I only found out today. I’ve tried to talk to her a few times, but she shut me down. Said she was fine.”
“Fine.” There was frustration in his voice. “I hear that word a lot. I’m starting to think that what it really means is ‘not fine at all, but I don’t want to talk about it.’ So why today? How did you suddenly persuade her to start talking?”
“I didn’t. She came to me and said she wanted to talk about Becca. I suspect you have Flora to thank for that.”
“Flora?”
“Funny isn’t it, that the one person Izzy held at a distance was in the end the person who got through to her. I don’t know what she said to Izzy. I don’t know what they talked about. I do know that something she said persuaded Izzy to open up.”
Jack walked the length of the deck and back again. “Flora kept telling me I needed to talk to Izzy, but I thought I knew better. I thought the best way to handle it was to give her space. I assumed it was all part of adjusting. Being a teenager.”
“Don’t beat yourself up. It was an impossible situation. You had no way of knowing she already knew. You didn’t want to upset her by telling her something she didn’t need to know. She didn’t want to upset you by telling you something you didn’t need to know. I think the time for rethinking that is past, Jack. All you can do now is move forward. I think if you tell her the truth, and yes I probably do mean the whole truth, in the end it will be easier. If Izzy knew that Becca had left once before, but that you had kept her, been there for her, maybe she’d feel more secure.”
“She has a home with me forever if she wants it. She can live with me until she’s wrinkled and her teeth fall out.” There was no doubting his sincerity and Clare smiled and put her hand on his arm.
“I hope she leaves home and has wild times and adventures. I hope she lives her life to the full, and then comes home and tells you all about it. I hope that sometimes she’ll show up here for our summer vacation, or at least for part of it. Sometimes all you need to give you a feeling of security is the knowledge that home is there for you. That the people you love are there for you. You don’t need to be with them all the time.” She could virtually see his brain working as he thought about it.
“I understand now why me bringing Flora home might have seemed like the final straw.” He was making all the connections, seeing the pattern. “Still more evidence that she was losing her place in my life.”
“It’s frustrating what the brain can imagine, and how our thinking and judgment can be distorted by our own fears. I think she feels guilty about Becca. She’s taking responsibility for it.”
“I’ll talk to her about that, along with all the other things.” He seemed to make a decision. “We might have to postpone dinner.”
“Mealtimes are somewhat fluid in this house as you’ve probably noticed.” Because she knew he was anxious to get back and talk to his daughter, she walked across the deck and took the steps to the path. “I like Flora by the way. I’m glad you brought her here.”
Jack smiled for the first time since the conversation began. “She’s the best thing that has happened to me in a long while.”
“She might be the best thing that has happened to my garden in a long while, too.” Clare stepped along the path, her heart and mood lighter, freed from the burden she’d carried for the last year. She felt very strongly that she’d found a friend. That she and Flora would be more than two people brought together because of family tradition.
The path opened up onto the garden and they walked across the lawn to hear raised voices.
Jack glanced at her. “Any idea what’s going on?”
“No. But that’s Aiden.” And he rarely, if ever, raised his voice. Maternal intuition made her walk faster, and she reached the terrace to see Aiden gesturing to Todd. He had the car keys in his hand and they seemed to be arguing about something. “What’s wrong?” There was always something, she thought. Life was less a roller coaster and more a series of hurdles, with no breathing room in between them.
Aiden looked stressed. “I was on my way back and I passed Izzy going in the other direction.”
“I don’t understand.”
“In a cab! She was in a cab. She turned her head away when she saw me but I’m pretty sure she was crying. Did something happen?”
Jack looked at Clare. She knew what he was thinking because she was thinking the same thing. Izzy was leaving because she believed she no longer had a place in the family.
The emotional side of Clare wanted to sob for the girl, but fortunately her practical side took over.
She pulled out her phone. “There is only one cab firm in the village. I’ll find out where they’ve taken her.”
“They won’t give you that information.”
“Of course they will. Todd gave the owner a friendly rate when he extended his house and I do yoga with his wife. Hello?” She was swift with her request and the response came back equally quickly. “They’ve taken her to the station.”
Aiden nodded. “I’m going after her.” He started up the garden but Jack stopped him.
“Wait, Aiden. I know you care for her, but—there’s more to this. It has to be me.”
“I’m the one she’s going to talk to.” Her son’s reaction convinced Clare that Izzy had confided in him, too.
She decided a compromise was in order. “Aiden should drive you, Jack. It will be faster. He knows the way. He can wait in the car while you talk to Izzy.”
She just hoped they’d make it in time to have that conversation before Izzy boarded the train.
21
Izzy
Izzy sat miserable and alone on the edge of the seat on the station platform, wondering where the train was. She’d never actually traveled alone in England before. She wasn’t sure if she felt sophisticated or scared.
The station was unlike any she’d seen before. She was used to Manhattan and the roar, shriek and rumble of the subway line, the chaos and grandeur of Grand Central Station, the press of people breathing the same air and pushing, always pushing, to get on or get off. Here the air was clean and fresh. No one was pushing. She saw a bird with a pinkish breast settle on the wall nearby and opened her mouth to point it out, but then realized there was no one to tell.
There were only three other people on the platform and they hadn’t even glanced toward Izzy, which was just as well because she knew she looked a mess. She’d cried all the way in the cab, and then almost died of horror when she’d seen Aiden driving the other way.
She was fairly sure he’d seen her, which was why she needed the train to arrive quickly.
Luck wasn’t on her side. She checked the time on her phone and when she looked up Jack was standing there.
She was trying to train herself not to think of him as “Dad.”
Her first instinct was to rush at him and hug him, the
way she’d done when she was a little girl and she heard his key in the front door at the end of the day. She craved that same feeling of security she’d had then when his arms had wrapped round her.
But she wasn’t that little girl anymore.
She assumed her most nonchalant expression. “What?”
“What? You took a cab to the station without leaving so much as a note, and you’re seriously asking me what?”
“I just—I have to go. You wouldn’t understand.”
He sat down next to her. “Try me.”
“I don’t want to talk about this.”
“I can see that, but it’s weird because the Izzy I know, my daughter, never runs from a problem. She looks it in the eye and handles it. Or she asks me to handle it, because that’s what dads do. What she doesn’t do is climb in a cab without telling anyone and get a train to a city she doesn’t know.”
“It’s time I started being more independent.”
“Maybe. We’ll talk about that at another time, but for now we’re focusing on why you ran away.”
“I’ve told you—I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Well I do, and I’m your father so you have to listen to me.”
“We both know you’re not.” She glanced at him and her heart lurched as she saw the hurt in his eyes.
“When did I ever give you the impression that I don’t think of you as a daughter? Because if I messed up as a father I deserve to know so that I don’t make the same mistake in the future.”
“You didn’t mess up.”
“Did I love you less than I should have done? Tell me, because something has made you think you don’t belong with this family and I need to know what it is.”
Crap, did they really have to have this conversation? “I’m not yours.”
“Oh honey—” His voice was rough. “You were mine from the moment you were born. Screaming your lungs out, by the way. If I’d wanted to give you away or back out, that would have been the time to do it but I didn’t because I loved you. I never believed in love at first sight until you came along. And maybe I should have told you how I felt more often, but I’m a guy and we don’t always get it right. If you’re going to be a journalist, and I know you’ll be a great one, you need to learn to examine the facts. And there is a ton of evidence if you look for it.”
“I don’t—”
“Maybe I didn’t yell ‘I love you’ every time I walked through the door, but I showed you, Izzy. I showed you all the time. Let’s do some fact-checking. Remember when you were nine years old and were crazy about dinosaurs?”
“You took me to the American Museum of Natural History.”
“And then we came home and I spent two days making you Jurassic scenery, complete with a papier-mâché volcano.”
Remembering it made her smile. “It was cool. Until you got red paint on a chair. Mom was furious.”
“She was, and I didn’t care. Do you know why I didn’t care? Because you had the best time. The smile on your face stretched all the way from Brooklyn to Connecticut. You played with your dinosaur world for two months.”
“Until Molly crawled on top of it and it collapsed.”
“That’s right. The perils of having a baby sister.” He looped his arm round her shoulders. “I didn’t spend hours building it because I thought it would be a fun project, although it was a fun project. I did it because I loved you. Then there was the time you decided you wanted to do a trip to the top of the Empire State Building for your eleventh birthday. I took you. Remember that?”
“Yeah. You almost crushed my hand.”
“That’s because I’m not good with heights and I was scared out of my mind.”
She snorted. “You were not.”
“Terrified. I was jelly. But I did it because it was what you wanted. Love got me up there and love got me down again. Do you believe I love you yet, or do I need to keep going?”
“I guess I believe you.”
“You guess?”
“I—I believe you. But—”
“No ‘buts.’ I love you. You’re my girl and I’ll always love you. Nothing is ever going to change that. Nothing you do. Nothing your mom did. And now it’s time to talk about that.” He glanced along the platform to where the three people were still waiting. “I was going to suggest going somewhere private, but this is pretty private. It will do. Clare tells me you know your mom was having an affair. That she was leaving.”
Panic threatened to strangle her.
Izzy stared down the track, willing the train to come right now but there was nothing but trees, and fresh air, and this conversation she didn’t want to have.
“I know this is difficult and you don’t have to say anything, sweetheart.” Jack’s voice was gentle. “I’ll do the talking.”
Where was the train?
“I can’t imagine what this past year must have been like for you and I’m gutted that you didn’t feel able to talk to me about it, but I understand why you didn’t. You didn’t want to hurt me. You love me. And I didn’t mention it to you because I didn’t want to hurt you. I loved you too much. More evidence right there. If she hadn’t died then I guess we would have had that difficult conversation back then, but she did and so there didn’t seem any value in raising it. Except of course I didn’t know that you knew. Which either makes us both caring, or a pair of idiots. Not sure which.”
He knew? All this time she’d been protecting him and he knew?
“I heard her on the phone. We had a terrible, terrible fight before she went out that night. I thought there’d be time to talk about it again—” She felt the tears rush to her eyes and fought to hold them back, but this time her body refused to cooperate. They fell, poured, and with the tears came the sobs and she couldn’t stop any of it. It was all too much. Something inside her had burst.
She felt him pull her against him, was dimly aware of being held, of his voice soothing and calming her, telling her everything was going to be okay, that she had no need to feel guilty and still she cried, soaking his shirt. She cried until she was empty, and even when her sobs eventually stopped she stayed where she was, utterly drained and exhausted.
“There.” He stroked her hair. “This is my fault, sweetheart, not yours. After she died, it was chaos. And we were all dealing with it, and maybe if we hadn’t been I would have noticed something was worrying you. But every time I saw you behave differently, I assumed it was grief. Bad judgment on my part.”
“No!” Why had they never talked like this before? She didn’t want the train to come, not quite yet. She wanted to have this conversation. “I’m sorry she cheated on you.”
“Oh honey—” He kept his arms wrapped around her. “You don’t have to be sorry. Her decisions weren’t yours. My love for you wasn’t, and isn’t, tied up with my feelings for her.”
She sniffed. “You’re so forgiving.”
“I’m not forgiving.” He paused. “I’m mad with her, if you must know. And that’s been difficult. Grieving someone, and being mad with them—it’s a weird feeling.”
“I know.” She lifted her head to look at him. “I feel the same way.”
“Yeah? We should have shared that. We could have gone to the gym together and thrown a few punches.”
She managed a small smile. “We could still do that.” And because he was so generous and understanding the emotion flowed over her again, swamping her like the incoming tide. “She didn’t think about me at all. It’s like I didn’t matter.” The words burst out of her and she felt his arm tighten.
“It wasn’t that she didn’t think of you, although I can see why it might seem that way. She was pretty troubled. Your mom didn’t have an easy life.”
“She was married to you. That was like winning the lottery and she, like— I don’t know.” Izzy clung to the front of his shirt, his soaked shirt. “She tossed it away.”
“Some people find it hard to move on from the past. I know you keep a diary. And write a blog.
Did you write all this down?”
“Some of it. Some of it felt too personal.”
“Writing is good. Someday you’ll use the experience. Maybe it will make you understand someone a bit better, or perhaps you’ll use it as inspiration when you write your blockbuster.”
“You think I’m going to write a blockbuster?”
“I think if anyone stands a chance, it’s you. Did you know I bought you your first pen?”
“I didn’t know that.”
“You drew on the wall.”
She laughed. “I bet Mom loved that.”
“She was away touring with the ballet company. I painted over it before she came home and told her I thought it was time we redecorated the kitchen.”
“I guess that was love, too.”
“It was.” He pulled her closer. “And also self-preservation.”
“She was going to walk out and leave Molly and me.” And she couldn’t get that out of her head.
“I’m not going to lie, because if I lie you’ll never trust me again and I want you to trust me. Yes, she was going to leave us.”
“So she didn’t love me. There’s the evidence right there.”
“She did love you. Sometimes evidence can create a false trail. Only the best journalists would take the time to dig deeper. It’s the ‘why’ that really tells the story, Izzy. Remember that.” He sighed. “She thought I’d be a better parent to you than she ever could be. It was the reason she married me.”
Izzy was appalled. “She loved you.”
“She did, in her own way, as far as she could.”
She should have felt agonized that her mother had been prepared to walk out and leave her, but instead all she felt was relief that she would have carried on living with Jack.
“Can I say something to you?”
“Anything. Anything at all.”
“I loved my mom but honestly I think she was batshit crazy.”
He gave a tired laugh. “The best response I have to that is that sometimes people we love do things we don’t understand or even necessarily agree with.”
“Talking about people we love, Flora rowed a boat to the island. Did she tell you?”