Page 60 of A Secret Escape

“Well, you can definitely stop worrying about whether you’ll be a good mother or not. You’re going to be brilliant. Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For getting her to talk about it. For handling it all so well. I told you that you’d be an amazing mother, and you just proved it.”

“She’s a teenager, not a baby. It’s different.”

Milly laughed. “Babies are much easier than teenagers. Or perhaps I should say it’s a different type of stress. One is physically exhausting, and the other is mentally exhausting. As you will discover. Anyway, thanks.”

Nicole felt a little better. Maybe she wasn’t going to be such an awful mother. Maybe there was hope. “You’re welcome.”

Milly added yogurt to her berries, but this time she didn’t bother reaching for honey. “I can’t believe Zoe and Cally aren’t talking to each other. I feel sick for her.”

Nicole had only recently learned that was a thing: feeling your child’s emotions as if they were your own. If Zoe was worried, Milly worried. If Zoe was in pain, Milly was in pain. It was as if the two of them were invisibly connected.

She wondered sometimes why that connection had been missing for her mother. There had been so many times during her childhood when she’d been in pain and she was sure her mother hadn’t felt a thing.

But it was obvious to her that Milly felt everything.

Over the past couple of weeks Nicole had watched Milly and Zoe together and studied their interactions.

She liked the way they chatted together so naturally, each one tossing a line of conversation that the other one caught and ran with. She liked the way Zoe talked so openly to Milly, and although she hadn’t told her about Cally, it was because she was trying to protect Milly. And she admired the way Milly listened carefully to everything her daughter said, never interrupting, and never judging. She bestowed hugs and comfort when needed and calm good humor when things were tense. It was obvious from the conversation they’d had on their morning runs that Milly had bitten her lip again and again rather than allow herself to say bad things about Richard in front of their daughter.

Nicole wasn’t sure she would have been able to display the same restraint.

And she couldn’t help wondering how different things would have been if her mother had been more like Milly.

Nicole’s entire inner world had been a secret from her mother, and she hadn’t had to work hard to keep it private because her mother had never been interested enough to look.

It had been years since she’d seen her. She didn’t know exactly how many years because she was afraid to count them. Every year that passed was yet more evidence of her lack of importance in her mother’s life.

The last time she’d been in touch with her mother was when Nicole had been in London for the premiere of one of her movies. Ironically she’d been playing the part of a daughter estranged from her mother, an emotional role that she’d found so true to life that she hadn’t had to dig that deep for inspiration.

On impulse she’d called her mother and asked if she’d like to meet up, but her mother had told her that she was at the airport about to fly to Australia where she had a new job as the head of vascular surgery in a major hospital.

Nicole had listened in disbelief.

Her mother was moving to Australia and hadn’t even mentioned it. If Nicole hadn’t called at that exact moment, would she even have known?

Nicole had wished her luck, as if she was nothing more than an acquaintance from the past, and had never called her mother again.

It was too humiliating. In her lowest moments she’d actually wondered if her mother had chosen Australia on purpose because it was a country Nicole rarely visited.

She’d been upset all over again, but that final move of her mother’s had confirmed what she’d always known: that their relationship would never be what Nicole wanted it to be. Gradually she’d accepted the situation for what it was.

She’d wondered briefly if she should reach out and tell her that she was pregnant, but she’d dismissed the thought right away.What was the point? And in the unlikely event that her mother was interested, would Nicole want her anywhere near her child? No, she would not.

She thought of Milly’s words.

You can choose what type of mother you want to be.

When Nicole had said she wanted to be like Milly, it was true.

She wanted to be the sort of mother who sat down and listened and laughed with her child no matter how busy she was. The sort of mother who was hands-on, who didn’t ration hugs, who loved unconditionally.

She wasn’t going to think about her relationship with her own mother. She was going to think about Milly’s relationship with Zoe, and Connie’s relationship with Milly. She was surrounded by good role models. There was no reason why she should emulate the bad one, even if it was the one closest to home.

And she was going to prove Justin wrong.

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