Page 10 of Sunset at Embthwaite Farm
Anna blinked, absorbing the snark as well as the pain behind it. “Like I said, Harriet,” she said quietly. “You weren’t the only one who was hurt.”
“But you’re mymother,” Harriet burst out. “It’s different.”
“Is it?” Anna replied with a small, sad smile. It was supposed to be—she got that. Mothers weren’t allowed to get hurt, or tired, or have any feelings at all. They had to be patron saints of smiling nobility—always cheerful, always loving, never having any needs or wants at all. It wasn’t expressly said, of course, by anyone, but it was felt and shown every single day, all around the world.
Anna had bought into it herself, for years. She still did, on some level, which was why she felt so wretchedly guilty. And yet at the same time, she longed to be heard by her daughters. Accepted and understood, even as they stubbornly refused so much as to attempt either.
“Maybe it isn’t different, Hats,” Rachel said quietly. “We haven’t exactly been making her welcome these last few weeks.” She gave Anna an abashed look. “Imeanto, but then…I don’t.” She shook her head, grimacing. “A lot of old feelings come rushing back, I suppose.”
“I understand that,” Anna replied. “I’m the same.”
“What old feelings of yours come rushing back, then?” Harriet asked, her voice caught between determined sulk and curiosity.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Anna wasn’t about to level with them how she’d felt in this house—despairing, desperate, driven to a wild sorrow that had felt like grief, although she had never been sure what she’d been mourning. “Not good ones, anyway.”
“Whywere you so unhappy, Mum?” Rachel asked suddenly. She leaned forward, her bowl of soup forgotten. “I have memories…memories I suppressed or forgot or whatever, and they came back when I returned here a couple of months ago. Memories of you crying on the stairs or staring into space like you’d lost your best friend. I remembered you throwing a pan of Yorkshire pudding onto the table, right here.” She pointed to a faded scorch mark on the centre of the table while Anna felt herself flush.
“I was unhappy sometimes,” she whispered, staring down at the table because she couldn’t bear the looks of confused accusation on her daughters’ faces. No mother should be that unhappy, she supposed, or at least no mother should let it show as much as she had. She couldn’t even remember throwing a hot pan onto the table, but she didn’t doubt Rachel’s story.
“Was it because of Dad?” Rachel asked.
Now they were getting into dangerous, murky waters. “In part,” Anna replied carefully. Her throat felt tight and there was a stinging behind her lids that she was determined to ignore. “But in part it was just me, I think. I had a naïve view of what life on this farm would look like.”
“So, you did get bored,” Harriet filled in, sounding grimly exultant. Rachel threw her a quelling look.
“Harriet…”
“I wasn’tbored, Harriet,” Anna replied, and now there was a steel in her voice that hadn’t been there before. “I didn’t get tired of life here or want something new and different andfun.” Her voice was rising, her hand, lying flat on the table, curling into a fist of its own accord. Emotions were bubbling up, memories threatening to overwhelm her, no matter how hard she tried to suppress them. “If you want to know why I left, it was because—because I didn’t think I could stay here and survive.Live.If that sounds melodramatic, so be it, but that, back then, was how I felt with every fibre of my being.” Her voice choked on a sob, and she swallowed it down. Through her blurred vision, she saw Rachel and Harriet staring at her, stupefied, and despite the wild grief coursing through her, she almost wanted to laugh.
“I meant to wait until you were at university,” she continued, gulping again. “That was my plan. But, in the end, for my own…my own safety, I couldn’t.”
“Your ownsafety?” Harriet repeated after a moment, trying to sound incredulous but coming across as merely uncertain. “What are you saying…that Dadabusedyou?”
Anna let out a shuddery sigh. Was domestic violence the only legitimate reason for a mother to abandon her children? “He never harmed me physically,” she told them both. “And if he had, I wouldn’t have left you with him. I would have taken you both withme.”
“But you didn’t,” Harriet replied flatly. “You didn’t even suggest it.”
Anna shook her head slowly. “Harriet, please believe me when I tell you, if that had been possible, I would have done it.”
“What isthatsupposed to mean?” Harriet burst out.
“Hats, be reasonable,” Rachel protested. She was looking at Anna with a thoughtful expression on her face. “You were in the middle of your A levels—”
“Which I failed.” Harriet threw Anna an accusing look. “Did you even know that?”
“No,” Anna replied quietly. Yet anothermea culpamoment. Was that why Harriet had stayed all these years? “I didn’t. I’m sorry.”
Harriet just shook her head. “You’re not actually telling us anything, you know,” she told her, her voice choking a little, reminding Anna that no matter how angry Harriet seemed, underneath all that fury there was only a little girl’s hurt. “Why you left, or even what you did. Did you just go live in a flat somewhere, or a house? Did you go on holiday?” Her voice rang out. “I don’t know anything about your life from then till now. Not one thing.”
“Harriet, that’s on you, at least a little bit,” Rachel said gently. “Mum did reach out—”
“Once—”
“More than once,” Rachel protested. She glanced at Anna. “Didn’t you?”
Anna knew what Harriet was referring to—the first time she’d telephoned, a few months after she’d left, desperate to talk to her. Harriet had hung up on her, almost immediately. Anna had been devastated. She’d tried again a few days later, and then a few weeks after that, and Harriet hadn’t answered either. Then not for a long while after that, because it had simply been too painful. But somehow, that wasn’t a good enough reason. Anna accepted that; she felt it.
“I should have,” she told Harriet. “I know I should have.”
