Page 11 of Sunset at Embthwaite Farm
“Where did you even go,” Harriet demanded, “after you left? Were you just laughing it up somewhere—”
Briefly Anna closed her eyes. Opened them. Maybe now it was finally time for some truth. Not all of it, just a little. Enough. “No, Harriet,” she said quietly. “I wasn’t laughing it up. The truth is, right after I left here…I was…” Deep breath. “I was sectioned,” she confessed flatly. The words fell into the stillness, like pebbles thrown into a pond, disappearing under the surface as the water rippled out. She drew another shuddery breath and then made herself continue. “After I left here, I spent three months in a psychiatric facility.”
Chapter Five
The looks ontheir faces…
A bubble of laughter rose in Anna’s throat at a most inconvenient time. And it wasn’t genuine laughter, anyway; it was closer to hysteria. She’d just told her daughters she’d beensectioned. It was something she didn’t like admitting to anyone, chose never to talk about, never even to remember. And yet here she’d just said it, like some sort of trump card.Beat that.And that wasn’t how she actually felt about it at all.
“What…” Harriet began, looking flummoxed. She shook her head slowly. “What…” she said again, no more than a breath of sound, and then stopped.
“I think this might call for a cup of tea,” Rachel said firmly and rose to fill the kettle. Anna glanced down at the table. She had a feeling making tea was a stalling tactic more than a medicinal necessity at this point. She’d really shocked them. She’d shockedherself, because she hadn’t planned on admitting that painful episode in her life. She really did try not even to think of it, because remembering hurt too much.
She knew there was meant to be no shame around mental health issues, and she wasgladof that, but…it didn’t make it much easier to admit to your children that you’d been so low, so in danger of hurting yourself, that you’d needed to be institutionalised.
No one spoke as Rachel made the tea, the only sound the whistling of the kettle on top of the Rayburn and the clatter of cups. Harriet was looking dazed, her expression vacant as she stared into space. Anna took a deep breath, let it out slowly. She could not think of a single thing to say, or at least that shewantedto say, but maybe silence was better. They all needed to absorb the emotional grenade she’d just lobbed into the middle of the kitchen; it still felt as if the smoke was clearing, the rubble all around them.
“Here we are.” Rather forcefully, Rachel set a tea tray onto the table then gave them both a firm yet brittle smile as she set about pouring. Harriet still hadn’t spoken, hadn’t really come to. Oh, dear. This really had been a bombshell.
“Thank you, Rachel,” Anna murmured as she handed them all cups before sitting down with her own.
“Well.” Rachel shook her head slowly. “I don’t really know what to say. Do you… Do you want to talk about it, Mum?”
“It’s not a time of my life that I enjoy looking back on,” Anna answered carefully, “but I understand that you both will have questions, and I want to be honest with you.” She paused to take a sip of tea and steady herself. Already this felt far too painful, like picking at barely healed scabs, revealing the raw and wounded flesh underneath. “Perhaps I should have been honest about it before,” she continued.
“Why weren’t you?” The words burst out of Harriet like lava from a volcano, startling everyone, Harriet included. She blinked and sat back before blindly reaching for her tea.
“I…don’t know exactly,” Anna replied after a moment. “I suppose I…I felt ashamed. That I hadn’t been able to cope.”
“There’s no shame in having mental health issues,” Rachel protested, her voice gentling. “Especially these days. Maybe years and years ago, it was—”
“I know that,” Anna cut across her. “Intellectually. Emotionally is another matter.” She smiled sadly. “The difference between head and heart knowledge, I suppose.”
They all lapsed into a silence that didn’t feel uncomfortable, exactly, but decidedly morose. Anna half-wished she hadn’t said anything. Whyhadshe mentioned it? She’d kept it quiet for twelve years. Why talk about it now? The answer, of course, was because she’d been so nettled by Harriet’s assumptions that she’d been swanning around, having a grand old time. Responding in a fit of pique, Anna acknowledged with a sigh, was not the best way to conduct these matters.
“Still,” Harriet finally said, her hands wrapped around her cup as she stared straight ahead. “If you’d explained it before…maybe we would have been more understanding. Accepting.”
Now was not the time to remind Harriet that she’d hung up on her when she’d called to do just that. “I suppose I could have written a letter,” Anna conceded after a moment. “I think I was afraid it would feel like an excuse…some sort of get-out-of-jail-free card for having left. I know what I did hurt you both, and you especially, Harriet.” She gazed at them both, but only Rachel met her eyes, and then only briefly. “I’ve always been aware of that.”
More silence. The air felt thick and heavy, as if it was weighted down with sadness.
“I knew you were unhappy,” Rachel finally said quietly. “I guess I just didn’t realise how unhappy.”
There was nothing, really, that Anna could say to that.
The sound of a chair scraping across the floor upstairs had Rachel rising from her seat. “I should check on Dad,” she said. “I haven’t even taken him his lunch—it’s probably cold by now.”
“I’ll heat it up,” Anna replied quickly. “I can bring it up to you, if you like.”
Rachel hesitated and then gave a little nod. “Thank you,” she said and left the kitchen. It felt, in a very small way, like progress.
Harriet remained silent as Anna set about reheating the soup. She’d just put it back on the tray when Harriet said abruptly, “I need time to process this. I feel like I can’t be angry with you anymore, but I still am. Sort of.”
“Okay,” Anna answered, keeping her voice neutral. She glanced at her daughter, who was frowning, a deep furrow between her dark brows. She looked so much like Peter in one of his scowls that italmostmade her smile. She understood Harriet being angry with her, and yet…
“Harriet…” she began hesitantly. “At the Christmas party, at the hotel, you didn’t seem so angry. You smiled at me, a few times. It made me wonder if…if maybe you weren’t as angry as I’d thought you were.”
Harriet let out a long sigh as her gaze flitted towards Anna and then away again. “I didn’t want to be angry, I suppose,” she admitted. “And at the party, things with Quinn felt so hopeful—”
