Page 16 of Sunset at Embthwaite Farm
“I am,” Anna replied, determined to stay even-tempered despite the implied accusation in Rachel’s words. Admittedly, she was absolutely champing at the bit to get settled in her new place, but she appreciated her daughter’s surprise at this development. “I can come over every day to help with housework, cooking, whatever it is you’d like,” she added. “It’s just…we’ve been on top of each other, Rachel, and sometimes it’s felt a bit…fraught. I thought we could all use a little space to…process things.”
She’d meant to have this conversation with both Harriet and Rachel at the same time, but somehow that hadn’t happened. Harriet was out delivering orders of cookies and had been running between kitchen and car like the proverbial headless chicken. And meanwhile Anna wanted to move into her new place today.
“Okay,” Rachel said after a moment as she put her mug down. “I can see how that makes sense.”
Anna let out a long, low breath of relief. Maybe they were making progress after all, and this would be less complicated than Anna had feared. “I’ll be over here as much or as little as you want me,” she promised. “I really am here to help, but sometimes I’ve felt like I’m in the way.” She held up a hand to forestall Rachel’s protest, which she could see forming on her daughter’s lips. “That’s not a criticism, or a woe-is-me moment. It’s just a fact. And,” she continued, determined to be honest, “I think I could probably use a bit of space, as well.” She glanced around the kitchen, her lips twisting. “This place brings back a lot of memories.”
“Bad ones?” Rachel asked in a low voice.
“Painful ones, some of them,” Anna replied carefully. “Happy ones too, with you girls.” She had a sudden, piercing memory of baking with both Rachel and Harriet when they were just toddlers—chubby hands covered in flour, licking wooden spoons and giggling. “But it’s just…a lot,” she finished, “to have smacking me in the face every moment of the day.”
“Did you love Dad, Mum?” Rachel asked abruptly. “I mean, at all?”
Anna let out a surprised, and rather disconcerted, laugh. What had Rachel been thinking—that she’d hated him, all the years of her marriage? “Of course I loved him. Why do you think I married him? I was wildly, passionately in love with him at the start, and for a long time after.” Which had been all part of the problem. How could you love someone who could hurt you so much, knowingly if not quite deliberately?
Rachel made an ‘ew’ face and Anna laughed again, this time with genuine amusement. “Sorry if that grosses you out, but it’s true.”
“It does a bit,” Rachel admitted wryly, “but I’m glad you weren’t unhappy the whole time.”
“Well…” Anna felt uncomfortably compelled to honesty. “To be fair, things unravelled pretty quickly.”
Rachel frowned. “Before I was born?”
This was starting to become dangerous, Anna acknowledged. There were a lot of truths out there that she was reluctant to impart to her daughter. “Right after, I think,” she answered. “But that was still quite early on. You were more or less a honeymoon baby, remember.” Not that they’d actuallyhada honeymoon; Peter, in typical farmer fashion, had neither been able to spare the time nor see the point. They’d spent their wedding night in the bedroom upstairs.
“I really don’t need to hear about that,” Rachel replied quickly. “Just…ew.”
“I know, I know,” Anna assured her. She didn’t particularly want to remember it; that had been such a painful time of bittersweet joy and naïve confusion. Quite quickly, Peter had not turned out to be the man she’d made him out to be in the romantic fairyland of her twenty-one-year-old mind—and heart. But that wasn’t necessarily his fault. “I won’t say another word about it,” she promised.
“And when Harriet came along?” Rachel asked slowly, her forehead furrowed. “It must have been a crazy time, with us so close in age.”
“It’s all a blur now, to be honest,” Anna replied. “As I think it is for most new mothers.” She paused and then dared to add teasingly, thinking of how close Rachel and Ben had become, “As you might find out one day…who knows, one day rather soon?”
Happily, Rachel blushed at this rather than turning prickly. “Not one day soon,” she answered. “But yes, maybe. Hopefully. One day.”
Anna reached for her tea, relieved that they’d moved on from the past. They seemed to spend so much time stepping over it andnottalking about it in helpful ways that they hardly ever spoke about the present, and all of its exciting developments. “So, things with Ben—they’re going well?” she asked.
“Yes, really well,” Rachel replied, her cheeks pinkening all the more. “Although I think I’m surer about me than Ben is.”
Anna frowned. “What do you mean by that, exactly?”
“Well…he’s sure about howhefeels,” Rachel replied with a shrug. “But he’s worried I’m going to change my mind one day and hare back to London.” She paused and then confessed, “I can understand why he feels that way. I left once, after all.”
It didn’t sound like a dig at Anna for having done the same thing, but rather a bit of self-recrimination Anna had never known about. “Do you feel guilty, Rachel?” she asked in surprise. “For going to university?” Was that why she’d become so prickly, when Anna had pointed it out a few days ago? Things were starting to make sense.
Rachel let out a breath. “No, notexactly. I mean…why should I feel guilty about that? But…I didn’t really ever come back, did I?” She bit her lip, looking guilty indeed. “Only here and there, for a few holidays and flying visits. But I never stayed, and I didn’t realise how Harriet felt…abandoned.”
Harriet would have felt abandoned if Rachel had gone out to empty the bins, Anna thought ruefully, but that was Anna’s fault, not her daughter’s. “Point taken,” she answered, “but what does any of that have to do with Ben?”
“We rowed, before I left,” Rachel explained. “We were dating back then—do you remember?”
“Of course I remember.” Rachel had seemed as if she were walking on air, a silly smile on her face every time Anna had looked at her. Young love. It had made her feel happy and nostalgic and just the teeniest bit sad, all at once.
“A few months before the end of the year,” Rachel continued, “we had a conversation. Or really, wedidn’thave a conversation, and that was the problem. I think I wanted Ben to suggest a long-distance relationship when I was at uni, and he didn’t. He just let me go, didn’t say a word about anything. We both felt rejected by the other and then we never spoke about it. Not that it was a simple case of misunderstanding,” Rachel added on a sigh. “More…choosing not to understand, I suppose. Not being brave enough to speak out.” She squared her shoulders, managing a smile. “We’ve worked through it now, and I’m happy here, so that’s all good…but sometimes it feels like Ben doubts me. Like he doesn’t believe I’m happy with the choice I’ve made, or that I will be, later.”
Anna had had no idea about any of that, either years ago or more recently. It saddened her, to realise how much she’d missed out on, but she pushed that unhelpful emotion away to focus on practically helping her daughter now. She was here now, and Rachel was opening up to her. That was wonderful, and that was what mattered.
“It might take a little time,” she offered. “A few more weeks or months of you staying here, showing up day after day. Your relationship is still quite new.”
