Page 5 of Sunset at Embthwaite Farm
“I…can do it…myself,” he forced out, the words coming slowly and painfully, making Anna once more feel that inconvenient rush of pity.
“Peter,” she tried again, “I know how hard this must be. But for Rachel and Harriet’s sakes, please let me help you. They’re too young to manage this kind of thing on their own.”
“You did,” he pointed out, surprising her, because that was just about the last thing she’d expected him to say right then. Yes, she had, back in her late thirties, when the girls had been teenagers and her mother had been dying of cancer, her father already passed. She’d travelled frequently between North Yorkshire and Reading, a five-hour journey, going back and forth because the girls couldn’t manage alone, not with Peter working all hours on the farm.
A sigh escaped her, full of sorrow for what had been as well as what now was. “Please,” she said quietly, and after an endless pause where the only sound was his laboured breathing, he finally gave a jerky nod.
Anna exhaled quietly in relief and then reached over to cut the fried egg into neat, bite-sized pieces. She speared one with the fork and then gently took Peter’s hand and wrapped his arthritic fingers around its handle, hoping he could guide the fork to his mouth by himself. She wanted to save his dignity as much as possible, but she didn’t know what his capabilities were.
Her ex-husband’s eyes were full of impotent anger and a deeper grief as, with a huge amount of effort, his hand shaking the entire time, he managed to eat the bite of egg, a bit of yolk dribbling down his chin. It both amazed and saddened her, that this man who had once slung bales of hay and lifted a strapping calf could now barely feed himself. It happened to everyone one way or another, she supposed, yet it was still hard to witness. It had to be all the harder for Peter to endure.
Anna smiled in encouragement as he returned the fork to the tray. “Another?” she asked, and he nodded again.
They managed four good bites before it all went wrong, as Anna had been bracing herself for, because she knew Peter would only be able to take so much of her seeing him as he was—trembling, weak, pathetic in his own eyes.
On the fifth bite, this one of toast, the piece of toast fell marmalade-side down onto his pyjama top.
“Never mind,” Anna said quickly, reaching for the bite of toast, but once again Peter batted her hand way, and once again it hurt. She pressed her lips together to keep from saying something sharp as he glared at her, his mouth working as he attempted to get the words out.
“Peter—”
“Go,” he finally choked out. “Go.” And then he pushed the tray off the lap table, so it fell to the floor in a clatter and splash of dishes and food.
“Peter,” Anna exclaimed in dismay, and then knelt to clean up the mess. The tea had gone everywhere, and she looked around futilely for something to mop it up with. She was just grabbing a shirt when Harriet and Rachel both hurried into the room.
“What’s going on—” Rachel began cautiously just as Harriet burst out, “Why areyouin here?”
Oh, help. She didn’t need this now—both her daughters, accusing her in their different ways, while Peter glared on. “We had a bit of an accident,” Anna told them, thankful her voice didn’t tremble. She kept mopping up the mess, like her life depended on it. “It will be sorted out shortly—”
“Go,” Peter shouted again. His gnarled fists were loosely bunched, his weakened frame shaking with aggravation and effort. He looked furiously at Rachel. “Make…make hergo.”
A tense pause tautened the very air of the room, so Anna found it hard to breathe. Harriet was still seeming like she wanted to have a tantrum, and Rachel looked torn.
“Mum,” Rachel said quietly—the first time she’d used the term since before Anna had left—“maybe you should go, just for now.”
After a second’s pause, when she kept mopping up the mess, her eyes blurred with tears, Anna rose from the floor. “All right,” she said, and walked out of the bedroom before either of her daughters—or Peter, for that matter—could see how close to crying she was.
What a disaster this morning had been, she thought despondently as, back in the kitchen, she threw the sopping shirt into the washing machine and then washed her hands. Nothing had gone the way she’d hoped it would. Everything seemed only a terrible confirmation that she shouldn’t be here, that she wasn’t wanted, needed, or helpful.
Anna took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She glanced at Fred, who was still lying by the Rayburn. He lifted his droopy head from his paws as he saw her looking at him, and his tail beat against the floor a few times, like a question.
“All right,” Anna said, an answer. “Let’s go for a walk, Fred. Clear our heads.”
She reached for her boots and coat and found Fred’s lead in the hall. The girls were still upstairs, and Anna could hear them conversing in hushed murmurs. Were they deciding what to do about their unwanted mother? Maybe they were thinking about how to ask her to leave.
Well, she’d save them the trouble, she thought, at least for the rest of the morning. Maybe a walk would help her decide what was best to do in the longer term. Slipping the lead around Fred’s shaggy head, she headed out into the crisp winter’s morning and started walking briskly down the drive, determined not to look back even once.
Chapter Three
The morning misthad burned off, leaving a fragile blue sky, the wintry sunlight gilding the distant moors in pale gold. Anna’s boots crunched on the frost-rimed gravel of the drive as Fred trotted faithfully beside her. She wondered, belatedly, if her daughters would protest her taking him for a walk; maybe they felt as proprietorial over the dog as they did their father.Well, too bad, she thought recklessly.I’m doing it.
She followed the same path she’d taken years ago, when she’d needed to get away from the farm and clear her head—down the lane, and then a right turn onto the footpath that ran along the sheep meadows and pastures to the River Derwent, before turning left to follow the river into the top of town. Anna didn’t think she’d walk that far this morning, but right now, keeping at a good clip, she certainly felt like she needed to burn off some energy as well as some anger—or maybe it was despair. Sometimes, she mused, they felt like two facets of the same emotion.
It took fifteen minutes of steady walking before she felt herself come back into her usual sense of calm. It felt like a comforting cloak, a safety blanket, because heaven knew she didn’t like or want all those old emotions bubbling up, taking her over. She’d had enough of that, right after she’d left, not that she wanted to think about those desperate months in any way at all.
By the time Anna reached the Derwent, the water bobbing with chunks of ice, she felt restored, or at least mostly. Enough to contemplate heading back and talking to her daughters directly, asking her what they wanted her to do. There was no point staying, she realised, if it was causing more harm than good to everyone, herself included. The knowledge hurt, but at least she finally recognised it. If they wanted her to go, she’d go, even if she feared it would feel like a second death.
She was just turning to head back when, to her surprise, she heard someone call her name.
