Page 119 of A Recipe for Love
‘Which means he should have talked to me before he decided.’
Her nan nodded. ‘Of course he should. Should you have talked to him before you did a bunk though?’
That was different. ‘He made this huge decision without mentioning it to me. It was like none of what I’d been doing mattered to him.’
‘And that sent you fleeing down here with your tail between your legs.’
‘And why’s that a surprise? It’s what I do, isn’t it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I run away when stuff gets tricky don’t I? Never stay in one place for too long. Pick up and ship out as soon as stuff gets hard.’ Bella took a deep swig of wine. ‘Like mother, like daughter.’
Her grandma shook her head. ‘Is that what you think?’
‘Well if the cap fits…’
‘You are nothing like your mother. Your mother is an addict. Simple as. When she’s clean she’s great. She loves you. Loves us both. When she’s using she’s lost. I nearly broke my own heart trying to fix that and I only stopped when something more important came along.’
‘What?’
‘You. I couldn’t make things right for your mam, but I could take care of the only thing, apart from the drugs, that she really loved. Looking after you was the only thing I could do for her, and it was easy. I fell in love with you the second I saw you.’
Bella let her nan squeeze her hand. It didn’t change anything though. ‘I’m still like her in the running away though.’
‘You don’t run away from things.’
‘I do.’ Of course Bella did. ‘I never stay in one spot.’
‘Because you’re runningtowardssomething.’
What? ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well you went to Spain cos you were offered a job there. You went to Brazil because you met people who invited you to that festival. You went to Scotland because you…’ Nan hesitated. ‘Because you fell in love?’
Bella could see her knuckles whitening from her grip on the glass. ‘But it didn’t work out.’
‘Are you sure you gave it a chance?’
That wasn’t fair. ‘I did everything I could. Adam…’ This was the thing that had sent her away, wasn’t it? ‘Adam gave up on us.’
‘Did he?’
‘He chucked everything we were doing away.’
‘And that was awful. Of course he should have talked to you.’ Her grandma stroked Bella’s hand. ‘Grief can take people differently though.’
‘He didn’t seem like he was grieving that much.’
‘Unless he’s made of stone I promise you he was, and if he wasn’t letting it out then it was sitting, waiting somewhere in here.’ Her nan pressed a hand to her own chest.
‘But if he really loved me that should have been enough.’
‘That’s not how grief works, darling. I mean it must have been an insane couple of months for him. He lost his father, and then his mother turning up, and suddenly being responsible for this whole estate and everything.’
‘I tried so hard.’
‘And then you ran away.’
