Authors: Tess Stimson
There was something desperately sad about Nell’s bravery. She was so determined not to go to pieces for Zoey’s sake, not to let her mother down. Even when Oliver had broken the news
to her at the hospital – in another of those dreadful beige rooms that seemed to resonate with past griefs and pain – she hadn’t cried. She’d insisted on seeing Zoey’s
body: ‘I need to
know,’
she’d explained, pressing her hands against her stomach. ‘I need to
feel
it. I need to understand she’s really gone.’
And then she’d returned to Harriet’s parents’ house with Oliver and gone upstairs with that same eerie calmness to play computer games with Charlie and the boys, while she and
Oliver had sat silently at the kitchen table, frozen with shock.
All those times she’d privately sneered at Zoey’s lack of fitness, her inability to walk more than a few yards without getting out of breath. She felt awful about it now. There was
so much she wished she could take back.
Florence had walked into the house from a day out with friends and seen her parents sitting in the kitchen, seen their white stricken faces, and immediately assumed it was her grandfather. When
they’d told her about Zoey, for one agonizing moment she’d started to laugh; and then she’d begun to howl, a terrible high-pitched wail that went on and on and on, her grief
ragged and desperate and all-consuming. ‘It’s my fault!’ she’d cried. ‘I wouldn’t talk to her. She kept leaving messages on my phone and I was so angry about her
and Daddy, I wouldn’t talk to her, and now she’s
dead,
she’s dead because of me!’
Harriet had held her while she cried, had stroked her hair and absorbed her fury and told her it wasn’t her fault, of
course
it wasn’t her fault, it was an accident, just
one of those dreadful things that happened – no one could possibly have known. But it was Nell her daughter had turned to as she’d come running down the stairs in response to her cries.
The two girls had gone out into the tiny walled garden at the back of the house, arms wrapped around each other, heads pressed together, and talked for over an hour. When they’d finally come
back inside, both faces were tear-stained and swollen from crying, but Harriet had known that for Nell as well as for Florence, the first dreadful, shocking wave of the storm had passed.
She didn’t know how either girl would have coped if they hadn’t had each other. They spent every moment of the next ten days closeted together, sharing Florence’s tiny box room
and talking well into the small hours every night. Harriet could hear them through the thin wall of her bedroom, their voices low and murmuring, occasionally broken by a sob or a brief, glorious
moment of laughter. ‘Those girls are looking after each other,’ Oliver had said when she’d worried she should be doing more. ‘We’re just the parents now. We
can’t expect them to tell us what they’re thinking any more.’
Until the funeral, she hadn’t seen him since the day Zoey had died. It had simply been too much. Too much regret, and pain, and guilt, and loss. Florence still hadn’t forgiven her
father for the affair, even if Nell had, and Harriet wasn’t about to put her through any more emotional anguish. More to the point, she still didn’t know how
she
felt, now that
Zoey was gone.
She’d never thought she could ever forgive an affair. How could you love someone when respect and trust were gone? But that day in the café, she’d realized it wasn’t
nearly so black and white. She hadn’t forgiven Oliver, but she had believed him when he’d said he loved her. She’d believed him when he’d sworn it had been one stupid,
idiotic mistake, that he didn’t love Zoey, that if he could turn the clock back, he would. But was it enough? She still loved him, yes. But could she trust him again?
He’d told her about the baby. Even as she’d wanted to strangle him for being so bloody
careless,
she couldn’t help a grudging respect that he’d owned it upfront,
knowing it could cost him everything.
She’d had no choice but to send him back to Zoey then, for Nell’s sake. And now Zoey and the baby were gone.
Her heart twisted.
It didn’t change things.
He’d betrayed her and Florence and the boys, and she loved him, but she couldn’t forgive him. She wanted to, but she
couldn’t find it in her. She thought she hated him for that most of all.
She readied herself now as Oliver walked over to talk to her. Around them, mourners stood chatting quietly on the paved terrace outside Zoey’s kitchen door, helping themselves to
sandwiches and vols-au-vent the boys were offering round.
‘I was hoping for a quiet moment,’ he murmured. ‘Have you spoken to Nell yet? About what happens next?’
‘I thought it would be better to wait until the funeral was over.’
‘We can’t leave it much longer.’
She sighed. ‘Oliver, we both know she needs to come back with me. You know how much she needs Florence. She needs a family. She needs a
mother.’
‘London’s her home,’ he said sharply. ‘She may not want to leave. She’s just lost the one constant in her life. You can’t expect her to abandon her friends
and her school and everything she knows just because it’ll tie everything up neatly for you.’
‘Are you suggesting she should stay here with
you?’
He’d looked at her then, his eyes dark with emotion. ‘It’s up to her,’ he said finally. ‘We have to let her choose.’
You could both come back,
she thought suddenly.
You could come home to me, and everything would be, if not quite as it was, as it should be. My husband, my daughters, my family
under one roof.
But there would still be Zoey, a ghost between them.
They waited until all the guests from the funeral had left. Florence and Nell collected paper plates and cups from the street where they’d been left on walls and tucked behind lamp posts.
The boys had found a football from somewhere – a little deflated, but serviceable – and were kicking it around the paved-over gardens whose lawns had long since been sacrificed for
parking spaces. Richard sat on the low wall outside Zoey’s terrace watching them. She knew he was only in his mid-forties, but he could have passed for a man fifteen years older.
‘Could you keep an eye?’ she asked. ‘We want to talk to Nell for a bit on her own.’
Richard nodded. He seemed such a
nice
man. For a brief second, anger flared that Zoey had rejected him for a man who wasn’t even hers to take, and then she remembered the poor
woman was dead and pushed the thought away.
They found the two girls cleaning up in the kitchen. Something Florence would never have voluntarily thought to do before she’d met Nell, Harriet thought with chagrin.
Oliver tried to give Florence a hug, but she stiffened in his arms, and after a moment he painfully let them drop. It was strange: Harriet had always wanted to be the favoured parent, the one
her daughter turned to, but it cut her to the quick to see the two of them like this. She had no idea how long it would take Florence to forgive him, if she ever did. Either way, their relationship
would never be the same again.
Was it worth it, Oliver? Was Zoey worth paying a price this high?
‘Could you give us a moment with Nell?’ Oliver asked his daughter tightly.
Florence looked as if she was about to protest, then she glanced at Nell, whose face was suddenly shuttered, composed. ‘Let me know if you need me,’ she said to Nell.
Nell calmly led the way into the sitting room. Dust motes danced in a large square of sunlight on the worn faux-Persian carpet. She sat down on an armchair, smoothing her long black skirt over
her knees. She looked far older than fifteen. Older than any girl her age had the right to look.
‘I know what you want to talk about,’ she said evenly as they took the sofa opposite her. ‘You want to ask me to come and live with you in America.’
Harriet glanced briefly at Oliver. ‘We want to give you some choices and see what you think of them,’ she said carefully.
‘Do I want to go to Vermont with you and Florence and the boys? Or do I want to stay here in London, with Oliver?’
She could have been talking about which film to see that evening at the local cinema.
‘You don’t have to decide right away,’ Harriet answered. ‘It doesn’t have to be one or the other, either. You can spend the school term with one of us, and the
holidays with the other. Whatever you choose. We won’t mind. You’re not choosing between
us.
We’re both your parents now. We want what’s best for you.’
‘I know you do,’ Nell said softly. ‘And I appreciate the offer, really.’ She looked squarely at Oliver. ‘None of this was your fault, I know that. You’d have
saved her if you could. You were there when she died, and that means a lot.’ She hesitated, clearly struggling to find the right words. ‘But I’m sorry – I don’t want
to live with you. If you and Mum hadn’t had an affair, maybe it would be different. But you broke her heart. I’m not angry with you any more, not the way Florence is. I guess I never
had you on such a pedestal in the first place. People make mistakes, I get that. But right now, I want to be with someone who loved Mum as much as I did. Someone who really
knew
her. Do
you know what I mean?’
Oliver flushed in the face of Nell’s blunt honesty. Harriet realized there was nothing she could do that would punish him more than his two daughters were already.
Suddenly she understood what Nell was getting at. ‘You mean Richard, don’t you?’
‘Richard?’
Oliver exclaimed. ‘But Zoey broke it off with him. What does Richard have to do with anything?’
‘Mum made a will,’ Nell said, talking to Harriet. ‘Richard nagged and nagged at her, and she finally made one, a couple of years ago. I found it in the kitchen drawer, with all
the other bills and stuff. Typical Mum.’ She smiled briefly. ‘She left everything to me – the shop and the flat and everything. I guess that includes the money the hospital gave
her, since that’s part of her estate now. And she made Richard my guardian.’
‘You can’t
possibly
be considering—’
‘Oliver,’ Harriet said warningly
‘Richard’s been my dad for as long as I can remember,’ Nell said staunchly. ‘Mum never got round to changing her will, and I’m glad. He really needs me right now.
And I need him. I love him, and I
trust
him.’
‘Does he know about the money?’ Oliver demanded.
‘Oliver!’
‘It’s OK.’ Nell shrugged. ‘It doesn’t make any difference. She left everything to me, not him. He doesn’t care about money – he never has. He’s
not like that. Anyway, I won’t be able to get it till I’m eighteen. The lawyers told me. So you don’t have to worry about that.’
‘Harriet, say something,’ Oliver protested. ‘Tell her
we’re
her family. She should be with
us.’
Harriet thought of the lawsuit she’d threatened, trying to force Nell to come and live with them, and felt nothing but shame. She was infinitely glad she’d withdrawn it before Zoey
had died; that she’d called Neil Hatfield the morning after Nell’s impassioned visit and told him she didn’t care about losing the ten thousand pounds, she just wanted it to be
over.
‘Oliver, you of all people know family has nothing to do with being related,’ she said quietly. ‘Your family is made up of the people you love. Richard’s her family
now.’
‘I’d like to come to Vermont in the summer holidays, if that’s OK,’ Nell added tentatively. ‘To see you and Florence and the boys. And maybe, in a couple of years,
when I’m done with school, we could talk about colleges in America. I’ll have enough money – I’ll be able to do what I want. But right now, I need to stay in London. I need
to be close to Mum. Richard’s going to look after me.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘Well, we’ll look after each other. As best we can.’
‘And Richard’s agreed?’ Oliver demanded.
‘It’s all sorted.’ She stood up and crouched down in front of him, taking his hands in hers. ‘Please, can you try to understand? I don’t want to hurt you, but I
know where I am with Richard. He’s been my father for eight years. I can’t just leave him now.’
Harriet watched as Oliver took in the full consequences of that brief night in Maine with Zoey He hadn’t just destroyed his marriage – he’d alienated Nell; he’d lost
Florence, at least for now.
He doesn’t deserve this,
a voice inside her whispered.
Not for one mistake.
The kitchen door slammed suddenly. Florence appeared in the doorway, her youngest brother in her arms. ‘Dad, I think you’d better come and sort out Sam and George. Sam kicked the
ball into someone’s garden, and they won’t stop arguing about it.’
‘Can’t Richard take care of it?’ Oliver said irritably. ‘We haven’t finished our conversation with Nell.’
‘We have,’ Harriet smiled, standing up and giving Nell a hug. ‘Richard needs you, of course he does, and you need to be with him. We’ll only be a phone call away. And
we’d love to have you over to visit, both of you, at Christmas or in the summer or whenever you want. And if things change later, you only have to ask. You know that.’
They went outside and stood on the pavement. Nell walked over to sit beside Richard on the wall, holding his hand, while Florence ran off to chivvy Sam and George, with Charlie bouncing
excitedly up and down in her arms.
‘Let me hail you a cab,’ Oliver said stiffly, raising his hand. ‘You don’t need to be hauling the kids halfway across London on the Tube.’
‘What are you going to do now?’
He shrugged. ‘Don’t worry about me. I’ll figure it out.’
He was just going to let her go,
Harriet thought, irrationally angry at the notion. But wasn’t that what she wanted? Wasn’t that what she’d asked for? She’d made
it plain to him at every turn that he was no longer part of her future.
She’d
been the one to offer Nell a bald choice: come to Vermont with me, or stay in London with Oliver. He was
the one who hadn’t given up on them.
Harriet, say something. Tell her
we’re
her family. She should be with
us
.