George wasn’t going to be distracted into discussing the trust again. “But why did you give it to her?”
“What possible gift would be worthy of the woman you wanted to marry? A CD? A personalised coffee mug?”
This was like a game of cat and mouse, trying to pin blame on the man who had cheated and broken his mother.
“You didn’t even tell Millie the truth about how you came to own Le Cou,” George pressed his father.
“Of course not. Because she’d have refused it.”
There was good logic here, logic which was hard to argue with. But behind it, there was another truth, a deeper, more painful truth.
“It was my mother’s property, her refuge, from you.” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. He did his best to keep his voice level, but grief and anger, long bottled up, rose inhis chest.
“Is that what she told you?” His father’s blue eyes turned hard.
“She didn’t have to. I knew.”
“You knew what?” Challenge flamed in his words. “How long did you know her, boy? You were barely out of playschool. I knew her for twenty years, inside and out. She wasmy wife.”
George was out of his chair and had closed the distance to his father. He towered over him, breathing hard. His hands trembled, and he knotted them into fists to stop himself from putting them around his father’s throat. How dared he call her his wife? When for too many years he didn’t treat her like a wife, when he neglected her and gave his loveelsewhere.
His father looked back at him, unflinching. Challenging.Go on, kill me if you dare, his eyes seemed to say.
Why are you so old? Why can’t you be young enough and strong enough for me to fight you?George’s chest heaved. He wanted vengeance. For his mother’s silent tears, for her loneliness when her husband went out all night, for the false smile she plastered on her face. He wanted to make his father suffer as his mother had suffered.Justice, he wanted justice.
They remained like that, eyes locked.
Finally, his father spoke. “We cannot help who we fall in love with. Or who we falloutof love with. No one knows what goes on behind closed doors.” His face turned away, lips pressed together, hard. A vein pulsed in his jaw.
George, still standing over his father, watched his face. Was the old man showing emotion? At last?
“Sit down, George,” his father said through clenched teeth, still looking away.
He went back to his seat. His father’s face had drained of colour and remained set like marble. Neither of them spoke. Ten, maybe fifteen minutes passed in rigid silence. Normally, George would have dropped the subject. But he was heartsore and too much had happened this weekend; his usual control was deserting him. Disappointment, guilt, rage and grief were pushing against his walls, and so he didn’t let the old man offthe hook.
“You broke her heart. I watchedher cry.”
Like a bullet, his father turned to him. “And how many women haveyoumade cry? How many did you hurt by leaving them?”
Angry words died on George’s lips.Not the same. I didn’t love them. I didn’t commit to any of them.
But here, in his father’s house, there was another memory beside his mother, another broken heart. Less than a year ago. And that one, he, George, had broken.
So this was his punishment, losing Millie. He’d had a happy future in the palm of his hand and crushed it. Unable to sit still, George pushed himself out of his seat and strode to the edge of the terrace. He wanted to leap over the topiary, run to the end of the garden, the end of the island. But the end of the island was Blue Sage Bay. George tensed his back straight, folded his arms over his chest and pressed hard on his diaphragm to hold backthe wave.
“We all make mistakes.” His father’s voice behind him was gentle. George couldn’t remember hearing gentleness from his father, ever. “Sometimes very big mistakes that we can’tunmake.”
He wanted his father to stop talking. He needed to go for a swim in rough waters.Where’s a storm when youneed one?
But then his father spoke again. “You are lucky, my son. You can still correct yourmistake.”
The words filtered slowly, and something hard began to loosen its grip on his insides. He looked back at his father’s unexpectedlywise face.
“But not,” his father said, “if you’re busy trying to correct mine.” He rubbed his hand across his face. “Millie isn’t your mother. And you are not me, and it isn’t twenty-three years ago. You can’t rescue your mother.”
He’d had enough.“I have work waiting for me in London. I’ll see you next month.”
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