“Don’t you miss her too?”
“I do.” There was no use denying it. He couldn’t possibly lie when he had spent every day since she’d left pining after her, wishing that she would return. “But she will return when she is ready.”
“But why did she leave? Did something happen to Aunt Ava or Aunt Maisie?”
“She left because she wanted… to be alone with her family.”
“But aren’t we her family too?”
“Yes.” He gathered Dorothea to his side, partly to comfort her and partly because he didn’t want her looking at his face as he tried to compose himself. “But she is quite close with her sisters. I think she simply wanted to be with them.”
Dorothea was silent for a long moment. Joseph had hoped that she no longer had any questions, but then she complained, “I don’t understand why she left without saying goodbye to us.”
Joseph sighed. “I think I may be the one to blame for that.”
Dorothea pulled away, giving him a stern frown that was so much like his own, it made his chest constrict. “Did you do something to upset her?”
“A little bit.”
“Didn’t you apologize to her like I told you to? You need to tell her so that she can come home.”
“It isn’t that simple, I’m afraid.”
“What did you do?”
“I…” How could he explain it to her? Should he explain it to her at all? “I believe Catriona is beginning to think twice about her marriage to me. She accepted under certain conditions, but… Imight have been a bit unfair for demanding such things in the first place.”
“Daddy, I don’t understand.”
He sighed, searching for the right words. “I made the mistake. I thought I knew what I wanted.”
“But that’s silly, Daddy.”
“Yes, it is silly…” he trailed off, unable to explain.
Dorothea stood and faced him, crossing her arms, and looking at him as if she was disappointed in him. “I think you should just go and apologize to her and everything will be all right.”
“It is not that simple, Dorothea.”
“Why not?”
“Because…” He couldn’t finish. No explanation came to his mind in time. Why wasn’t it that simple? When he took away his fears, took away the pain of the past, there was only one thing that truly mattered.
How he felt.
He hadn’t allowed himself to explore that side of his heart because the pain of the past had overshadowed everything. Itwas difficult forgetting about what had happened to Hannah, difficult trying to shed the guilt he carried when he thought of how little he had done to help her, how little he could do. He recalled his parents, who had only spoken to each other when it was absolutely necessary, and could not imagine being able to create anything else in a marriage.
Yet he had. Without realizing it, Catriona had brought out a side in him he thought never existed. She’d made him explore memories he’d been content to bury, simply because he did not want to deal with the emotions that came with them. She’d made him forget the world around him, to simply live in the moment. She’d brought him closer to his daughter. She’d filled him with life.
It was no coincidence that, now that she was gone, it felt as if he was missing a vital piece of himself. As if he had cut off his arm and was walking around unbalanced. Dorothea was right. If he liked her and she liked him, why couldn’t it be that simple?
Love.
Love was what complicated everything. Love was what brought his fear, brought his longing, brought his desperation.
Did he love her?
“If you aren’t going to go for her, I will,” Dorothea declared, pulling him out of his reverie.
