Because I really don’t want to know.
But I’ve already realised.
My plummeting heart has too.
‘You mean the crash,’ I say, and my voice no longer sounds like mine.
Miserably, she nods.
‘Was that when he died?’ I ask.
‘It was. I’m …beyond… sorry. I don’t know why he was there, it’s taunted me for twenty-nine years, and it will taunt me until the day I die. But he was lying across you when thattractor driver got to you. A branch had come through the windscreen.’ Her tears spill free. ‘He stopped it … ’
Mutely, I stare.
I open my mouth to speak.
Then I close it again.
I can’t speak.
Can’t absorb this.
Someone was watching over you,that tractor driver told me when he pulled me from my car seat, not a scratch on me.
He must have shielded my eyes.
Shielded me.
I don’t remember seeing any of it.
‘Did I know he was my father?’ I force the question out.
‘I don’t know,’ Mum says. ‘You’ve never spoken about it. You didn’t speak at all for nearly three months afterwards.’ More tears run down her cheeks. ‘We stayed up here. I thought that was the best thing for you, and you were just …silent.I was terrified you were never going to speak again. I kept taking you to Eleanor, but she couldn’t get through to you either. Then we sold the house, moved down to London, and within days you started talking again.’ She draws a ragged breath. ‘It was like as soon as I’d got you away from here, you could forget. Not just the accident, but everything you used to get so upset over. That man, those boys, that bird … And I wanted that for you. It made youhappier.’ She shakes her head.‘Eleanor said I was letting you bury it, that it would come back to haunt me, haunt you, but I didn’t listen to her. I didn’t want you to know your dad had died doing that for you. I didn’t believe anyone should have to carry something like that, let alone a four-year-old child. Let aloneyou.’ She’s really crying now. My brave, strong mum is in pieces. ‘By the time you were old enough for me to speak to you about it, I’d kept it from you for so long, I didn’t know how to unpick the secret.That’swhyI’ve been so terrified of you coming back here.’ She wipes her cheeks. ‘That’swhy I haven’t wanted anything about your nan and granddad’s accident coming out.’ She presses the heels of her hands to her eyes. ‘I’ve been so scared of what it will do to you, finding this all out.’
‘Mum, come here,’ I say, wrapping her in my arms, holding her close, for myself as much as her. ‘It’s all right.’It’s not, my inner voice screams.It’s not.‘I don’t blame you … ’
‘You should.’
‘I don’t. You did your best for me. No one could have done better. Look at me.’ I pull away from her. ‘Look at this balanced, functional human being you’ve raised.’
She laughs, cries more, and places her hand to my face. ‘He loved you, Claude. Whatever his faults, he really loved you. More than life.’
‘Yes,’ I say, my own tears breaking free. ‘Yes … ’
‘I love you too.’
‘Well, I knowthat.’
She smiles.
Then, resting her head against mine, she locks my eyes with hers.
‘What do you think?’ she says. ‘Do you want to see Eleanor?’
‘I don’t know if I want to,’ I say. ‘But I think I probably need to.’
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I think you probably do too.’
