Morgan followed her downstairs. Her sister pulled the cheesecake from the fridge, Morgan got two forks from the drawer and, with the dessert still in its cardboard carton, handed one to Tegan.
It was only when Morgan had a mouthful of cheesecake that her sister said, ‘I feel angry.’
Morgan had used her fork to break off a piece of cheesecake but leaning against the kitchen work surface, the sink behind her, she didn’t put it in her mouth. ‘With me?’
Tegan pushed a piece of cheesecake into her mouth to delay speaking again. ‘I shouldn’t be, I know that,’ she said after swallowing. ‘I feel like a total cow for feeling anything other than grateful you came home. I mean, my life in Northumberland carried on. I wasn’t here day in, day out to see Mum’s decline, I wasn’t working my arse off running about after her when she wouldn’t tell anyone else what was going on.’
‘Why do I get the feeling there’s abutcoming?’
‘I wanted to be here. Henry and I would’ve made it work. I wanted to be in your position, doing what you were doing, but I wasn’t.’
Morgan tried to work out what on earth her sister meant. ‘Are you telling me you felt angry because I was here and you weren’t? You were jealous?’
Tegan pulled a face, the face she pulled when she felt so awkward, it would take her a while to find the words to better express how she was feeling. Usually when Morgan saw her sister, she looked fresh-faced in a way that suggested she got a lot of time outside, the fresh air that came with life on the farm, but the dark circles beneath her sister’s eyes reminded Morgan that she hadn’t seen that version of Tegan in a while. This had obviously been playing on her mind.
‘I wouldn’t say jealous. But in the same way Mum asked you to come home and help, she asked menotto.’
‘I’m not sure I follow.’ Morgan put down her fork. ‘What do you mean she asked you not to?’
‘Mum and I… well, we made peace a year or so ago, you know that.’ Tegan had been in communication far more than Morgan over the years, a lot of that to do with the grandkids Elaina adored. They were a lot closer than Elaina and Morgan had been and sometimes, Morgan had been jealous about it but not to the point where she’d made the extra effort to try to be a bigger part of their mother’s life, at least not until she was asked to return to the village.
‘She knew she was bad,’ Tegan went on. ‘She told me her diagnosis right before she told you. Her osteoporosis was manageable but she knew it was going to get worse and while she thought she had years, the diagnosis gave her a bit of a kick up the bum.’ Her phraseology always amused Morgan, as though her sister couldn’t use censored words even when she was with adults; she was so used to substituting them in front of her kids. ‘She kept telling me that she needed to get to know you again, that you were in touch but she felt she didn’t know the real you, that you held back.’
‘I did, but you know that, Tegan.’ They’d both felt unseen growing up, but it had taken Morgan a lot longer to work through her feelings and see their mother as the person she was now, after the tough years of bringing them up. Her sister had got there first; she’d always known that.
Tegan stopped eating the cheesecake and set her fork down on the other side of the carton. ‘When Mum told me her diagnosis and admitted she needed help, the first thing I did was offer to look into what her options might be. But she was adamant. She wanted to callyou. I told her you had a job, you had plans to move to Scotland with Ronan and I explained it wasn’t fair of her to ask for you to give that all up.’
‘I was never giving it up, Tegan.’
She shook her head. ‘Put it on hold, then. It was still a big ask and I told Mum as much.’
‘You did?’
‘I may be bossy but I’m not so bad that I don’t see you’re your own person rather than just my little sister.’ She cleared her throat. ‘So I did what she asked. I didn’t look into other options for her. She wanted you and she wanted me to stay at home, let the both of you try to sort things out, get to know one another again. She never felt that you did. The kids and I have spent a lot of time here and so it’s different for me, I knew that. But Mum wanted both her daughters to know how much she loved them.’
Morgan’s eyes spiked with tears and she put her fingers to the corners to stop any tears from coming. ‘That’s why she wanted me home so much and resisted all my suggestions, claiming she didn’t want strangers in the house.’ Slowly, a smile crept onto her face. ‘She made a few phone calls herself when I found cleaners or home helps and made a list. I wonder now whether they were actually fully booked or whether she made that up.’
Tegan shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t put it past her.’
‘I should feel angry, shouldn’t I, that she kept me from my own life?’
‘And do you?’
Morgan shook her head. ‘No, I really don’t. I ended up enjoying being here in a way I never thought I would. It was a hassle at first; it threw all my plans up in the air, but… well, I can’t imagine how I’d feel now had we not had that time together.’
When they sat down at the kitchen table, Tegan reached her hands across to cover her sister’s. ‘Mum knew that if I was here then you’d take yourself off and she might lose any traction she had. She wanted you to see the way she was now, enjoy time together.’
‘You know, Tegan, you thanked me for coming home to help, but I think I need to thank you for helping Mum pull the wool over my eyes.’
‘Now I feel deceitful.’
‘I’m kind of glad you did it, the both of you.’ But then the tears came and she didn’t stop them as her voice shook and she pulled her hands away to cover her mouth. ‘Oh, my God, you’re angry because you didn’t get to spend much time with Mum and then she went and died… that was my fault… if I’d been a better daughter, you wouldn’t have had to do that—’
‘Enough now,’ said Tegan, her own tears coming, both of them blubbing so much they each looked at one another and started to laugh at the scene they were creating.
Once they’d calmed a bit, Tegan looked Morgan in the eye. ‘We both had time with her. I wasn’t here but we still talked on the phone a lot and I’d seen her right before you came to the village. You have no need to apologise.’
‘But you stayed away.’
