‘I just wish she’d moaned about how bad it was so we’d know how hard things were for her, why she was always so busy, why we felt she didn’t have the time for us.’
‘Me too. It took me a while to understand her.’
‘Not as long as it took me.’
Tegan put a hand on her arm. ‘Don’t feel bad, not any more. I think having a family was what did it for me. It got me here more often; it made me see things from Mum’s point of view. And you came when she really needed you. At the end, she knew how much she meant to you and vice versa.’
Morgan sniffed. ‘You’re such an older sister with your wisdom.’
‘I have my uses.’
Without saying much else, they ploughed on, finishing what had come from the loft before starting on Elaina’s bedroom. Clothes were bagged up to drop at a charity shop, a lot was thrown out including old make-up and toiletries that would never be used again. They sorted the drawers up here and then moved to the dining room cupboards.
‘Photographsalwaysslow the process down,’ Tegan claimed when they came to a box of albums as well as a few loose in the box.
‘Let’s have a few minutes of enjoyment,’ Morgan urged. ‘I could use a rest.’
The reminisced over photographs of them as little girls, of them as a family of four, some of their memories tinged with sadness, others with the happiness they’d once felt as a family unit.
‘I remember this day,’ said Morgan, holding up a photo of both girls with their dad. He had the bowls set out in the garden with his daughters. ‘I wonder why we were never good enough for him, Tegan.’
‘I don’t know. All I know is that if Henry left me high and dry with two kids, I’d find him… and well, let’s just say there’d be damage to his manhood.’
‘Do you ever think about trying to work things out with him?’
‘With our dad? No, not really. He’s had years to reach out and try to be a parent to us, Morgan. And he hasn’t. I’ve made peace with that. Why, do you want to have him in your life? It’s fine if you do.’
‘I don’t think so. I’m not sure I could get past the fact he just walked away and never showed much interest.’
‘I’m not even sure why you told him Mum had died.’
Morgan shrugged. ‘Neither am I. I suppose a part of me wondered if he’d send a big emotional tribute, be there for us. But I’m almost glad that he wasn’t. He wasn’t a part of our lives, a part of Mum’s in the end. It’s best he just sent a card and that was that.’
Morgan carried on wading through photographs and pulled out a picture taken in the back garden of their family home before their parents had split and the girls had moved with their mother to Forget-Me-Not Cottage. Taken in their teens, both girls were sitting on the bench at the back of the narrow but very long garden with a rose bush behind. ‘I remember having the picture taken because the thorns from the rose bush got tangled in my hair.’
Tegan laughed. ‘I remember too! I had to untangle you and it took forever!’
‘Mum was threatening to have to cut my hair off. I was so distressed.’
‘She never would have. She loved your hair, said it was thick and luxurious and hoped you never cut it short.’
‘She said that?’ Morgan gulped at the personal nature of the comment her mum never seemed to make, not to her ears, anyway.
‘She did.’ Tegan paused. ‘She said it to you often enough.’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘I think somewhere along the way, you got frustrated with Mum. And I know she was to blame for a lot of things, but you became blinkered, when she tried to make things right, you didn’t always see it.’
She opened her mouth to argue but she couldn’t. Tegan was right. Over the time she’d spent with Elaina, she’d slowly been able to see for herself that that was exactly what she’d done. Her mum wasn’t a perfect person, but neither was she. Was anyone?
‘I think part of me might have blamed Mum for Dad leaving,’ Morgan admitted. Tegan looked at her. ‘I know that isn’t fair and I know it isn’t true. But I think that’s what I did for a while because it felt less painful than admitting he’d just left because he didn’t love us any more.’
‘Henry never could fathom how any man could do it.’
‘Hmm…’ Morgan agreed. ‘Henry is a good man.’
Tegan grinned. ‘So is Nate.’
