She smiled kindly. ‘That’s a very good point.’
‘Secondly, if I’d stopped you then you would’ve resented me even more. And so the only thing I knew to do was hang around when they were there, make sure they didn’t fill your head with promises. But I could see that you wanted them as much as they wanted you and… well, some days that almost broke me in two.’
Her eyes filled with tears; she hated that he’d felt that way, that she’d never known. ‘It wasn’t that I wanted them instead of you. But when I was in Cornwall at their house, I felt really close to Mum, as though she was there with me. Granny talked about her all the time – sometimes you didn’t, you’d change the subject or cut the conversation short – but Granny was forever telling stories of Mum in that house, the things she’d done as a little girl, what she got up to as a teenager. All of it made me feel like I hadn’t totally lost my mother, that a part of her was still around.’
Nigel pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘It was my way of coping, talking about her less and less so I didn’t have to remember that I’d once had it so perfect, that I hadn’t wanted for anything at all in life. I’m very sorry that I took that from you: the ability to keep her memory alive at the family home.’
Maya felt the sun on her back, the warmth and comfort of it. ‘We needed very different things when Mum died.’
The shrill ring of the airbase phone alerted the air ambulance crew on duty to a job, cutting into the fresh air and quiet that had settled between Maya and her dad.
‘I didn’t know how to reach you. I’m glad you and Julie stayed close, though; it meant you settled not too far away, it meant I might have a chance with you again someday.’
‘You and Julie have such a good relationship.’
‘It was easier with your sister because she was so much younger when we lost your mother. She didn’t have the same emotions as you because her memories weren’t there. And the more you pushed me away, the closer Julie and I became.’
‘I never resented your closeness, you know.’
‘Because you didn’t want it?’
She gulped. ‘I’m not saying this to hurt you. But no. I didn’t. Not then.’
He seemed to understand; he wasn’t surprised either.
‘I can’t believe Granny and Gramps did that to you,’ she said.
‘No, sometimes I can’t either. But they never really approved of me, at least not at first. They thought your mother could do… if not better, different, more suitable.’
She heard the helicopter behind the airbase start up, the blue team about to head out on a call. ‘They always spoke well of you, Dad. I never picked up on any disapproval from them when we were in Cornwall or when they came to our house.’
‘Anya and I would laugh about it, at the comments they made to her about me. By the time we started a family, I think they’d got used to the idea of us, or at least that’s what I thought until they tried to take my daughters.’
‘What sort of comments did they make?’
‘They were more hints than specifics, like talking about her high-school boyfriend and the surf school he’d opened up – the subtext there was that they wanted her to move back to the village and take surfing lessons and fall in love with someone farmore suitable than a lawyer who wore suits every day. They’d talk about how she’d once wanted to be a baker and open up her own bakery and wasn’t it splendid that the old bakery near their house was still around for the locals. Then they said that the owners were approaching retirement and that the bakery would make someone a tidy little business one day.’ He said the last bit in a Cornish accent and sounded so much like her granny or at least someone from Cornwall that Maya began to laugh.
As the red and yellow helicopter rose into the air and passed overhead towards the west, her dad watched it go. ‘It’s hard to imagine you up there doing that.’
‘I love it.’
‘I know you do.’
As the helicopter disappeared into the distance, Maya thought more about her grandparents and the way they felt about Nigel. ‘Granny and Gramps only had one child, they lived their whole lives in Cornwall and for Mum to up and leave for anywhere else, it must’ve been difficult to see her go. It was a loss of sorts. I understand it. I feel it with Isaac.’
He swallowed. ‘And I felt it with you.’
‘When I moved out?’
‘And well before. After your grandparents died, you grew more and more distant and I felt the loss every day, every time you looked at me like I’d taken away your whole world.’
‘You told me once that you were disappointed in me.’
His gaze snapped up. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever said that.’
‘I remember. You were disappointed I didn’t want to try other careers.’
‘Oh, Maya, you were so capable, I wanted you to have choices. I was never, ever disappointed in you and the woman you were growing up to be. I’m sorry if I ever made you feel that way.’ He waited a beat. ‘You know, the way you looked at me never passed. All the hurt from losing your mother, yourgrandparents, our relationship, it was all still there until the night you left and continued ever since. And it became easier for me to be angry with you, rude even, than try to get you back when I didn’t think you’d ever want that.’
