‘It wasn’t an easy meeting.’ He reached across and gave her hand a squeeze. ‘I get that.’ He started up the car. ‘The social worker will be in touch. Grandparents don’t always want custody if they feel they’re too old, but Jane and Bobby are only in theirvery early forties so if they’re willing, it makes sense that they want to bring Lena up. Did you see the light in their eyes when they talked about their grandchild?’
Nadia smiled and wiped away a tear. ‘Actually, I did; it was a little glimmer of hope in a situation that’s so…’ She didn’t finish; there was no word to sum up what this was, not for anyone concerned.
‘They’ll be able to let Lena know as much as possible about her mother when the time is right; they’ll be able to share the happy times and maybe eventually the struggles.’
They were well on their way when Nadia asked, ‘Can we go and visit Lena?’
‘Sure. Give the social worker a call, check first, but I’ll head in that direction.’
Sybil said that of course it was fine to pop over. They didn’t stay long but it was enough for Nadia to have a cuddle with Lena, tell her that they’d met her grandparents and that they were kind, they would look after her if that was what was agreed.
As they drove back to the airbase, Hudson barely got another word out of Nadia.
When they parked up outside, he shared with her his own fears. ‘If anything happened to one of my kids… well, it would break me. I’m not sure how you move forwards with something like that.’
‘It makes me think about Monica.’
‘How so?’
She toyed with her handbag on her lap. ‘If I’d had my way, my mum would have been harder on my sister, she would have told her to pull herself together, do better. And Monica might have ended up like Marissa, pregnant and alone, thinking she couldn’t stay where she was, that she’d been abandoned by those who were supposed to protect her.’
‘Nadia, don’t beat yourself up about this.’
‘But I left Monica; I abandoned her by running away.’
‘No, you didn’t. She was your sibling, not your child. Your mum made her choices – and I imagine part of you wanting your mum to tell Monica to pull herself together was because you were trying to protect your mum, not because you wanted harm to come to Monica.’
‘I would never wish for that.’
‘I don’t know your sister and I never knew your mother but it sounds as though Monica played a very big part in making things so terrible that her own sibling left. You can’t blame yourself for wanting to live your own life away from all the stress and the drama.’
‘Mum never once turned her back on her – there were so many times I wanted her to, but she couldn’t see my sister’s faults; she couldn’t see that Monica was taking advantage. Monica got in trouble at school and I lost count of the times Mum went up there to sort things out, the stress she felt and the tears she thought I couldn’t hear behind closed doors. Monica would stay out all night sometimes, then she’d waltz in and hug Mum, say a quick “I’m sorry” and it would all be forgotten. But I saw it wearing my mum down. When I said that to Mum, she denied it, said she was parenting; people did it the world over.
‘I wondered sometimes whether I was imagining it, whether I was jealous of my younger sister, but then one day, she got picked up by the police for shoplifting and was brought home in a police car. She was let off, the owner of the shop didn’t want to press charges, but she was given a stern warning and not just by the police. My mum got angry that day, it was the most furious I’ve ever seen her, and she told Monica that something had to change.’
‘And did it?’ Hudson asked.
‘For a while, yes. I thought that finally, we would go back to being a normal family but Monica couldn’t help herself; she ranwild, she didn’t play by the rules at all but she stayed just on the right side of the law. The potential arrest for the shoplifting had obviously worried her but she went back to blaming all her problems on her struggles at school, her inability to do as well as everyone else.
‘I always knew I was loved, I never felt that I wasn’t, but any time I spent with Mum was marred with her sadness and her stress over my sister. On my eighteenth, Monica got completely wasted – I’ve no idea how she even got alcohol when she was so young and she never told my mum either, but my eighteenth, with friends and a posh afternoon tea Mum had organised, along with Pimm’s in the garden in the sunshine, was tainted once I saw Monica come in. She almost knocked over the tiered plates full of sandwiches and Mum ushered her away and into the bathroom. She kept her away from me and my friends but the damage was done. It went on for years – different things and yet the same: Monica not caring about other people, only looking out for herself. I had to leave before all the anger and resentment made me into a person I probably wouldn’t have liked very much. Monica was never going to stop taking Mum’s time, her energy, her focus, and her money, given she didn’t pay anything in the way of rent or living costs. Monica stole from me; that’s how I saw it. She stole my relationship with Mum because she was always there, always in the background, always causing chaos. I tried to talk to her over the years before I left but…’
‘But then Archie was the final straw. Can’t say I blame you for that.’
It had Hudson wondering about Beau. Had his son done all these things since Lucinda left to get their attention? Hudson had his kids living with him, which meant he had work, childcare, everything to do around the house, and sometimes the emotional side of parenting was the thing that got cast aside.He barely had enough energy on some days to get through everything else.
‘We’d better get inside.’ Nadia waved out of her window at one of the Whistlestop River Freewheelers who pulled in alongside them.
Nadia seemed fine as they made their way into the airbase but Hudson knew that deep down, she wasn’t. He only hoped she’d be able to resolve things one way or another with her family.
When Lucinda dropped the kids home that evening, the first thing Hudson did was get Carys organised for bed but then he went into the kitchen and without asking his son, made him a mug of hot cocoa which he took up to his room along with a stack of four chocolate Hobnobs – his favourite.
Beau had said he’d be studying and he was and even managed a thank you rather than a grunt when Hudson went into his room with the drink and snack. For once, he didn’t have his headphones fixed in place over his ears.
‘I’ve read through your apology letter,’ Hudson told him. ‘It reads well. I’ll send it in the morning.’
‘Then the shit will really hit the fan.’
Instead of reprimanding him for the language, Hudson smiled at his son, who had done something stupid but was going some way to making up for it with the letter and all the hard work he’d done at the airbase. ‘Let’s hope The Skylarks are feeling in a forgiving mood tomorrow. You’ll stop by after school?’
