‘It wouldn’t be the first time.’
‘Maybe it’s like Archie says: her head isn’t in a good place.’
‘I always thought that was an excuse before, when we were younger, but he says she’s changed.’
‘You don’t believe him?’
‘I don’t know. I want to.’ She put the container of muffins back on the bench. ‘I’m confused all the time, Hudson. At first, when Archie showed up, I wanted him to turn back the way he’d come and leave me alone. Even when I saw Giles, my head wouldn’t let my heart make the rules. I’d left that world behind, that part of me; I’d made a new life.’
‘But you can’t ignore it. They’re your family.’
‘I keep thinking of Monica, pregnant, out there somewhere perhaps not knowing what to do. I hope it’s not a game to her, I really do.’
‘So do I.’
‘I wondered whether she might head back home to Switzerland without trying to contact me, once she knew Archie was looking for her.’
‘Tail between her legs, you mean?’
‘Something like that.’ She made a groan of frustration. ‘These are all theories because I don’t know her. Not any more. I thought I did, I assumed she was that same person doing the same things she always had, but it’s finally dawning on me that with a couple of decades between then and now, I don’t know my own sister at all.’ She sat back down. ‘Do you think I’ve pushed Archie away so much that he won’t let me know when she does get in touch?’
Hudson shook his head. ‘From what I’ve heard, he’ll be letting you know and then leave it up to you where to go from there. There’s so much history between you all; I think he’s a husband, a father, doing what he can and what he thinks is best for his family.’
‘You think I should get in touch?’
‘It might help you as much as him.’
She took out her phone. ‘You know what, I think you might be right.’
‘You’re going to call him?’
She took a deep breath. ‘Yes. If anything, I need the closure, now more than ever before.’
She smiled nervously at Hudson before she left the kitchen and Beau came back in, talking animatedly about the inside of the helicopter.
20
Nadia was a bag of nerves as she waited at the bench overlooking Whistlestop River. She’d got a coffee and there was a playground nearby where Giles would be able to run off some energy while she spoke to Archie. Yesterday when she’d made contact, she’d half expected to have missed her chance. She’d thought perhaps he’d already be back in Switzerland, or at least be on his way, but he was still here in Dorset, which spoke volumes about how much he loved her sister and his family. It also made her realise the hell he’d been going through these past weeks, the emotional turmoil he had to be feeling with Monica still not in contact. She’d focused so much on her own feelings and pushing the past away that she hadn’t been able to be a sympathetic ear for anyone. And for that, she was ashamed. At work, she gave it her all, the personal touch, she was a good listener, she advised and counselled. But she couldn’t seem to do it with her own family.
‘Nadia!’ Giles ran over to her at the bench, arms out like he was pretending to be an airplane. Nadia could do nothing else other than embrace him in a hello hug.
‘He’s been cooped up in our Airbnb all morning given the rain.’ Archie was carrying a cardboard tray with three drinks pushed into the sections.
‘Can I go?’ Giles had already lost interest in the adults with a roundabout, swings, a seesaw and a climbing frame in sight instead.
‘Off you go,’ said Archie. ‘I can watch from here.’
Giles charged over to the climbing frame first.
‘I’m glad you called, Nadia.’ Archie noted the coffee cup already in her hands. ‘However, this was my peace offering, and you’ve kind of ruined it now.’ He was just like the Archie she’d met at university, the Archie she’d hung out with in cosy cafés in Zurich, the Archie she’d studied with and quizzed, him returning the favour, each ensuring that both their brains were packed full of knowledge.
‘I’ve finished this one already.’ She slotted her empty cup into the vacant hole on the cardboard tray and he indicated which was hers. She looked at the third cup. ‘Giles drinking coffee already?’
‘Not quite. The third one is a juice. But he wanted it in a coffee cup like us with the lid with the spout.’
‘Ah, I see.’ She sipped the fresh coffee. ‘That’s good. Even better than the first.’
‘You always did like your coffee.’
