‘You don’t know that.’
Addie sighed. ‘Unfortunately, men run a mile when they learn about Isaac. I’ve had that happen on a couple of occasions, although to be honest, in a way I was relieved every time. The effort of dating on top of motherhood and a full-time job would be a lot.’
‘Well, no man is worth it if they’re put off by your gorgeous boy.’
They went through the next box, which was full of more bills, more handwritten documents their dad had kept from the café, and which were no longer needed – training materials from his move into the travel sector.
‘He’s kept a lot of crap,’ said Addie.
‘Hmmm… He was a bit of a hoarder, really.’ For once their discussion didn’t feel like the usual clash they had when it came to talking about their dad.
Addie stood up. ‘Shove all that back inside, I’ll take it down and dump it in the utility room ready for rubbish.’
Susanna heaped the papers into the box again and once Addie left her to it, she dealt with the next box. Inside this one she found a few pieces of artwork from both her and Addie, which made her laugh. This made her glad their dad was a bit of a hoarder, and she set them aside to show Addie when she came back upstairs. There was also a bumbag of old watches, of all things – very odd – plus a scented candle that smelt of nothing but dust and a couple of padlocks with the keys still attached. She took out a black folder, the sort that was like a little box with bands at the edges to keep papers together.
A call came up the stairs from Addie. ‘Do you want a lemonade?’
‘Please!’ she hollered back as she undid the elastic at each corner of the folder.
She went through the few things inside, but when she saw the next piece of paper a sense of doom descended upon her because it catapulted her back thirty-three years, right back to the moment when she’d hidden behind her bedroom door as she listened to her parents argue.
She sat back on her heels and closed her eyes. She remembered it all as if it was only yesterday.
That day her mum had been sobbing – a horrible, raw sound Susanna would never forget.
‘How could you do this to me?’ Cynthia’s voice had come out strangled and barely recognisable.
‘I’m sorry,’ Harry had said more than once.
Susanna had stayed hidden, her heart beating wildly inside her chest. She didn’t want either of them to know she was there.
‘Do you love her?’ Cynthia’s voice had juddered with the question.
‘No. I loveyou, Cynthia,’ her dad had said. ‘It’s over with Lily. I promise.’
‘How many times?’ Cynthia had demanded.
How many times?Were they talking about sex? She’d learned about sex at school – some of the girls talked about it, what the words meant, about their parents and the thought of them doing something like that. Did this mean her dad had done the sex thing with someone else?
She dared not move an inch from behind her bedroom door. Her parents thought she was out with a friend, but she’d come back to get her favourite pyjamas, and although she’d called out to them, neither of them had heard because they’d been too busy fighting, again. She’d snuck up the stairs, slipped into her room quickly, but her parents had emerged from their bedroom at the end of the corridor, and it was impossible to get out of the house without them knowing she’d heard them. She didn’t want that. Sometimes she did. Sometimes she wanted to scream at them and tell them to stop arguing; sometimes she wanted to tell them that if they didn’t stop then she would run away.
From her position behind the bedroom door, she could hear the name Lily batted back and forth.
Who was Lily?
Her mother’s cries continued, her dad’s claim that he still loved her rang out, and as Susanna peaked through the crack between the door and its hinges, she saw her dad reach for her mum’s hand, but her mum snatched it away. She snatched it away and ran down the stairs, and then next thing Susanna heard was the slam of the front door followed by the roar of a car’s engine.
That day was the last time she’d got to hear their beautiful mother’s voice. She’d managed to sneak past her dad and go back to her friend’s house, but less than four hours later her dad had come to collect her and delivered the devastating news that there had been an accident. Cynthia Rafferty had crashed her car into a tree, and she was gone. Just like that.
Susanna remembered being glad that Adeleine hadn’t overheard the argument, that she hadn’t had to stay in her bedroom, quiet as a mouse, until it was safe to sneak out. She was glad her little sister didn’t know any of the events that led up to their mother being snatched away from them. And from that day on, Susanna vowed to keep the truth from her little sister, to protect Adeleine the best she could. She didn’t ever want her to know that their dad had been unfaithful and that their mother had crashed her car after one almighty last row. Nobody suggested she crashed the car on purpose. Susanna hoped that she hadn’t, but even if she did? Well, then it would be Harry’s fault, because she’d driven away angry and upset, and that was how accidents happened, wasn’t it? When you weren’t concentrating. When you had other things on your mind.
Susanna had never forgotten what she knew, though, and she’d never quite looked at her dad the same way.
Susanna became aware of Addie moving about downstairs, fixing them drinks of lemonade. She clasped the letter she’d pulled from the black folder against her chest after reading it for a second time. What she knew now couldn’t be kept a secret any more. Because she’d found so much more than she’d realised there ever was.
She looked at the date on the letter. She calculated that date to be just over three weeks before their father passed away. He must have received the letter right before he got sick and slipped it into the hidden part of his folder, crammed with work papers, until he knew what to do with it. The letter, signed, from a Lily Miller, informed Harry that although their past affair had been brief, the lasting effects were not. In the letter, she apologised for not telling him sooner. She’d considered it but knowing that he was married, she’d decided not to let him know that she was pregnant. She hadn’t wanted to destroy a family. She was telling him now because she thought it her duty to not conceal the truth. She said she didn’t want anything from him financially and if he chose not to get in touch she wouldn’t bother him again.
Lily went on to say that she’d had a little girl, Louisa, and in case Harry wanted to contact her she’d included her address and phone number. Judging by the date of the letter, Harry had likely not got a chance to do anything much at all with the new information.
