Fiona was silent for a long moment, her face drawn in haggard lines. “I never said,” she finally answered, “that I didn’t make mistakes.”
“Actually, you’ve always implied that you don’t,” Lucy replied. She felt tired now, tired and defeated. She and her mother would never see eye to eye on this, or anything. And maybe she needed to accept that. Accept that her relationship with her mother would always be fraught, fractured. Painful.
“What about Juliet?” Lucy asked abruptly, and Fiona stilled, her gaze widening. She said nothing. “I did tell you I’ve been living with her for the last three months.”
“Yes,” she answered warily.
“Juliet thinks . . .” Lucy didn’t want to betray her sister’s confidences, but she didn’t want to ignore them, either. “Why don’t you ever see her or speak to her?”
Fiona pressed her lips together. “That’s not your concern, Lucy.”
“She’s my sister, and I am living with her. I think I have a right to ask.”
“What did Juliet tell you?”
Lucy hesitated and then said, “Not all that much. Only that you never wanted her and the two of you never had a real relationship.”
Fiona looked away. “That’s true.”
“Mum.”Lucy stared at her, and reluctantly Fiona turned back to look at her. “Why? Why have you never . . . ?”
“Like I said, that’s between me and Juliet.”
“But you’ve never told her, either.” Fiona said nothing and Lucy persisted, “Don’t you think she deserves to know?”
“Some things,” Fiona answered, “are better not known.”
“Don’t you think you should let Juliet decide that?” Still Fiona said nothing and wearily Lucy shook her head. She was so tired of it all. She half wished she’d never come back to Boston, even though she knew she’d had no choice. Her mother may have let her down a thousand times, but she didn’t want to let her down in return.
“I can’t let her decide,” Fiona said, and to Lucy’s shock her voice choked. “I wish I could. I wish . . .” She took a deep breath. “I wish I hadn’t made so many mistakes, but I know I did. And maybe the biggest mistake was not admitting that.”
Lucy searched her mother’s face, saw regret warring with stubbornness. “And now?” she asked.
“I’m about to have major surgery, Lucy. I can’t . . . I can’t cope with anything else right now.”
“But eventually?” Lucy pressed. “Whatever mistakes you’ve made, Mum, you can still right them. You can still talk to Juliet.”
Lucy thought she’d refuse, retreat into hauteur as she often did. Then finally she gave a little nod. “Maybe,” she said, and Lucy knew she’d have to be content with that.
A few hours later the surgery was over, and Lucy joined her mother in the hospital room. Her mother was groggy, her chest swathed with bandages, her gaze unfocused.
“Well, I survived.”
“Yes, you did. The doctor says it went well.”
Fiona glanced down at her bandaged chest. “I suppose I’ll need some new artistic inspiration.”
Lucy smiled, glad her mother could joke at a time like this. “This might be a whole new start to your career.”
“I didn’t want a new start,” her mother answered, her face crumpling a little, and then she leaned her head against the pillow and drifted back to sleep.
Lucy gazed at her mother lying so still in the hospital bed and thought how fragile she looked. In sleep, her silvery bobbed hair spread out on the pillow, Fiona appeared diminished, the aggressive vitality Lucy had always associated with her mother now absent.
Her mother, Lucy thought as she sat down next to the bed, was just a woman. Fallible, vulnerable, if not completely lovable.Human.
It comforted her, in a strange way, to know her mother was weak. Lucy knew she’d built her mother up in her eyes, ever since she’d been a child. She’d bought into the Fiona Bagshaw the Artist persona just as her mother had, and somehow they’d both forgotten that Fiona was just her mum.
And she was her daughter.
