Bella kicked at the ground with her trainer. “It’s not okay,” she muttered. “Dad’s miserable.”
Was it wrong for Lucy’s heart to lift a little at this admission? Probably.
“He might be,” Lucy allowed, “but you know he cares about you, right?” Bella just shrugged and she persisted, “Don’t let this stupid grown-up stuff mess up your relationship with your dad, Bella. He loves you. I know he doesn’t get it right all the time and it’s going to be hard to talk about all the awkward girl stuff with him, but he really does love you. I believe that with my whole heart, and you should too.”
Bella was still staring at the ground, but Lucy could tell from the little sniff she gave that she’d gotten to her. Maybe. “I mean it,” she added for good measure.
“The thing is,” Bella said after a long moment, her voice so low Lucy had to bend down to hear it, “I kind of liked having you around.”
“Oh, Bella . . .”
“But I know I didn’t act like it, and Dad might have messed things up with you because he thought that would be better for me. But it isn’t.”
Lucy swallowed past the ache in her throat. “Whatever might have happened between me and your dad, Bella . . . it wasn’t just about you and Poppy. It was about us—”
Bella looked up, her expression turned accusing. “You mean because you’re leaving? Because you’re not happy here?”
“I’m very happy here,” Lucy answered. “And the truth is I don’t know if I’m leaving or not, but—”
“What?” Bella stiffened. “Does Dad know that? That you might be staying?”
Lucy felt the conversation slipping out of her control. “No, but I’m not sure it really matters—”
“Ofcourseit matters,” Bella retorted. “Lucy, you have to tell him.”
“I . . .” Lucy imagined herself waltzing up to Alex and telling him she was staying in Hartley-by-the-Sea. Somehow she didn’t think he was going to snatch her into his arms and kiss her senseless. Her optimism stretched only so far. But she did need to talk to Alex. For all of their sakes. “I will talk to him, Bella,” she said. “But don’t expect it to change anything.”
She found him a little while later, standing apart from everyone else, a cup of soup cradled in his hands. Poppy and Bella were hanging out with some kids from school, and Lucy knew she needed to take the opportunity to speak to Alex when he was on his own.
Sucking in a deep breath, she started towards him. “Hey, Alex.”
He turned to her, his expression already guarded. “Lucy.”
“I just came over to say that I don’t want things to stay weird between us.”
“They’re not weird,” Alex protested automatically, and Lucy raised an eyebrow. “All right, yes, they might be a bit weird,” he amended. “But I’ve never had a—a thing with someone at work before. I’ve not even sure what the policy on that is.”
“Good thing we ended it before it went anywhere, then.” She shifted her weight; her feet were going numb from cold in her Wellies. “How did you meet your wife, anyway?”
“In a coffee shop,” Alex answered after a second’s pause. “She came and sat down right opposite me and started chatting. She asked me why I looked so serious. She invited me to the cinema that same day.” He sighed, his distant gaze on the leaping flames of the bonfire. “I don’t think I ever would have worked up the courage to ask her out on my own.”
The little snippet of his former life made Lucy feel a rush of sadness—and jealousy. “You must miss her.”
“I do, but I miss what we had a long time ago.” His mouth tightened. “I shouldn’t have moved her up to Hartley-by-the-Sea. She didn’t like it here, but I’d always had this crazy dream of living here.” He slid an almost embarrassed glance towards her. “I came here as a kid, with a group from the foster home. A day at the seaside, it was, and I remember standing on the beach and looking at all the families with their pails and butterfly nets and ice-cream cones and wanting to be a part of it all.”
“Oh, Alex.” She knew exactly how he’d felt as child, because it was the same way she’d felt. On the outside, looking in.
“But Anna didn’t have that dream. She was from a wealthy family in Macclesfield, and it was a step down for her to live on my teacher’s salary. Her parents kept buying her things—little things, at first, and then a car and a holiday for her with the girls. . . . I tried not to mind, but it always felt like they were showing me up. The last straw was when they bought us a house, this gorgeous Victorian villa in Manchester that cost halfa million pounds, at least. And they didn’t even ask us first.” He shook his head. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this now.”
“Maybe you need to tell somebody.”
“Maybe,” he allowed. “In any case, soon after they bought us the house, I accepted the job as head teacher here. I told Anna it was for the girls, that I wanted them to grow up with the freedom a place like this provides, but I was also doing it to get away from her parents. And if I was chasing that stupid childhood dream, I never found it here. Anna died only six months after we arrived here, and they were a pretty miserable six months.”
“I’m sorry,” Lucy said. She’d had no idea that asking Alex about his wife would bring up all these bad memories.
“So am I. Sorry I didn’t do things differently, and sorry that Anna didn’t, either.” He turned to her with a weary smile. “And sorry I off-loaded all that onto you.”
“I don’t mind, Alex.”
