Before Catherine could reply, Ashley sailed back into the room, carrying an enormous silver tray.
‘OK, who’s hungry?’ she asked cheerfully, carefully settingit down on a marble coffee table and unloading the contents; plates groaning with cookies, small sandwiches, fresh fruit and a gleaming pitcher of iced tea. When she said tea, I automatically thought she meant hot tea. It was another reminder that I was really in the south.
‘If y’all can manage without me, I’d like to go take a bath,’ she said with an exaggerated shiver. ‘Wash all that nasty airplane off me.’
She looked to Catherine, who gave an approving nod, and I could almost see the relief roll off her shoulders. She was more anxious to leave than she wanted us to know. Holding the silver tray against her chest like a shield, Ashley slipped out of the room and closed the door behind her with a quiet click.
‘When the weather is hot like this, tea is simply all I can tolerate,’ Catherine said as she poured two glasses from the pitcher before pushing a silver sugar bowl towards me. I shook my head and watched on as she dumped several heaped teaspoons into her glass, just the way Dad used to take it. ‘I must confess, I may not know all that much about climate change and such but I do know the summer is creeping in earlier and earlier. Ninety degrees in May? I don’t think so.’
‘It sure is hot out there.’ I reached for a cookie as my stomach growled menacingly under my shirt. Was she going to answer my question? I didn’t know if I had the courage to ask it again. ‘It was raining when we left Wales.’
‘Look at us, talking about the weather like a couple of real Brits,’ she clucked happily. ‘Tell me, how did you like living over there?’
Apparently, she was not.
‘It was nice. Quiet. We were kind of out in the middle of nowhere. Dad’s friend, Anwen, rented us a cottage on her farm so most of our neighbours were sheep.’
‘So are mine.’ Catherine gave me a quick, small smile before taking a thoughtful sip of her tea. ‘I understand you travelled around a lot for your father’s research?’
‘We did, around Europe mostly. We lived in New Zealand for a while when I was very young but I don’t really remember it all that well.’
I reached for another cookie and my stomach growled happily. They were beyond delicious.
‘My son, the historian,’ she said proudly. ‘I should have guessed he’d end up in academia. Paul was always asking questions, always ready to learn. What about you, Emily, are you smart like your daddy? Do you do well in school?’
‘Because we travelled so much, I mostly did homeschool but I already took my exams and passed them all,’ I replied, an unexpected but vehement need to impress her appearing out of nowhere. ‘I took them early.’
‘But of course you did!’ She pressed her hands to her heart and gasped. ‘My granddaughter, as smart as she is beautiful.’
I froze, no idea how to respond. No one had ever called me beautiful before.
Catherine reached across the space between us to hold my warm, clammy hand in her cool dry one.
‘Emily,’ she said. ‘I want the two of us to start off on the right foot, no secrets.’
‘No secrets,’ I repeated, my mouth suddenly dry. ‘I’d like that.’
‘Let’s start with what you already know.’ She clutched my hand in hers and moved closer to me. ‘What did your daddy tell you about your family?’
I looked down and touched the toes of my shoes together as I realized this wasn’t going to be simple for either of us. Who would feel good about your son pretending you were dead? Sometimes, when I asked about our family, he would ruffle my hair and say I was all the family he needed. More often thannot, he avoided the subject altogether. If I pushed too hard, his eyes would glaze over and he’d tell me it was too painful to talk about. Eventually, I stopped asking, resigned to the fact I would never have grandparents or aunts, uncles and cousins like all my friends. It would always be just the two of us.
Until it was just me.
‘He said we didn’t have any living relatives,’ I said, unable to look her in the eye. ‘He said he grew up here in Savannah, met my mom in college then moved to New Zealand after she died.’ I hesitated and cleared my throat. ‘He told me all my grandparents passed away before I was born.’
‘All except one,’ Catherine said softly. ‘He never mentioned Ashley?’
I shook my head. ‘I didn’t know he’d ever had a sister until yesterday.’
The loving expression on her face faltered and the edges of her smile flickered into something so sad. My dad never lied. He was honest to the point of bluntness, never once lying about what had happened to my missing goldfish and always kindly correcting me when I was wrong. How could he have lied about something so huge for so long? And more to the point, the question I’d been asking myself ever since Ashley showed up on my doorstep –whywould he lie in the first place?
Catherine let go of my hand and began twisting a large aquamarine ring around and around on the third finger of her left hand, neatly groomed eyebrows creasing together as she processed the information.
‘I cannot begin to imagine how you must be feeling right now,’ she said, her forefinger still resting on the ring. ‘But please don’t be mad at your daddy. Everything that happened was my fault. He may have lied to you but he believed he had good reason and back then, once Paul’s mind was made up, there was no changing it.’
I tucked my hair behind my ears, a puff of agreement escaping my lips. ‘He could be pretty stubborn.’
‘Stubborn and impulsive, and that’s a difficult mix. I should know, he got it from me,’ she replied with a knowing smile. ‘The short version of the story is, we had an argument over our differing beliefs, neither of us were prepared to compromise at the time and so he left. I believed he would return home but I was wrong and I have never, ever forgiven myself for losing him over something so foolish. Now he’s truly gone forever.’
