He reached for her hand and guided her around the stall. His grasp, although firm and strong, held her hand gently in his as he led her away.
‘I came for you.’
His words sent a surprising thrill coursing through her veins. Until then, she hadn’t been aware his need of her company would mean so much.
‘For me?’ she asked, as her heart thumped at an alarming speed.
‘Yes. Your aunt is here and she wants to speak to you.’
Chapter Ten
Molly was in the field, sitting on one of the wooden chairs brought from the village hall. Despite the heaving and grunting of the Tug o’ War game playing out in front of her, her gaze remained fixed on the gateway, waiting for Grace to arrive. Despite her years, the beauty of her youth still shone brightly, and Grace felt the usual stirring of the love she’d always felt for her aunt. But this woman, who she had always admired and trusted, had lied to her too. Grace crossed the field, sat stiffly down in the vacant seat next to her and stared ahead, fixing on the line of men as they dug their heels into the dirt to gain more traction. She felt Molly looking at her.
‘We’ve been worried,’ said her aunt.
Grace could hear her pain. She recognised it for she felt it too.
‘There’s no need to be,’ she replied, crisply.
‘You left so suddenly and cut off your beautiful hair.’
Molly lifted her hand to touch it. Grace flinched away.
‘Please, don’t . . .’
Her aunt’s hand slowly fell. ‘Do you hate us so much?’
‘I don’t hate you.’
‘Then tell me what you feel?’
One half of the line of men fell in a blurred, tumbled heap. The winners cheered, but none of it registered or made sense to Grace. They could have been dancing for all she cared, her mind was elsewhere, in a quagmire of confused feelings and pain.
‘I don’t know what I feel any more. Angry. Betrayed. Worthless.’
‘Not worthless. You have a right to the other feelings, but not that one.’
‘My father raped my mother.’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t know who I am any more.’
‘You are the same person you were before you found out.’
‘But I’m not. I feel different . . . Do I call him Daniel or Father?’
‘Don’t take the name Father away from him. Punish me for not telling you if you have to—’
‘It was not your secret to tell.’
‘But don’t punish the man who’s loved you like his own from the first day he held you.’
‘How can he? I remind him of . . . I must remind mother of . . .him. How could she bear to have me?’
Molly looked towards the blue haze of the horizon. ‘I was a child at the time. I’ve learnt since that at first she couldn’t, but then she felt you move inside her and her feelings towards you changed. She came to believe that you were a fighter and wanted to live and she realised she wanted that too.’ Molly reached for her hand. This time Grace did not have the heart to pull away. ‘I was there when you were born. No one thought you would survive the birth.’ She looked at Grace’s hand in hers. ‘But you proved us all wrong, Grace.’ She held it firmly for a brief moment. ‘So it hurts that you have left us now.’
‘I’m not strong enough to face the villagers and the workers.’
