I asked him, tearfully, if he thought she was his soul mate, and when he met my eyes, his expression said it all.
I’d read about it in books, seen it in films: the protagonist who is in a relationship with someone who doesn’t understand them. Finding love with someone who well and truly does. Nothing can stand in their way. The entire audience is rooting for them.
I never in a million years thought this would happen to me, thatI’dbe the one standing in the way of true love.
Agony and complete and utter helplessness engulfed me as the seriousness of our situation finally dawned on me. There was nothing I could do. There was no fight to be won. The love ofmylife was already lost to me.
Scott and Nadine are together now. I’ve seen them around town a few times and I’m always on my guard in case I bump into them, but the last straw came the week before last, when I was sitting in my favorite café opposite the Abbey Gate.
Suddenly they were spewed out of the Gate’s mouth, hand in hand and smiling, the sun glinting off Nadine’s blond hair as Scott guided her across the busy road. When they walked into the café and saw me sitting with my mum, Scott apologized and quickly backtracked, but catching his eye as he passed by my window, seeing his face, grim and drawn, made me feel physically sick.
“This town is far too small for the both of you, darling,” Mum said with sympathy as I blinked back tears.
“Why should I be the one to leave?” I asked in a small voice.
“His landscape gardening business is here. He’s not going anywhere anytime soon. Get away, Wren, even if only for a couple of weeks,” she implored. “Put some distance between you, give your heart time to recover.”
She was right. I did need a break from home, from work, from Scott, from walking the same streets that we used to walk together, back when he’d holdmyhand and step in front of traffic forme.
So I called my dad that night and asked if I could visit.
Dad is hoveringbehind the rope when I walk out into Arrivals, his navy-and-red-checked shirt tucked into jeans.
At the sight of me, his face breaks into a wide grin, his heavily bristled cheeks seeming even rounder than they did when I last saw him at Christmas. He and his wife, Sheryl, went to Paris on holiday, so Scott and I caught the train over and spent some time with them there. This is my first trip back to America in two years.
“Hey, you!” he chirps.
“Hello, Dad.”
I experience a flood of warmth as his arms close around me. I breathe in his familiar scent—soap and laundry detergent—and know that this will be the last time we hug until we’re standing in this very airport in two weeks’ time, saying goodbye. The realization gives me a pang as I withdraw.
His notoriously scruffy hair, once the same mid-brown shade as mine, is now riddled with gray. Although we both have hazel eyes, that’s probably where our resemblance ends.
I don’t have much in common with my mother, Robin, either, apart from the fact that we’re both named after small birds. Mum likes flowing clothes and bright patterns; I like structured skirts and shirts in dark colors. Her features are warm and open while my face is narrower and, well, I once described it as “pinched,” but she hotly refuted that, telling me Ihad fine bone structure, like an aristocrat, which made me laugh.
“How was your flight?” Dad asks buoyantly as he relieves me of my suitcase.
“Pretty good,” I reply.
“Tired?”
“A bit.”
“You can nap in the car. Our new home is a couple of hours away.”
My half sister, Bailey, who’s six years my junior, got married earlier this year and settled in her husband’s hometown in Southern Indiana. Dad and Sheryl recently relocated to this same small town to be close to them.
There’s a lot about this scenario that stings.
My dad is a devoted husband and father. ButIdon’t have a whole lot of experience of him being like that. I do know that he loves me, but he’s never really been there for me. He doesn’t really know me. How could he when we live almost four thousand miles apart and spend no more than a couple of weeks a year in each other’s company?
The July air when we step out of the airport terminal feels like a warm blanket being draped around my shoulders. Before long, we’re on a three-lane highway heading away from Indianapolis. We’re too far from the city to see its skyscrapers, but I remember them from previous shopping trips. Out here the landscape is mostly flat and far-reaching, peppered with big red barns and grain silos.
“How’s Bailey settling into married life?” I ask, trying to ignore a small spike of jealousy.
I’ve never considered my beautiful half sister to be particularly competitive, so I’m sure shewasn’tracing me down theaisle when she decided to tie the knot in Las Vegas, but now that my wedding has been called off, the ring on her finger does seem a little galling.
“She’s happy,” Dad replies with a shrug, turning down the air-con now that the car has cooled.
