‘No, stay and eat,’ Martyn said, easily. ‘Cheer Honor up while I organise food.’ Occupying himself with plates, bread and a big tub of his favourite Marks & Spencer pasta salad, he watched Honor trudge across the carpet and drop like a stone on to the sofa beside Ru, giving him a spontaneous hug. ‘I left my husband. Turns out he didn’t want to be left. He showed up.’
Ru’s eyes grew round. ‘You’ve got a husband? An American guy came in the Teapot and I wondered if he was anything to do with you. He was talking with Mum for ages.’
‘Ohhhhhh shit. That sounds bad.’ Honor dropped her head against the sofa back and gave a sigh from right inside her soul. ‘Ru. There’s something I’ve got to tell you because I want you to hear it from me. It will probably be a shock.’
Chapter Thirty-Four
While Martyn moved around in the kitchen, giving them space, Honor told him her story and Ru stared at her as if she’d just told him she was the Queen of England. She ended, ‘So. I’m your half-sister.’
His enormous brown eyes didn’t even blink.
‘I guess it’s a lot to take in.’ She wanted to hug him again but while that had seemed fine two minutes ago, her confession had created a gulf. She needed his reaction to act as a bridge. Labouring under his stare, she tried to fill the silence, answering all the questions he wasn’t asking. ‘I haven’t told your mom because I’m not sure she wants to know. She didn’t show any signs of liking me even before I hooked up with Martyn. Just because she gave birth to me didn’t guarantee she would like me, I knew that, but I was still disappointed by there not seeming to be any connection at all. She’s never tried to contact me, even though it would have been easy, through Dad, who’s still living in Hamilton Drives, so that should have given me a clue but . . .’ No reaction.
‘So that made me pretty cautious about identifying myself. And as I didn’t tell her, well, it made it tough to tell you. Even though I wanted to because you and me seemed to get along real well. I guess I never counted on meeting you and . . . caring. I thought Stef might have told her — or you — by now but maybe he doesn’t want to give me reasons not to go back to him. Not that there’s any chance, but he’s still hoping. Or maybe he’s keeping it up his sleeve in case he needs it.’
Ru was like one of those creatures from a wildlife programme that think immobility is the same as invisibility.
Honor took a fresh breath, then went on talking, about how it was to be brought up by her dad and grandmother and then her stepmother, Karen, about Jessamine and Zachary, tryingto explain that she’d always felt a piece of her was missing or undefined and how that would be resolved by meeting the mother that had abandoned her when she was three weeks old.
Finally, he reacted. ‘A real mum isn’t necessarily a good mum.’ It came out as a croak.
She laid her hand on his arm and he didn’t snatch it away. Her chest ached with sadness. ‘I’ve come to realise that.’
He gazed at her, blinking. ‘So what’s going to happen?’
‘I wish I knew.’
Still talking, they drifted over to the high stools, eating just because Martyn put the food in front of them. Ru came up with questions, getting it straight in his mind who knew what about whom, and why. Tasting the relationships with his tongue, just to shake his head each time and pronounce, ‘Weird.’
Honor kept blotting her eyes and felt ready to explode over the tangle of her life. With Stef squatting in her house, Martyn sitting across from her with so much remaining to be resolved, and Ru — her brother — staring at her as if wondering if she was for real.
After eating, he became quieter and even when Martyn tossed him the book of passwords and dictated wildly silly status updates to his Twitter and Facebook pages for Ru to type in, he managed only faint smiles.
Then he slapped shut the laptop, muttering, ‘I better go,’ and made for the front door, pausing only to shove his feet into dirty, untied running shoes before grabbing for the doorhandle.
Jumping up to watch his flight, Honor called, ‘Ru! Are you going to tell her?’
Ru didn’t pause. ‘Nope. Course not.’
Chapter Thirty-Five
From halfway down the iron stairs, Honor could see that Stef was sitting in the teagarden of the Teapot, staring down the street, just waiting.
Obviously, he knew she hadn’t spent the night at the bungalow and was smart enough to know where she’d go. Tucking Martyn’s spare key in her purse and squaring her shoulders, she padded the rest of the way down to the street. As she approached, Stef pushed out the empty chair at his table with his foot. She sat, planting her elbows on the wooden top.
He grinned. ‘Showdown time.’
‘Fine. Then I’ll shoot from the hip. You know what, Stef? It’s over.’
He chose not to hear. ‘You ready to come home to Hamilton Drives?’
A picture swam into her mind of her dad’s blue clapboard house. And in it her father. ‘I’ll be going back in a while — you know, to start divorce proceedings.’
His tousled fair hair lifted in the wind. His eyes were hard. ‘That’s not going to happen.’
‘It is.’
Ru came out with his baseball hat on back-to-front and a tea towel tucked around his waist. He hesitated when he saw Honor. She smiled at him. ‘OK?’
