‘She was,’ I tell him simply. ‘But she earned her wisdom, too. She was more like us than them, if you know what I mean.’
‘Us and them? That sounds slightly combative.’
‘I know it does, and I hate that my brain still thinks like that. It’s not that one path is right and another is wrong, it’s just that they’re very different. My dad, my siblings, a lot of the people in the village, they never wanted to leave. Never wanted to see more of the world because the world they had was enough for them. I can never quite figure out if I think that’s awful or if it’s wonderful.’
‘It can be both,’ he answers, sipping his orange juice. ‘And we can be both. Just because you were one thing before doesn’t mean you’ll always be that. We change.’
‘Maybe. How have you changed?’
He thinks about it, and I wonder if he is going to move on to something else. He doesn’t especially like talking about himself.
‘Well, when Miranda was born,’ he finally says, ‘there was no way I was ready to be a father. I tried, but I couldn’t handle it – not without being away for long periods of time. Now, though, I feel like she’s given me the chance to try and make up for lost time, and I’m pretty determined not to stuff that up. I still feel the same as you sometimes, like I want to make a run for it, but then I remind myself of what I’ve already missed, and what I don’t want to lose.’
He shrugs and adds: ‘I’m a work in progress.’
‘How old were you?’ I ask. ‘When Miranda arrived?’
‘I was eighteen, and so was her mum. We’d met in the system, and I suppose we had this misguided idea that we’dbuild our own little family, make it perfect. Give our child everything we never had.’
It breaks my heart to picture the younger Guy, striving to offer a better world to his own daughter while he was still too young to understand the demands of being a parent.
‘I guess it wasn’t that easy in the real world?’
‘No, it wasn’t. We were babies having a baby. I’d joined the Army because there weren’t many options for me. I wasn’t academic, and I didn’t come from the kind of background that exactly nurtured my strengths, you know? It seemed a solid option, and it gave me structure, which I realise now I desperately needed. But while I had that, she – Miranda’s mum – didn’t. She was… I don’t want to criticise her.’
He folds his arms over his chest, and his lips set in a line of silence. Guy is not exactly the oversharing type, and this is clearly hard for him.
‘Miranda said she was unpredictable.’
He nods. ‘Yes. That’s a good word for it. She loved rows, loved the drama of them. Loved trying to provoke fights. I think she felt more alive when she had a battle going on. When I stopped giving her that, when I retreated, she left me. She waited until I was away on deployment, and she took Miranda, and she left. All I got was a note, saying she needed a fresh start and that she’d be in touch once they were settled – which she never did. It was like she just cut me out of their lives, and I was too young and too damaged to even try and fight it.’
He sounds desolate, destroyed. Full of regret.
‘You said a while back that you thought maybe you didn’t deserve them. Could that be part of why you let them go so easily?’
‘I suppose so. I’m not one for self-analysis but, over the years, yes, I’ve thought that. My childhood was one rejection after another. I was too old, too wild, too physical, too much.Wherever I landed, I was toosomething. I suppose that took its toll. I thought that Miranda was better off without me. And I was a coward who abandoned his duties.’
I reach out and take one of his hands in mine. He’s reluctant, and I can tell he does not want comfort or consolation. That he is still wrestling with his own guilt, with the things he has done and, more importantly, the things he has not.
‘You did the best you could with what you had,’ I tell him, stroking his palm with my fingers. ‘You made mistakes. You weren’t perfect. None of us are. Not me or you or Miranda’s mum. Nothing you can do now will change the past, Guy – all you can do is focus on the present, and the future.’
He manages a half smile and raises my hand up to his mouth. He kisses the back of it and lays it down on the table.
‘Now you’re sounding all wise, too,’ he replies. ‘And you haven’t flirted with me for hours. Motherhood is already changing you.’
‘No, it’s not,’ I answer. ‘I promise. I’m just recharging my flirting batteries. Maybe you can flash me your abs, give them a bit of a jump start?’
He laughs, and all feels right with the world. I don’t get to see his abs, but his smile is worth even more.
THIRTEEN
My news is received with much delight back home, and if there are any raised eyebrows, they’re careful to make sure they do it behind my back.
My dad is especially delighted and tells me it’s given him even more incentive to reach his hundredth birthday, never mind his upcoming ninetieth.
I realise that I am slightly taken aback by the idea, having never imagined a world in which my father does not exist. This is a crazy concept, because nobody lives forever, and our family has not exactly been lacking in unexpected loss. But, for some reason, I simply cannot picture Starshine without George Llewellyn in it.
‘I think a hundred is aiming low,’ I said, as he sat and smiled at my scan photos. ‘I’d predict maybe a hundred and twenty at the very least.’
