I turned and looked at the house—painful, because this was something Tim and I had created together—and imagined what it would have been like growing up in this brightened, ordered house, a place where a family lived and loved, and where the parents acted like adults.
It was time to talk to Mum and Dad, so I went hunting and found Mum outside, crouched by the pond.
“Mum, I need to have a word.”
“Oh yes, of course.” She fluttered her hands. “Is it about Tim’s comment? I’d just brush it off, darling.” She sighed and rested her chin on her hand. “Do you know? I was just standing here, watching all the animals, and thinking you were like them growing up, totally free-range.”
I breathed out and clenched and unclenched my fists, gathering my thoughts.Free-range?“Mum, that’s exactly what I wanted to talk about. You see, I didn’t want to be free-range. I was a child. I loved boundaries and timetables and lists and stability.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Yes, you were quite an uptight child. You seemed to crave certainty.”
My spine stiffened with annoyance. “Every child craves certainty. They don’t want to have to fend for themselves as soon as they can hop on a stool and get the ruined milk from the fridge.”
“But all this lovely space to roam…” She swept her hand over the pond and back pastures. “All these wonderful animals.”
“Mum, I wanted structure. I wanted you to be the adult and get me up in the morning and help me pack my lunch and take me to school, fetch me home, and afterward, help me with my homework. There was never money. When there was, it was gone within days. Slips weren’t signed, I never had the proper kitfor school, and you didn’t attend the parents’ days or for prize-giving. And you never ever told me you were proud of me.”
She glanced at me and then back toward the sun rapidly ducking behind the hills. “Oh gosh.” Tapping her lips, she seemed to consider that for a while and turned back to me. “Tabitha, I see what’s happened here. Your father and I both went to boarding school from age five. Our parents were strict, aloof, and distant. At home, we only had animals for company. And for all the money our parents had, they were never happy. That’s why we both became free spirits, to revolt against our upbringing. And I guess we were never ones for lauding achievements, because well, quite frankly, I suppose we never achieved anything.”
I kicked at a clod, taking a beat, beginning to understand more. They realized they lived in chaos, but it made me heartsick they didn’t want to change.
It must have shown on my expression because Mum’s face fell. “Darling, I know we’ve been a disappointment to you,” she said.
She didn’t get it. Disappointment didn’t cover it—I’d had to worry about them all my life.
“You’ve got to let us go, you know,” she said.
I drew back.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Let you go?”
“You’re not going to change us or make us better or make our lives easier. You’re just not. We’re always going to find our way back to the chaos, because that’s where we live.”
“What if I’d just left you to it? You’d have had to hand over your house to the bank and go—where?”
She blinked, unconcerned. “Oh, we’d find a little place out the back of old friends’ or relatives’, even if it was just a glorified barn.”
“You’re saying you’d live in a barn?”
“Well, we’d have to,” she said. “But they’d probably let us inside until they tired of us. Darling, don’t worry about us. There’s always someone who will help us. Because we’re not so silly that we don’t know how to be terribly charming when we need to be.”
I cringed, feeling horribly embarrassed for her. “Mum, that’s no way to live.”
She shrugged at my expression. “That’s no way foryouto live. But this is us, and this is the only way we know how to do things.”
Dispirited, I shook my head, heavy with doubt.
“Darling, you have to live your own life now, not ours,” she said. “You have to move on. Grab that handsome young man and make your life. He is marvelous.”
“Mum, stop. He’s not my young man.”
“He wants to be.”
I shook my head sadly.
Twitching like a tiny magpie, something caught her eye on the other side of the pond, and she started gurgling with amusement about some mess one of her animals had found themselves in. But she stopped herself. “Darling, I’m getting your father. Wait here.”
I petted some of the animals grazing around the edges of the water as she hunted around in the back fields and returned with Dad, who looked so sad and so nervous. I almost felt sorry for him but stopped myself. He hated conflict or talk of feelings besides high jinks.
