She waited for relief to calm each of them, prepare them for what came next. ‘I know how much you all adored your father,’ she began. ‘So did I. He was and always will be my one true love. We had a good marriageon the whole. But we had ups and downs too, and parents don’t always share those with their children.’
All three of them looked like they had no idea where this was going. Harry had been gone for so long that addressing problems in their marriage would be the last thing they expected to hear. But Loretta wanted them to pull together and lean on each other for support, and she wanted them to stilllove their dad as much as they always had, to judge him for more than this one mistake. And she wanted them to welcome the changes ahead.
‘Your dad and I went through a very tough time and I’m afraid to say we both did things wrong, it wasn’t all one person’s fault.
‘I was going through a terrible time – business was slow, I got in a muddle with my finances because I couldn’t focus on everything,and I turned down your dad’s offers of help more times than I would like to admit. I became closed off. Do you remember when he worked away for a while?’ They all nodded. Her voice was barely above a whisper and she forced herself to look at each of them. ‘He wasn’t really working away. I asked him to leave. It was a trial separation and we were talking about a divorce.’
Ginny’s mouth fell openas Loretta’s words tumbled out. ‘Divorce?’
Fern was too shocked to say anything.
And Daisy looked uncomfortable as though remembering all too well the time her dad had left. Daisy would’ve been fourteen at the time and it must’ve been incredibly difficult to be around when her parents’ marriage was falling apart.
Loretta toyed with the handle of her mug. ‘We were in a mess and separating seemedthe only way out of it. I felt as though I barely knew myself anymore, your dad didn’t know what to do, neither of us did. And so he left and we decided for a while we’d pretend he was working away. We never wanted to hurt any of you, believe me, that’s why we never said anything.
‘Whenever your dad was home at weekends it wasn’t nice for either of us, pretending everything was normal, beingpolite but not wanting to be near each other.’
Fern spoke up. ‘I had my suspicions something wasn’t right.’
Tears in her eyes, Loretta admitted, ‘It wasn’t right for a long while. It all came to a head when my financial difficulties got so bad I had no choice but to try to seek help. I had a meeting at the bank and with the accounts in our married names both of us were there.
‘After the appointmentI admitted everything to your dad. I told him how much trouble I thought the shop was in, that I was terrified I’d lose it.’ She smiled then, remembering their closeness that day, that had come unexpectedly at the perfect time. ‘We were sitting in a café, rain pounding against the window, and it was the first time we talked for that long in years. It reminded me of the early days when wewere dating, when talking never stalled, when we saw each other for who we were.’
‘And they all lived happily ever after,’ said Daisy, but a bitter tone lacing her voice had her sisters looking at her bewildered.
Loretta’s heart broke that little bit more that for Daisy being so young this must have been the worst for her. ‘I asked your dad to come home, we both wanted to try again, and he agreed.’She paused. ‘He was also honest.’
‘What do you mean, honest?’ Ginny wondered.
‘He’d been away for over six months, we’d talked divorce. And during that time he met someone.’
‘Dad had an affair?’ Fern swore when she slopped her tea and Daisy passed her a piece of kitchen towel.
‘He did. But it was only one night.’ She hated saying it. Nobody ever wanted to know about their parents’ sex lives,especially in the form of a one-night stand, which made it sound sordid as well as wrong. ‘He was incredibly sorry, crying, he offered to move out and still go through with the divorce because he didn’t expect my forgiveness.’
‘Yet you took him back?’ Ginny asked, face paled with the shock.
‘Not straight away, but yes, I did. Marriage is complicated and there are always two sides. I’m not excusingwhat he did and he never tried to either, but I could see how it had happened. I’d batted him away at every opportunity during those six months we were apart, I didn’t want to talk about saving our marriage, I felt as though I was buried under rubble with the shop’s finances, trying to find a way to simply breathe. And that became my only focus.
‘We talked more and more after he admitted whathe’d done. He told me it was a big mistake, that as soon as it had happened he’d realised what he wanted was me, us, our marriage and family.’
‘How could he do that to you?’ Ginny shook her head, tears streaming down her cheeks at the revelations about this man they’d worshipped.
If she hadn’t had to, Loretta never would’ve shared the whole truth with her girls.
‘I’m grateful he told me,’ shetold her daughters. ‘I think I needed to realise what I’d almost lost.’ Her voice wobbled, because she had lost him in the end, but maybe what he’d done had also brought more love into her life and it would be the same for the girls.
Loretta looked at each of her daughters, Fern’s quiet acceptance beginning to replace the shock, Ginny’s watery eyes and the way she was leaning towards Fern asthough she needed the comfort of a sibling. And then she looked at Daisy and there was something in her expression that warned everyone to give her space.
Daisy stared into her mug and slowly everyone’s eyes had fallen on her as though they were waiting for her to explode.
But she didn’t. She looked up and all she said was, ‘I knew.’
Silence washed over all of them.
‘I’ve known for years,’sniffed Daisy.
‘Daisy, how could you know?’ Ginny asked.
