The words struck him with unexpected force. His quiet daughter, who observed everything and everyone, who captured the world in careful lines and shaded shadows, did not know how to see herself.
“You look like your mother,” he said. The words came out before he could stop them, before he could decide whether this was the right moment or the right thing to say.
“You have her eyes. Her way of watching the world as though you’re memorising it.”
Viola turned to look at him, and he saw something new in her expression. Not wariness, but hunger. A desperate desire to know more about the woman who had given her life and then left it too soon.
“What else?” she whispered.
“She had dark hair, like yours. She wore it loose when she was at home, but she pinned it up when she went out, and she always complained about the pins. She said they were instruments of torture invented by men who had never worn them.”
A ghost of a smile crossed Viola’s face.
“She adored music. She could sing in three languages. She used to sing you to sleep when you were babies, French lullabies that had been passed down in her family.” Rhys’s voice had gone rough, the memories pressing against his chest with familiar weight.
“She named you Viola because she simply adored Shakespeare, and because the viola is the instrument that provides harmony without demanding attention. She said you would be the heart of your sisters’ orchestra.”
Viola’s eyes were bright with tears that did not fall. She reached out and took his hand, her small fingers curling around his with surprising strength.
“I wish I remembered her,” she whispered.
“So do I.” He squeezed her hand gently.
“I wish you all remembered her. But I will tell you about her, whenever you want. I should have told you sooner. I should have told you everything.”
They sat together in the window seat until the light began to fade, and Rhys told his daughter about the woman who hadgiven her the gift of quiet observation and the burden of loss she was too young to understand.
The second day followed a similar pattern with frost from Mel and her impeccable professionalism.
Rhys continued to give her space. He took Thistle on a long walk after lunch, following her as she explored the hedgerows and catalogued every insect they encountered like a naturalist decades older than her years.
“This is a stag beetle,” she announced, presenting him with a specimen that she had somehow captured without injuring either herself or the beetle.
“Lucanus cervus. They’re the largest beetles in Britain. Miss Grace showed me pictures in a book. This one is a female. You can tell because the mandibles are smaller.”
“You remember all of this?”
“Of course. Miss Grace says memory is a skill that can be developed through practice. I practice by memorising bug facts.”
“That’s a much specialised form of practice.”
“Specialisation is important. Miss Grace says generalists know a little about everything, but specialists know everything about something. I am going to be a specialist in bugs.”
“A noble ambition.”
They walked on, Thistle occasionally darting into the undergrowth to examine something that had caught her attention, Rhys following like a man learning to find joy in his daughter’s enthusiasms.
This was what Mel had taught him. Not through lectures or instructions, but through inclusion. She had made room for him in the children’s routines, shown him how to participate rather than merely observe, demonstrated that presence required attention rather than just proximity.
And now she would barely look at him.
He braided Anna’s hair that evening, badly. She stood before the mirror in the nursery, examining his handiwork as though reviewing battle formations.
“The left side is uneven,” she observed.
“I’m aware.”
“And the ribbon is twisted.”
