“I just …” A shuddering sigh rattled out of him, and it hurt to see such a big, capable, good man so vulnerable. “I hate that I can’t do anything to get Kelly out of there faster.”
“I know.” Fear for a girl I barely knew shivered through me. I knew what it was like to be trapped in a home with an abuser. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, let alone an innocent child. I wished there was something I could do. “I’m sorry.”
Murray’s expression softened. “Well … let’s get you settled in. A proper tour?”
“I’d like that.” I bent down to unlace my boots, and an awkward silence fell between us as the reality of our situation kicked in.
“We could start with the mudroom.” Murray gestured to my boots.
“Sure.” I grabbed them up in my hands. “Lead the way.”
The mudroom was down the corridor on the left side of the entrance hall. It was at the opposite end of the house and acted as a laundry as well.
“There’s a second utility room upstairs to accommodate the bedrooms on that level,” Murray explained as I put my boots on a shoe bench beside his muddy work boots. Seeing them together made those butterflies riot in my stomach again.
I shrugged out of my rain jacket and hung it up next to his jackets too. There was a pink raincoat, a girl’s blue thermal coat, and a cute green dress coat, with a couple of scarves. Seeing Kelly’s things made me feel melancholy for father and daughter. And strangely bonded to Kelly without really knowing her. Not only did I understand what it was like to live in a house with someone who scared me, I’d grown up with parents who didn’t know how to love me. It sounded like Jill was the same, just in a different way.
My parents thought their lives as surgeons was the priority always. Their patients were their priority. And while there was a part of me that was proud of the lives they’d saved, I couldn’t forgive them for being awful parents. Their egos got in the way of loving and supporting me. Frankly, they should never have had a child. I think they both realized that quickly. But instead of stepping up to their responsibilities, they’d fobbed me off on nannies and tutors.
When Tierney and I became friends and I saw how successful people could still be loving, involved parents the way the Silvers were, my resentment toward mine only grew. But I didn’t want itto turn me bitter and ugly, so I’d embraced the Silvers as pseudo parents. They’d even jokingly, but not so jokingly, designated a guest room in the house to me. I’d stayed in that bedroom more times than my own.
Losing Maura and Gordon had been almost as hard on me as it had been on Nee.
“You all right?”
I shook myself out of my memories and turned to face Murray. His green eyes burned with intensity. A flush of attraction heated my cheeks, and I hoped he took the sudden rosiness as embarrassment for being caught woolgathering. “I’m good. Where to next?”
The bedroom off the mudroom was huge, painted in a warm pale pink and definitely Kelly’s. Her large bed had a green comforter, a ton of pink and green cushions, and star fairy lights woven through the wrought iron spindles of the headboard.
“I keep the fairy lights on even when she’s not here.” Murray shrugged sheepishly. “When she was ten, just before Jill and I separated, Jill told her she was too big for a nightlight and she took it away.”
Charming.
“I could tell Kel was still afraid to sleep in the dark, and it’s very dark here at night without any streetlights. So, I wound those stars into the headboard, and I told Kel that she had to keep them on at night because … because when she dreamt, her dreams would be captured in them so she’d never forget them. But only if they were lit. That way she had an excuse for keeping the lights on. Jill said I was filling Kelly’s head with nonsense. But what’s the point of life without dreams, eh? Dreaming is something that makes the tragedy of our short lives worthwhile. No?”
I stared up at this man in wonder, in awe of him. “Murray,” I whispered, immensely touched by his poetic words.
He cleared his throat, as if embarrassed by my response. “Anyway, it means I can’t switch the fairy lights off. Kelly thinks if I switch them off, her dreams will be lost. So … they stay on.”
The truth was he could switch them off and Kelly wouldn’t know. But he didn’t. He kept them on for her.
No wonder they asked this man to tell children fairy tales at the Highlands Games here on the island every two years.
An overwhelming surge of emotion crashed over me, and I struggled to hold back the tears. I couldn’t speak as I gazed around the room, searching for distraction. Because I hated that such a devoted father was separated from his child. Ihatedit for him.
A door on the far wall was halfway open, revealing a bathroom. Kelly had her own bathroom.
Murray must have seen where my gaze went. “She chose her own tile. Did you know there’s such a thing as pink onyx tile?”
“Seriously?”
“Do you want to see?”
“Would … Kelly mind?”
“Not at all.” Murray crossed the plush pink carpet and I followed him, taking in her many bookshelves filled to the brim. She had a TV and a little tabletop record player with her own collection of vinyl. A large closet ran the whole length of the wall opposite the bathroom, presumably filled with clothing.
Murray hit a light switch outside the bathroom, and it lit up.
