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‘Of course I did but it was so soon; his death was so sudden.’ Her father had been killed when a wall had collapsed on him at the building site he was a manager of. ‘All my life it had been the four of us, a tight family unit... How could she have loved Dad if she started seeing Mick so quickly after burying him? How can you visit a grave when you’re on the other side of the world?’ She rubbed her eyes, only slightly aware that they were wet. Where had those tears come from? She hadn’t wasted tears on her mother in years. ‘And how can you leave your fourteen-year-old daughter behind?’
‘She knew Melissa would look after you.’
‘Melissa was only eighteen. She shouldn’t have been put in that position.’ She inhaled deeply, trying to keep her composure, but the tears leaking from her eyes seemed to have a life of their own. ‘She was as devastated as I was at what Mum was doing. She didn’t want either of us to go. I can’t remember whose idea it was for me to stay with her, whether it was hers or mine...’
Anna took a large drink of her wine and carefully wiped more tears away. She didn’t want Stefano seeing her with smudged mascara, not tonight. ‘I didn’t want to go and I didn’t want my mum to go either. I wanted her to stay and be my mum. I really thought if I refused to go that she would stay. Even when she bought me and Melissa the flat with Dad’s insurance money and set up a monthly allowance for us I thought she’d stay. Right up until the moment her plane took off, I thought she would stay.’
The pain she’d experienced when she’d realised her mum had gone—had really gone—had been indescribable. It had been like having her heart stabbed with a thousand knives.
There was a long period of silence before a warm hand covered hers and sympathetic green eyes held her gaze.
‘When did you last see her?’ he asked.
‘She came to England for my sixteenth birthday. That was her first and last visit. All she could talk about was how brilliant Australia was and how good Mick was to her. We had a massive argument. She called me and Melissa selfish bitches and said she was glad to be rid of us.’ The words almost stuck in her throat. ‘She flew back early.’
From the shock resonating in Stefano’s eyes, it appeared this wasn’t a part of the story she had shared before.
‘Have you had any contact with her since then?’
She shook her head. ‘She sends us cards and gifts for birthdays and Christmas, and she’s written a couple of letters, but that’s it.’
‘What did the letters say?’
‘I don’t know. We burned them without reading them.’
The waiter returned to their table with their starters. Anna sniffed her kung sadung nga, deep-fried prawns in sesame batter and glazed in honey, and felt guilty for lowering the mood.
After all her good intentions she was in danger of ruining their last night here.
Before she could apologise, Stefano said thoughtfully, ‘You’ve been coping with this for a long time. Do you think it’s time for you to deal with it and talk to your mother and see if things can be mended?’
‘You don’t want to mend things with your family,’ she said, stung.
‘That’s different. I will never forgive them for how they treated me. I will never forget. I don’t want reconciliation. All I want is for them to see me rich and successful; everything that they are not. But my family is not yours. They never cared for me but your mother cared for you.’
‘She left me,’ Anna said, coldness creeping through her. ‘How could she have cared for me?’
‘You said yourself you were a proper family before your father died. She loved you then. I would guess she told herself she was doing the right thing.’
‘I was a minor. I’d lost my dad, puberty had just struck...my head and emotions were all over the place. I needed her. Mel should have spent her uni years living it up and behaving atrociously, not having to be guardian to her bratty younger sister without any support from the woman whose job it was to care for us. How can you make excuses for that?’
‘I’m not,’ he said steadily, ‘But Melissa clearly thinks it’s worth trying and you trust her.’
‘But that’s what I don’t understand. What made Mel change her mind? She hates Mum as much as I do. We’ve always sworn we were better off without her.’
‘You can’t tell me you don’t miss her.’
Suddenly terrified she would do more than leak tears, Anna bit into one of her prawns and concentrated on not crying.
Only when she was confident she could talk without choking did she say, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t want to ruin the evening.’
‘You haven’t.’ But his eyes had lost their sparkle.
‘You’re right that I’ve only been coping with it and not dealing with it,’ she admitted. ‘You’re the first person I’ve trusted since she got on that plane. Other than Melissa.’ Then, aware she was sinking the mood even lower, forced a bright smile on her face. ‘Don’t let me ruin the rest of the evening.’
‘Anna...’
‘No.’ She put her hand on his and squeezed it. ‘We can talk about this when we get back to London and reality, but our time here has been very special to me. We’re making good memories and I don’t want my mum spoiling them.’
