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‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘It wouldn’t have made any difference. And telling you...’ He shook his head. ‘Like I said. I was brought up to believe that talking about things was a sign of weakness.’
‘And leaving fixed everything, did it?’ In a strange way she supposed it had. When Rafe was around she’d filled the silences with her own fears and they’d thrived on that fertile ground. When he’d left she’d filled the void in her heart with ceaseless activity. She’d stopped measuring herself by what the men in her life thought of her and found ways to feel proud of herself.
‘I think it did. Look at what you’ve achieved.’
‘And... You? Your mother...?’
‘I had to learn how to deal with things better and how to give my mother the support she needs. It wasn’t easy, but I did it. My father...’ He turned away from her, flexing the tension out of his shoulders. ‘He learned to text.’
‘And...texting helps?’
‘Yeah. When something’s up he texts either me or my sister. Both of us if it’s bad. We call Mum and she gets it off her chest, then she goes and tells Dad what she wants him to do.’ He shrugged. ‘Seems to work for them.’
‘They’re happy with that?’ Somewhere, at the back of her mind, Mimi could hear an insistent voice. If Rafe’s father could change, then why not him?
‘Happy as clams.’ He gave a wry laugh. ‘Very understated clams. My dad’s not all that different; we just found a way to work around it.’
He walked over to the stove, picking his coat up. ‘I should go.’
‘Wait.’ She’d told him to go. She’d wanted him to go. But the haunted look in his eyes had changed her mind. ‘You haven’t finished your tea.’
‘Thanks.’ He put his coat back over the chair and sat down. ‘There’s one more thing...’
‘No. Please, Rafe, no more...’ She’d had enough for one night. More than enough. She couldn’t process it all yet.
‘Okay.’ He picked up his tea and sipped it. It was probably cold by now, but that seemed not to matter to him. Just being in the same room, without tearing chunks out of each other, felt calming.
‘What did you...?’ She pressed her lips together. She’d told him ‘no more’.
‘What?’ He turned his blue eyes on her and suddenly the question seemed important.
‘What were you thinking? Coming here tonight? Coming here at all, for that matter; you must have known we might bump into each other.’
‘I knew how stretched the emergency services are here, and I really did just want to help. I reckoned on dealing with bumping into you if and when it happened. And tonight...’ He shrugged. ‘Perhaps it’s only fair that if you’re going to hate me, it’s for what I did, not what I didn’t do.’
Mimi was about to tell him that she did hate him, but something stopped her. Maybe she didn’t after all. She turned away from him, pondering the question, and in the silence his phone started to buzz insistently.
She heard his quiet sigh of frustration. Then he picked the phone up from the table in front of him.
‘Yeah... No, it’s okay, I wasn’t sleeping... Yeah, I’ll go. Text me the details... Thanks.’
‘What’s up?’
‘The house down by the lock. The fire brigade are in attendance and they’ve called for medical help.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
His gaze met hers and Mimi found the solid ground she’d been looking for. The place where they could work together, knowing that there was never going to be anything else between them.
‘Okay. Thanks; it’ll be good to have you along.’
* * *
He was trying to keep his attention on the road ahead, dark and glistening with rain. But Rafe could still see her. She’d been wearing a white cable-knit sweater and jeans. Trainers and blue spotted socks, with a blue ribbon twisted into her plait. A plaster wound around her middle finger from where she’d cut herself the day before. Every detail was burned into his memory.
