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“Um… obviously he doesn’t know.”
“Oh. You haven’t told Boris?”
“No. He wouldn’t understand.”
“That’s what I thought about Mama,” Zara replied. Of course, the ‘Mama’ she was talking about was the actual Queen of England. “I was dreading her finding out.”
“I know you were.”
“But the point is, even though I thought I’d made peace with who I was, I didn’t actually feel whollymyselfuntil my mum knew.”
“Yeah well, not all of us have the luxury of being on speaking terms with our parents.”
“What happened, Mill?”
Millie sighed. “I did something stupid.”
“Did it involve drink?”
“How did you guess?”
“You poor thing.” Zara sounded full of sympathy for her friend. She’d made her own mistakes with booze over the years. Part of it was the culture of heavy drinking in the UK, but there was also something about living a lie that tended to push young girls toward self-sabotage.
“It was after an argument with Dad, of course. He’d been telling me off for not wanting to get a job. For not riding. For not doing a good job at the stables.”
“I’m sorry, love.”
“He told me that he wouldn’t employ me. That I was a liability.”
“So what did you do?”
“I proved I was a liability. I got drunk. Really drunk. And then I tried to prove that I could still ride a horse if I wanted to.” Thinking back to that night made Millie’s cheeks burn with shame. “I went out to the stable, and I mounted up one of dad’s racehorses. Then we went out for a ride. With me blind drunk. In the middle of the night. Except he threw me. I don’t even know if I was using a saddle.” She sniffed back the tears. “I don’t know where he went. Probably lost. That’s why I don’t deserve any of this good stuff.”
“Everyone makes mistakes!”
“Not as many as I do. My whole fricking life is a string of mistakes. And guess what: I’m the reason for all of them.”
There was a moment of silence. “I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but you should talk to your dad.”
“Zara, please, you’re right: I don’t want to hear it. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I didn’t phone up to give you advice and tell you off.”
“So why did you call?”
“To tell you I’m coming to the opening ceremony!”
“You are?” Millie felt a wave of excitement and anxiety wash over her.
“Yep! Daddy Jaben’s going to drive me over. I can’t wait to see you, and the ranch!”
As they carried on talking into the night, Millie felt a growing sense of unease. She felt like she was a different person now, and she wasn’t sure how it would feel to have her old life — her bad life — intrude upon the person she was becoming.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Itdoesn’tmakeanysense!” Anita was pacing back and forth in the nursery space inside the Little House. It was still a work in progress, but the space was fast becoming a favorite hangout for all the Littles at the ranch.
The two of them were sharing their daily playtime together. The new nursery manager, a prim but approachable older lady called Clara, was sitting at the edge of the space. She liked to leave the Littles plenty of space to be themselves and didn’t interfere too much with their playtime unless something important or a conflict came up.
