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“He’s your dad, too,” Ben said quietly.
Not that he acted like it all that much. She cast her gaze to the ceiling and did her best not to blink. “What about my job?”
“In this day and age, can’t you work remotely? For a couple of months, at least, till things are settled? I don’t think it’s that big an ask, Rachel, even though we all know how much you hate it here.” Spoken matter-of-factly, butouch. Why did that hurt so much? Shedidhate it here, and she supposed she’d been fairly obvious about it, but then so had Harriet and even Ben, about hating having her here.
Rachel forced herself to look at him again, even though it was hard, but to her surprise she didn’t see the judgement she’d expected in his face but rather sympathy, and she realised that was actually worse. The lump in her throat she’d been doing her best to dissolve came back in full force. “You think things will be settled in a few months?” she managed, forcing herself to speak around it.
Ben shrugged one powerful shoulder. “One way or another.”
And what wasthatsupposed to mean? Did Ben think her dad had something serious? More serious, even, than dementia? Rachel knew she wasn’t strong enough to ask, not right then, anyway. She didn’t even want to think about it, but she had to do something…something more than just visiting every couple of months, or even every couple of weeks.
And yet…everything in her resisted agreeing with him. Just as she’d told Harriet, she couldn’t work remotely. Not easily, anyway. And she had a flat, and a life in London…well a life that comprised work and more work and not much else—the odd evening out, or Saturday brunch with friends—butstill. She didn’t want to give her entire life up. More importantly, she didn’t want to come back and deal with her sister and her dad, her hostility and his indifference, never mind the illness he might have, all the other potential, ensuing complications, tensions, and memories. The memories, most of all.
“So what do you want me to do?” she asked Ben. “Just stick around for a few weeks? Harriet will love that, I’m sure. She’s already acting as if she can’t wait for me to leave.”
“She always acts that way,” Ben replied, “because you always do.”
Rachel rolled her eyes, aware there might be more than a grain of truth in that statement that she was unwilling to accept. “What is this, amateur psychology hour?”
The corner of Ben’s mouth kicked up although his expression remained serious, even sombre. “I suppose so.”
Rachel broke off another piece of tiffin and this time she put it in her mouth, the crumbly sweetness of the chocolate and marshmallow and raisins bursting on her tongue. Ben’s mum Diana had always been a fabulous baker, she recalled. “How is your mum?” she asked, needing to change the subject, at least for a few minutes.
“She’s fine. Slowing down a bit, but we all are. She’s helping out at the toddler morning in Mathering right now.” Sounded about right, Rachel thought. Diana probably wished Ben would marry and give her a bunch of babies. Why hadn’t he? He was thirty-two, the same age as her, and there had to be a fair few women around here who had their eye on him. Maybe, she thought, with an unpleasant, cramping sort of sensation, Harriet did. Maybe that’s what this was about—Ben was being protective of Harriet because he cared about her.
“And the farm?” she asked, needing a distraction from that particular train of thought. “It’s going okay?”
“We’re making it. Just.” His mouth kicked up again, this time into a proper smile. “You’re never going to make a mint farming—that’s for certain.”
“No,” Rachel agreed with a small smile.
“So, you’ll stay?” Ben said, like it was already arranged, and she wondered how he managed to do that—circle round with a sort of unyielding inevitability. Because she already knew she was going to stay, or at least try. She’d have to talk to her boss, figure out the remote working situation, maybe sublet her flat. It wouldn’t be easy, but it might be doable, although in truth she wasn’t even sure why she was doing it. Maybe simply because she wanted everyone to stop blaming her.
“I’ll think about it,” she told Ben, and he gave her a slow, sure smile that made her think he knew exactly what she’d been thinking. It was an uncomfortable, unsettling thought, that he could read her so well. That after all these years, he knew her so well. Still.
Except he didn’t, not really. He knew the Rachel who had fallen for him at seventeen, who had lain in the hayloft with him, legs tangled together, dreaming up at the sky. She’d thought they would travel the world, conquer it together. Ben had had different plans.
A lot had happened since they’d realised they weren’t compatible. Or, more specifically, Rachel had realised Ben wasn’t invested enough in their relationship even to think about the future. Even to offer onewordabout it. His silence, after all these years, still had the power to wound her.
But this wasn’t about Ben, she told herself. It was about Harriet and her dad. She’d stay until her dad got his diagnosis, whatever it was, maybe not as bad as Ben seemed to think. Yorkshiremen were always ridiculously pessimistic. And even if it was…
Well, she’d cross that bridge when she came to it. She’d figure out a way.
“All right, then.” She stood up from the table with a screech of her chair. “I suppose I’ll…keep you posted.”
The slow smile was still there, curving his mouth, making her remember. No. She wasnotgoing to go there.
“If that’s what you want,” she added, a tiny bit belligerently, becausewhywas Ben Mackey involving himself in her family’s affairs, after all? More reason to think there was something between him and Harriet…
Another place she didn’t want to go right now.
“All right,” Ben said, easily enough. He stood up as Rachel shrugged back into her coat. She’d already turned to the door when he spoke again. “Rachel,” he said quietly. She stilled. “You’re doing the right thing.”
Rachel opened her mouth to snap back that she didn’t need Ben telling her as much, but she kept herself from it, knowing how petty it would sound. Besides, there was no point picking a fight; she was, she decided, going to avoid Ben Mackey as much as she could while she was home. Being with him was too…unsettling. After twelve years, she wished it wasn’t so, but it was.
With a nod of farewell, not quite trusting herself to speak, Rachel left the farmhouse, heading across the yard and down the lane, back to the Mowbrays’ farm in the distance.
*
