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And even though Rachel knew Diana could not possibly know all the particulars, she still felt she understood the gist. “Especially,” she managed with a sniff, “when it doesn’t feel like home.”
Diana pulled back to give her a look that was equal parts severe and gentle. “Rachel Mowbray, this will always be home to you.”
“Not when other people like to act as if it isn’t,” Rachel returned with her first display of spirit in some time. “And when I’m constantly reminded of how long it’s been since I was back, properly. I did come back, you know, a few times. I counted and it was at least, well, five.” She blinked and looked away, realising how pathetic she sounded, before she turned back to Diana with flagging defiance.
Diana pursed her lips, and Rachel could practically hear her mind ticking over. “Is that how it is?” she murmured, half to herself. “Well, some people are still smarting, I suppose.”
Rachel had no idea what that was supposed to mean, and she decided she wasn’t going to ask. “Thank you,” she said, “for being so kind.” And then she steeled herself to walk back into the kitchen, and face her family—and Ben—again.
Chapter Ten
Rain ran downthe windows like tears as Rachel brought her laptop and work bag into the dining room at half past eight on Monday morning. She’d decided to set up her office in here, to be as out of the way as possible, since the kitchen was clearly Harriet’s domain, and the sitting room didn’t have a table.
It was a chilly, austere room, with its dark mahogany table and two large cabinets full of dusty china, but at least the view of the moors, now obscured by the misting rain, was lovely. After a difficult twenty-four hours, Rachel was recovering her optimism through sheer force of will.
The meal at the Mackeys’ had, in the end, been both interminable and bearable; she’d come back into the kitchen with a smile on her face and managed to talk to Diana all through dessert about the older woman’s various volunteering efforts, even agreeing to help out at the mums and toddlers morning—shudder—one day soon. She’d also avoided so much as catching sight of Ben in her peripheral vision, and she’d pretty much ignored Harriet, as well. It felt like the only way she could survive the rest of the evening, after they’d seen her rush off to the loo near tears, like some teenaged drama queen.
When they’d walked back down the lane to their own farm, she’d chatted to her dad about the dairy cows, barely listening to his answers because it took so much strength of will not to talk to her sister. Not to think about Ben. What a basket case she was becoming. That was what home did to her, she supposed.
On Sunday morning, lying in bed, she’d reviewed the whole evening with a cooler head, managing to give it a dispassionate analysis. So Ben had flirted with her, just a little. She supposed he wanted a little payback, after she’d swanned off to university so long ago, not that that was how it had actually happened. But he might see it like that, after all this time. And so, Harriet and Ben were friends. Rachel hadn’t got the sense there was something more there, at least not yet, but what of it? It made sense for them to be friends, since they’d both stayed in Mathering. She wasn’t jealous, she acknowledged. What she felt was more complicated than that; it was a sense of missing out, of having taken a turn in the road without realising she was doing so, while everyone else went another way, linking arms and laughing. She thought about Danielle, who had wondered what sort of person she might have become, and knew she’d been thinking that, as well.
What if she’d stayed in Mathering? What if she’d married Ben? Of course, such prospects were both alarming and absurd; at seventeen she’d wanted to experience life, to have adventures, not stay home and never do anything at all, or worse, turn into her mother, unhappy and essentially alone, even when she was married. Rachel had always known she needed to leave this place, with a bone-deep certainty, but this wondering about what-if was starting to drive her crazy, and so she decided to stop. Draw a line under it all and move on.
She spent Sunday unpacking and then going for a long, invigorating walk with Fred, who promptly passed out in his bed, basically comatose, after being dragged up hill and down for three hours. Harriet had been busy in the kitchen, their dad in the barn; Rachel had the suspicion that they would all spin in their own separate orbits for as long as she was home, unless she challenged that status quo.
Well, maybe she would, but not quite yet. She needed to build up her reserves of strength, of self, because coming back to Mathering had made her feel like that shy, insecure seventeen-year-old girl all over again, and she needed to figure out who she was now, not just who she’d been then, before she took any steps with the people in her life—her dad, Harriet, and maybe even Ben, although at the moment Rachel thought she’d do best by avoiding him completely.
It had worked for twelve years, after all. Hadn’t it?
And so, by Monday morning, she felt brisk and efficient, setting up her laptop, wearing her work clothes and proud of hersmart outfit. Yes, she was, indeed. Why shouldn’t she be? This was who she was, who she’d chosen to become. She wasn’t going to be ashamed or apologise for it, even if it was, like Ben had said, too smart for Mathering.
Maybe Mathering wasn’t smart enough for her.
Already Rachel could hear Ben’s voice, dry and mocking.That was exactly the problem, wasn’t it?
No, no, no. She wasn’t going to buy into his narrative, his so-calledtrutheven, because that was not the way it had happened. Taking a deep breath, Rachel sat down at the dining room table and opened her laptop, felt a rush of reassurance at the sight of its screen flickering to life. Work. She needed to work.
She’d been a financial analyst for Wakeman and Wallace since she’d graduated, inching slowly but surely up the corporate ladder. She loved what she did; she loved the needle-in-the-haystack hunting for a good investment opportunity amidst all the masses and masses of dross; she loved studying columns of figures, pages and pages of financial data and figuring out what it all meant. She loved when she found a good opportunity that nobody else had, but almost as much she loved waving a red flag at something that looked too good to be true, and usually was. She loved being good at something, at feeling productive and useful, at knowing what she did worked and was right.
It gave her focus, it gave her confidence, it gave her identity and purpose. If that was too much for a mere job to give a body, well, too bad. She needed it. Shecravedit. And as Rachel fired up her laptop and started checking her emails, she felt something settle inside herself, an anchor coming to rest on solid ground, bringing her back to shore.Thiswas what she did, who she was. For a couple of days, being back home, she’d felt shaken, and Danielle’s ready agreement to have her commute from the deepest reaches of North Yorkshire had made her start to doubt who she was, what she wanted, but no.
Right here, in front of her computer, crunching the numbers, was where she belonged. In that moment, Rachel thought she’d see her dad through to his MRI and be back home within a month. What on earth had she been thinking, coming up here for some undisclosed amount of time? That was crazy talk. Crazy thoughts.
She worked solidly for three hours, barely moving in her seat, as she answered emails, set up a conference call, analysed some fresh data for an investment opportunity a client was curious about. Her brain was buzzing and her shoulder blades ached—those knots were back—but she felt good, important and useful in a way she hadn’t been since she’d rocked up to Mathering a week ago. Thank goodness for the change.
A little after eleven Rachel stretched, closed her laptop, and then decided to venture to the kitchen for a much-needed cup of coffee. The house was quiet, making her wonder if Harriet had gone out, perhaps to deliver more baking, only for her to come to a surprised stop in the doorway of the kitchen. Her sister was sitting at the kitchen table, her head in her hands, a tissue screwed up in one fist.
“Hats—” The nickname came unthinkingly, but at the sound of her voice, Harriet jumped up as if she’d been electrocuted. The look she shot Rachel was one of both misery and fury, and she whirled away from her to hide her very clearly blotchy face.
“Harriet,” Rachel asked gently, “what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Harriet’s voice was muffled as she moved around the kitchen, tidying up needlessly and avoiding Rachel’s eye.
“Something,” Rachel argued, keeping her voice gentle. It had shocked her, to see Harriet in tears, or very nearly. She was so used to her sister’s anger, she hadn’t let herself think about what might be underneath that far easier emotion.
“Why do you care?” Harriet replied, and instead of the old hostility, her voice just sounded weary, which Rachel realised was far worse.
She took a step into the kitchen. “I do care,” she said quietly. “Even if I haven’t seemed as if I do. That’s why I am here.”
