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“Another time.”
After Ben had left, she sank into a chair at the kitchen table, feeling boneless with exhaustion. She needed a bath, which she should start now, because it took about half an hour to fill up their old, claw-footed tub. A cup of tea in a deep, hot bubble bath, she decided. That was just the ticket.
She went upstairs to fill the bath, and when she came downstairs, she saw Harriet had come in the back door to the kitchen and was dumping empty trays onto the counter.
“Harriet! I didn’t hear you come in.” She smiled a greeting, but her sister seemed focused on what she was doing. “How did the baking go? Ben said you were supplying scones to a tea shop in Pickering?”
“Yep.” Harriet didn’t look at her and Rachel let out a weary sigh. She was not in the mood for any surly theatrics, and she really didn’t have the energy to hash out what had been meant to be a simple phone conversation. She decided to grasp the nettle. “Look, I’m sorry about how I sounded on the phone yesterday. I didn’t mean to make it seem like you weren’t needed or wanted at the hospital. That certainly wasn’t the case.”
If she thought that speaking so plainly would help, she was to be disappointed. Harriet jerked her shoulders in a shrug and kept unpacking, without so much as a glance at Rachel.
“Harriet.Please.”
“What?” Her sister looked up, a spark of challenge in her eyes. “What do you want me to say, Rachel? Iknowyou didn’t mean it like that. That doesn’t mean it didn’t achieve the same purpose.”
She was too tired for word games. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Harriet let out a heavy sigh before shoving her hair back from her forehead with one hand. Baking in a hot kitchen had turned it into a frizzy halo. “I just mean, it’s always been you and Dad. Even when you haven’t been here.”
What?For a few seconds, Rachel could only stare. “What are you talking about?” she asked finally. “It hasn’t always been me and Dad, Harriet. I haven’t been back properly in years.”
“Did you listen to what I said?” Harriet returned wearily. “‘Even when you’re not here.’”
Rachel lowered herself into a chair at the table, shaking her head in instinctive denial of such a distortion of past reality. “That’s just not true.”
“You don’t even see it. You never did.” Harriet spoke without bitterness or recrimination, and somehow that made it worse. It forced Rachel to take what she was saying seriously, because it wasn’t an insult or accusation hurled in a moment of temper or hurt. It was simply stated as a matter of fact. All thesefacts, bombarding her, barraging her.
“Okay,” she said after a moment, although she was still reeling. “Why do you say that?”
“Because it’s true.”
“Explain what you mean, please.”
Harriet gave another heavy sigh before turning towards the Rayburn. “For this I’m going to need a cup of tea. Do you want one?”
Rachel thought of the bath running upstairs; she had another twenty minutes or so before it was filled, but she wasn’t sure how long this heart-to-heart was going to last. Harriet seemed in the mood to bare secrets, and Rachel knew well enough that short-changing this conversation in any way was not a good move. Even if she was tired and emotional, and she desperately needed to wash her hair. “Sure,” she said, doing her best to inject a note of enthusiasm into her voice. “Thank you.” She rose from her chair. “Let me just turn off the bath, and then we can talk.” She paused and added with deliberation, “Properly.”
Chapter Sixteen
By the timeRachel came back downstairs, the bath only a third of the way filled, Harriet had made a pot of tea and brought it to the table on a tray, with a couple of mugs, a jug of milk, a pot of sugar, and a few leftover scones. She’d clearly gone to some effort, and Rachel was touched. She was also filled with trepidation, because clearly this was going to be a Big Conversation, and she thought they’d already had several of those. What more did she have to discover, about the past she thought she’d known, because she’d always remembered it a certain way? Harriet seemed to have a different version of events, and one that had as much relevance to reality as Rachel’s did. Their experiences had differed in a way she’d never even realised, as had their perspectives.
“This looks lovely,” she said as she sat down. “Thank you, Harriet.”
Harriet let out a little laugh. “It’s not much. The scones were left over, anyway.” She began to pour the tea as she remarked mildly, “You don’t have to walk on eggshells around me, Rachel. I know I was a little frosty on the phone, but I get that you didn’t mean anything by it. I really do.”
“Okay.” Harriet, it seemed, had mellowed out since Rachel had come back home, just as she had, albeit in a different way.
“So, where to begin?” Harriet put milk and sugar in her tea and then stirred it slowly. “Maybe it’s easier if I give it to you in a nutshell. You’ve always been Dad’s favourite child, and while I’ve generally made peace with that, sometimes it stings. There.” She smiled as she took a sip of tea. “Maybe this conversation won’t be as long as you’re dreading.”
How, Rachel wondered, did her sister always seem to know what she was feeling? She wished she could say the same, but she wasn’t sure she could. “Dad’s favourite child?” she repeated, eyebrows raised. “How do you figure?”
Harriet shrugged. “In a million different small ways. He never came to my parents’ evenings when we were at school, for one.”
“He didn’t?” Rachel couldn’t hide her surprise. Her dad had come to most of hers. Not with much enthusiasm or interest, as far as she recalled, but he’dbeenthere. Mostly.
“No, he didn’t. Not a single one.” Harriet stared at her directly. “And, you know, I sort of got it, even as a kid. He had one parent conference in him, I think, and he chose yours.”
“He could have alternated,” Rachel replied quietly. She felt humbled, and unsettled, and also vaguely guilty, although she knew it wasn’t her fault. Was it? “How did I not notice that?”
