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“That’s so sad.”
“I know. A tear ran down Edith’s cheek as she told me that she missed him every day, from the moment her alarm clock woke her to the last minutes in bed when she’d turn to the side he used to sleep on and whisper goodnight. She talked about him throughout our next three dances. We remained friends. Edith and I still speak on the phone, and every time we do, she has an old story about her husband. Sometimes we laugh, and sometimes we cry, but every time she speaks, it’s like her love of him fills every word.”
Chris stared at her, his green eyes unmoving. His lips raised at one side in a tentative smile, but he didn’t speak. Lucie rubbed her hands to warm them. It was the first chill in her fingers since they’d arrived.
“The day I met Edith, I told her the thing you said on our last day together. I still get goosebumps now. ‘Life changes us, but nothing changes us more than falling in love. Our soul keeps the person safe in our hearts, and we carry their imprint for the rest of our lives. Unless they’re arseholes, and then they can bugger off.’ Edith found the last part particularly funny,” Lucie added with a smile.
Chris’s mouth opened, but he didn’t say anything. His eyebrows dived together, but he didn’t ask his question.
“Are you okay?” she asked, resting her hand on his arm. He flinched slightly. His features sunk in front of her. There were no dimples on his cheeks and no joy in his downturned mouth. His eyes had lost their sparkle. Lucie moved to removeher hand, but Chris reached for it and held it in his. Emptiness replaced the fluttering in her belly.
Chris gripped her hand tightly as he spoke with a shaky voice. “I have to know, Lucie. What happened on that Sunday? Did I do something wrong? Why didn’t we keep in touch?”
Chapter Twenty-Two – Eight Years Earlier, Sunday
Lucie sucked air into her mouth before yawning so wide that her cheeks hurt. It was another sleepless night spent tossing and turning in bed. Thank goodness she wasn’t sharing a room with anyone. Emma, who accepted most things Lucie did, would have jumped on her midway through the night at her relentless grumbles of frustration. One thought rumbled around her head, shrouding all others until it was all she considered. Would Chris be waiting for her on Sunday morning?
The question impacted her movements from the moment she got out of bed until she was ready to join her family downstairs. It was Chris she imagined as she attempted to put waves in her hair before she huffed and fisted the strands into a ponytail. It took half an hour of debating between outfits before she selected a pair of mid-thigh jean shorts that Emma lent her that revealed more skin than her routine long ones. Would her mum comment on her legs like before? She reached for the cotton dress that Jess had offered her and held it up against her body as she stared at her reflection in the full-length mirror. She didn’t have the same frame as Jess, and there was the problem with her legs too. Did Chris prefer women who wore dresses?
He wasn’t going to be there anyway. Why would he come back after she’d run away from him? She looked at the dress again with its thin shoulder straps and above-the-knee length. She gave it one more stroke before returning it to the bed. It was the first time in years she was tempted to wear a dress, but she wanted to be practical in case she headed into the forest on her bike. And she wanted to be herself even if he didn’t show up.
A balloon bounced across the floor and nearly tripped her up as she reached the bottom of the stairs. Eighteen years old. She almost forgot. She could do anything and be anything shewanted to be. She’d never considered that before. She didn’t have to be what her dad told her to be.
Lucie took a deep breath and let the realisation take hold. A smile touched her lips, and the tips of her fingers tingled. It was her birthday, and today she could draw and do whatever she wanted. The tingles stretched through her hands and up her arms. She’d create something beautiful.
“Those bags under your eyes are massive,” her dad muttered from the sofa. He sat wide-legged in the lounge area of the open-plan lodge. Was he trying to display dominance or stop people from sitting with him? It didn’t matter because he didn’t get to ruin her day. Jess’s parents, Steve and Jacky, sat on the other sofa, deep in conversation, until her dad dropped his insult. Did she catch an eye roll from Jacky? “You are getting old now. Thank goodness you don’t need to rely on your looks.”
He winked at Steve with a smug grin. Another comment aimed at crushing her confidence and making him the big man. But not today. Jacky rushed over and embraced Lucie, eclipsing the words her dad attempted to hurt her with. “Happy birthday, sweetheart,” she said before whispering in her ear, “And don’t listen to your dad. You’re a lovely and talented young woman.”
“Brains and beauty, you’ve got endless amounts of both. With your art skills, you’re a force to be reckoned with,” Steve bellowed, facing her but talking loud enough for her dad to hear. He offered her a box wrapped in pink foil wrapping paper with a shiny blue bow on top. It crinkled when she clasped it tightly between her hands. She smiled back at the couple. They were kind. Steve probably teased her dad too much, but Lucie understood why. If she could get away with it, she’d probably throw some digs his way as well. “It’s from Jacky and me. Something to help with your talent.”
“Thank you. That means a—” she whispered, but her dad cut her off.
“Art skills? There’s better drawings in primary schools.” He laughed loudly, but no one joined in. “Besides, she won’t have time to play around with her crayons because she’s going to be studying hard for years.”
Lucie used to make excuses for him and say that she could have a worse dad. But why was she letting him off? Just because he wasn’t hitting her didn’t mean he was a good dad. The family set him a low bar, and he barely reached it. It was time she recognised what he was like and treated him as such. He didn’t deserve to have two kind and talented daughters. They weren’t a testament to anything he did. His genes were a detriment rather than a blessing. His contribution to her life, and Emma’s, was to crush their confidence and, in her case, bring anxiety issues. At some point, he’d given away his opportunity to be loved and respected.
Lucie opened her mouth to share this with him. Heat filled her, and the shaking of her body was visible. She wasn’t his victim. A roaring filled her ears, and her tongue was on fire. It didn’t matter that it was her birthday morning, because some things needed to be said.
“Happy birthday to you,” her mum sang as she danced into the room from the downstairs bedroom. It quickly killed the tension. Every birthday, her mum would do a jig. The jig was haphazard, with no specific moves other than a shake of the bum and a bounce of her arms as she sang the happy birthday song.
The sound of a herd of elephants rumbled through the lodge as Emma and Jess ran down the stairs. They sang and giggled. Lucie’s anger disappeared and was replaced by laughter as Steve, Jacky, Emma, and Jess joined in with her mum’s jerky moves as they sang and shimmied around her.
There was a grunt from the direction of her dad as he rolled his eyes and stormed off. Was it because he hated the dance or because he wasn’t the centre of attention? It didn’t matter.Instead, Lucie joined in with the dancing and waved her hands in the air. It was how she wanted to start her eighteenth birthday, and her dad’s absence made it nearly perfect. But, of course, there was another person she wanted to sing happy birthday to her, but after yesterday, that dream was impossible.
*****
Lucie’s shoulders trembled as she popped the last piece of pancake in her mouth. Little children giggled over their breakfasts. Clown-faced helium balloons loomed from the tables and seemed to follow the waiters as they walked past before returning to bob for the families at their table.
“Those balloons are terrifying,” Emma whispered in her ear. “You okay?”
Lucie grimaced as she nodded back.
But it wasn’t the balloons that made her tremor or the screams from babies and their toddler siblings. It wasn’t even her dad’s persistent huffing and grumbling to remind everyone he was unhappy Lucie chose the noisy pancake house for her birthday breakfast and sour-faced from the fun in the lodge that morning.
Her nervousness was because it was nearly eleven o’clock. Was Chris waiting outside for her, or was she about to find out he was gone from her life forever?
Remembering what had happened when she’d bolted from Chris was a chink in the joy of the meal. Her embarrassment had dogged her throughout the morning. Everything reminded her of him, from the place where she’d hidden after her attack to the bowling alley where he’d helped her. The cookie cutter families who rocked their babies in time with each other while doom scrolling on their phones reminded her that she didn’t have Chris’s number anymore.
