Was objectivity possible here? Emotions ran high and there were two sides to this relationship—even a third side once I weighed in. Is objectivity ever possible? Could Margaret understand her sister? Could I, across eighty years, understand either of them? My head started spinning and I wondered what Mat would think about all this, what he might say, and what he would write. I took a sip of coffee to banish him from my mind. It was strong, hot, black, and just how I liked it.
Mom sat across from me. “Margaret told me she contracted scarlet fever at sixteen and folded in on herself. That’s how she phrased it. While penicillin had been discovered by then, it wasn’t in regular use until the ’40s. Scarlet fever was deadly and it almost got her.”
“Did she tell you their parents banished Caro to London? Probably to keep her safe, but neither saw it that way.”
“No . . .” Mom whispered the word long as she reached for a letter. “She viewed that summer as the beginning of her end. And when she got really honest about it, she said it was an end of her own making. She didn’t talk much about what Caro did or didn’t do.”
“How of her own making?”
Mom leaned on her elbows. She seemed more comfortable this morning, more willing, even eager to stay. “She mentioned Caro changed and that she couldn’t keep up, but she said it was because she got scared . . . grief, fear, guilt, pain . . . They can transform you in ways so fundamental you can’t recognize yourself.”
I sat straight. Something within me sparked at Mom’s words and I felt myself leaning forward.
She watched me for a moment. Her gaze seemed to reach for me and I realized how much I missed her. It was a hollow feeling in my chest that made my breath shudder as I inhaled.
“When something bad happens,” she continued, “it’s easy to blame someone else, and in some cases maybe it is their fault, but that doesn’t matter. Not in the end. What does matter is how long we hold on to that hurt or that anger. We can magnify the pain, making it worse and worse until it devours us, or we can forgive it and get on with life. Margaret felt she clutched at her pain and after”—Mom’s focus darted around the room—“my work and my time here, I would say I’ve done the same.”
In some cases maybe it is their fault. I swallowed. This was the closest we had come to the truth. Two options lay before me. Confront. Retreat. I chose the road most traveled. I sidestepped.
“Funny . . . I feel I relate better to Caro.”
“Do you?” Her question revealed surprise.
“She was sent away and never invited back in. What happened to her was a betrayal and she felt second, left out, and cut out. She couldn’t trust that they loved her.” I bit my lip and shrugged off a familiar tight ache. “Only Margaret. She still believed Margaret loved her. But she was out of reach.”
“And the fear Margo carried?” Mom reached toward me and, without thinking, I leaned back. It was so small and quick, I registered the action after I’d made it. These twins left me jangly and jumbled. Young. Insecure.
Mom wasn’t wrong. I understood my grandmother all too well.
She pulled her hand to her side. Without another word, she pushed off her stool and headed toward the stairs. “I’ll make us a little breakfast. Come down in about a half hour?”
I nodded and as she started down, I called after her, “When did you start to cook . . . again?” There was a yearning to my voice that embarrassed me. To counterbalance it, I had twisted my tone on “again” and it came out sharp. It felt like I’d asked, “When did you decide to become a mom again?” without the protection of sarcasm. I wondered what I’d do if she didn’t have the answer I wanted, or needed.
Her head tilted as she considered my question. “As I said, your grandmother and I were a lot alike . . . We started cooking together when I first arrived, before she grew weak. I think we had both missed that connection. There is a relational beauty to food, to cooking. Gifts I had forgotten, and I’m sorry for that.”
She smiled. The longing in her voice matched her soft smile, but she said nothing more.
I sat there staring at the top of the stairs as she descended, wishing our conversation had gone further, wishing I’d said more, asked more questions, been able to accept her touch . . . something. Anything.
But I hadn’t and, once again, I was sitting alone in an attic space.
Noon found me standing at the WHSmith bookstore outside Heathrow customs. I watched each bleary-eyed passenger exit the double doors. Mat’s plane had landed only twenty minutes before so I figured these were passengers from an earlier flight, yet I still scanned the faces.
There he was, red eyes staring right back at me, sporting an unexpected grin. “It’s crazy. They’ve got this whole customs thing down here. I barely paused.”
“Same when I arrived. I hadn’t thought about how fast it was.” I pointed to Nero Coffee a few shops to my right. “Do you want a coffee?”
“Yes. Otherwise I might finally sleep now that I want to be awake.”
I led the way with no more words. There was something different about him. Granted I’d only seen him once in six years for approximately forty-five minutes on Friday, but in that time, I thought I’d pegged him pretty well. Still tenacious. Intelligent. And hurt . . . Somehow that emotion struck me during our meeting. It had hung between us. It was gone now.
Last night, when I called Dad about Mat coming to London, he had ended our short talk with, “No matter what we’ve been through or how you feel I’ve failed, I asked you to stop and leave this be. I can’t do this, Caroline. Goodbye.”
His goodbye sent my heart to my throat again. It had struck me throughout the night and morning with unexpected force. There was a finality to that quietly spoken word that stunned me. There was no anger. Only bottomless disappointment—which was far worse.
I’d pushed it away during my reading, but with Mat standing next to me, Dad’s was the only voice I heard.
“You’re quiet.” Mat turned to me in line.
“My dad . . . He’s not happy you’re here.”
Mat raised his brows in question. They got momentarily lost in dark bangs that had been swept back at our meeting. He put his hand on my shoulder for the briefest touch before pulling it back in confusion or embarrassment. I couldn’t tell if he had surprised himself or thought he might offend me.
“I can only say this. No matter what we find, I won’t blindside you. There are real ripple effects for your family here.”
That brought a sputtery laugh. “Tsunamis.”
“Possibly.”
We ordered him a large dark roast and headed out to Mom’s black Peugeot.
I stepped back as he, with ease and familiarity, walked from the trunk to the left side of the car and dropped into the front seat before he recognized what he’d done.
He gripped the steering wheel. “This isn’t going to work.” He climbed out and circled the car. “You could’ve said something.”
“And missed that?” My first true smile in days broke free.
With that simple exchange, I somehow felt okay with him again. While I had brought him here to prove his article wrong, in that moment, it didn’t feel as if I needed to prove him wrong. Those were two very different things.